.uk domains - will you move to one?

By : Administrator
Published 29th October 2014 |
Read latest comment - 2nd November 2014

Nominet, the UK Domain Registrar announced that new .uk domain became available from the 10th June 2014.

The idea is that this is a new short fill domain to use instead of .co.uk for any UK based businesses. 

Nominet actually reserved over 10 million of the new domain names, and if you have a .co.uk web address registered before the 10th June, then you will automatically have the rights to the .uk version until 10th June 2019.

At least it means no one can cyber squat your business name if you are trading under a .co.uk and you have plenty of time to think about it before registering the new domain.

I personally don't get it, what was wrong with .co.uk? Everyone recognises it and understands it, or doesn't it matter?

I can't see us moving over, but no doubt we will end up registering the .uk eventually just to protect it

If you want to see if there are any owner rights to a new .uk domain, you can check with the Rights Look Up Tool

Has anyone moved over to the new domain or have plans to move over? Have you spotted many .uk websites?


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn
Comments

Funny enough some of the .london domains have recently been up for auction, I'm a bit confused about it all though. I've just bid for the domain londonplumbers.london, mainly to prevent others from getting it and may or may not use it. My concern is, is that it conflicts with Google's exact match domain name, so its probably absolutely useless in trying to use as I'm guessing it would be penalised as soon as it was used. I'm not overly fussed as the bidding never went above £10 and that was with 16 in the auction. I wouldn't waste thousands on getting a website for it without knowing if it was likely to be penalised, have done that with the .co.uk version and still no one can give me a diffinitive answer as to what happened. All I get is well it could be this or it could be that, but it might be something else....


Thanks,
Barney

My concern is, is that it conflicts with Google's exact match domain name, so its probably absolutely useless in trying to use as I'm guessing it would be penalised as soon as it was used. ”
 

Officially anything after the dot isn't classed as a keyword. The domain extension (.co.uk .com .name .travel) is generic.

The official Google list of these is here: Generic Top Level Domains 

But the article is out of date and hasn't factored in the splurge of recent new domains. I can't see why Google would change it's practice so .london would be seen as a generic or regional top level domain, rather than a keyword.

But obviously Google has been known to do a few U turns over the last few years 


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

I think it's mainly because main domains are now taken, and it's the chance for other people to register meaningful domains with more creative TLDs.

Anyway, I think it would take some time for the public to get used to simple "uk" domains.


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I was looking to buy, seo.uk , marketing.uk all of them but then I found out that you can't register them until 2017 and if the sub domain people haven't already registered them, so I don't see why their was so much fuss over the .uk domain names as 99% of good ones can't be registered until 2017!!! 

This annoyed me so much when I first found out, would have paid a few grand to get seo.uk or marketing.uk but they are just going to get sold to the owners of seo.co.uk and marketing.co.uk for £99.... Which is annoying!

Sorry for the rant but give the little guy a chance!


Tom Buckland
SEO Consultant

Sorry for the rant but give the little guy a chance!”
 

With automatic rights going to .co.uk owners it does make you wonder what is the point of the .uk as most decent names are already taken, so adding a new domain extension doesn't actually free up any more names? At least for the next couple of years.


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

With automatic rights going to .co.uk owners it does make you wonder what is the point of the .uk as most decent names are already taken, so adding a new domain extension doesn't actually free up any more names? At least for the next couple of years.
 

Exactly, I was talking to a web designer friend who was ranting about all the new extensions saying they now have .painter .baker .rocks and all he wanted was .design and still nothing!!!! 

I'm going to be gunning for some .wales domain names think they go live on the 3rd but trying to pre order or get a new TLD is some sort of puzzle in Chinese..... What is this meant to mean? 

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Source: ourhomeonline.wales


Tom Buckland
SEO Consultant

We bid (and got) a .scot domain, but applied as a priority before the landrush so had to shell out to pre-order one. Looks like you can do the same for the welsh ones.

The idea is companies have a chance to bag one before they go on sale for general availability if they meet set criteria, ie domain is similar to one they use, or they are based in the country/region in question. 

General availability is just everything that is left and is a free for all. Our .scot cost £250, but we could have had it for a tenner if we'd waited, but it was a name we needed, so put had to cough up


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

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