ben
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The .uk domains spotted in the wild thread
- Thread starter Lee
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I put the idiot lantern on this morning, for child entertainment purposes, and it looks like a 'u' had been left in the search box on Freeview.
One of the options was 'u' (U.co.uk), but the second option was TBNuk a Christian channel.
Sure enough, a search for TBN on Google reveals that their domain name is https://tbn.uk.
One of the options was 'u' (U.co.uk), but the second option was TBNuk a Christian channel.
Sure enough, a search for TBN on Google reveals that their domain name is https://tbn.uk.
I think everyone is going to have to accept at this point .uk has been an absolute failure - the fact this thread exists in 2024 pretty much proves that lol. And the nail in the coffin when you look in here and everyones really scraping the bottom of the barrel. A blinds shop in some little English town etc lol, come on nobody is using these things.
The only winner here is Nom with their extortion tax. I own a few .uk's just to stop anyone else having them.
The only winner here is Nom with their extortion tax. I own a few .uk's just to stop anyone else having them.
Lee
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100% agree with you.
I only started the thread here as someone else started it over on UKDNF.
The thing is why would any big company bother to switch from .co.uk to .uk to risk losing SEO and also the cost and time to do it.
Nominet did very little to promote the launch except to pay Stephen Fry to switch his domain and even he has gone back to .com! Oh and the big banner in a field somewhere that I can't remember the location of lol!
I know I wont be switching my sites that have been online for years!
As you say, Nom is the only winner and mugs like me have to spend £s extra a year renewing the matching .uk to my .co.uk domains!
Last of all, Joe public still don't get it. Give someone your@emailaddress.uk and they are sure to type your@emailaddress.co.uk
It's not just that - it's your website type ins too, they're all going elsewhere. If you own the .co.uk and have put a lander on it telling them you've moved, or you've redirected it, no problem.
It's like this one - she's been really badly advised here. Now all her emails are going into a black hole and her website visitors are looking at toothpaste wondering where the financial advisor went. When a single customer could be worth £1000's thats a bit of a foolish move.
He literally did that for a pay day though.
No one in their right mind would switch their domain if they felt they relied on the goodwill built up in their website... Unless there was money in it to do so.
So I agree, nobody would switch from .co.uk to another extension in most circumstances. .UK is a viable option for new sites on a budget though, but having the .co.uk is important if you're going to launch on .UK, in my opinion, not really the other way around. Therein lies the acid test - but I still believe that .UK is being used organically, which is rare for a new extension and a good thing.
Some may laugh at some random shop using it, but that is a good thing too.
How can you launch on the .uk on a budget if you still need to own the .co.uk?
I think this is the killer fact: ten years on, the Great British Public still expect British websites to end .co.uk.
There may come a tipping point if a major player such as the BBC switches, but given the costs involved, what is the incentive for them to do so?
It follows that anyone hoping to build a business on a .uk without owning and redirecting the equivalent .co.uk is going to lose traffic. The only question is how much traffic, and can they live with it?
But despite the less than stellar performance of direct.uk being common knowledge, I see the Australians did more or less the same thing just a couple of years ago. Madness.
I get what you're saying. I'm saying that if you're on a budget then .UK is a good option. But I still agree that having the .co.uk is important if you're serious and have a large budget. Not all people want or care about domains and just want to launch their thing cheaply, in which case .UK is an option.
ben
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In my opinion, having to own the .co.uk is such old world thinking. Just build a good brand, have good marketing, use good logic. If necessary down the line if you pull it off, buy out the .co.uk. But it makes no difference really. However, when I ran brightwork.uk, I had people emailing the company inbox all the time mistaking it for .co.uk, which is a recruitment firm. I'd get random CV's being sent to the catchall inbox asking about jobs etc. I emailed Brightwork.co.uk in the end and told them they could buyout .uk if they wanted. At that stage, they went and registered a trademark which I thought was petty and pointless, but had me laughing as they didn't respond to my friendly emails.
If Nominet wanted to open up a whole new batch of domain names why didn’t they just keep .uk and release new second level extensions as and when e.g. make .net.uk available to all. Would possibly earn them more money in the long run.
Just out of interest, why would you think it's petty when they already ran their business on the name? They will have had common law rights in the name if they already established themselves with that name, so they will have had legal protection already.
Or did they register their trademark under a classification that didn't cover their true intentions to trade?
There will never be a day when .co.uk wins this argument, but it is possible that there will be a day when .uk wins this argument. If .uk does get momentum, there won't ever be threads on "should we go back to .co.uk". That's why I will only launch new sites on .uk - eventually it will happen.
Fortunately 95% of mine are paired up, the 5% unpaired are all .uk's. I haven't bought a lone .co.uk for 5-6 years and won't do in the future either.
Would I switch a ranking .co.uk to .uk? No not yet, not until others move.
Fortunately 95% of mine are paired up, the 5% unpaired are all .uk's. I haven't bought a lone .co.uk for 5-6 years and won't do in the future either.
Would I switch a ranking .co.uk to .uk? No not yet, not until others move.
In most cases yes. But wouldn't you prefer to grow a business knowing the floor can't fall out one day? At worst things will stay low. Building on a .uk will only ever get better the bigger you grow. If you build it on a .co.uk and .uk does take over, you won't be able to do anything to save your brand. It would be like operating a .org.uk now.
You make the case that it doesn't really matter, but then demolish that case by recounting your own experience. If you, as the owner of the .uk, were getting email intended for the .co.uk, imagine how much of your email was going to them, and how much business that cost you.
Were you not concerned that this could be used as evidence against you in a DRS?
Nice name by the way. Positive, memorable, multi-purpose, radio test, etc. So what happened?
It's already won! I guess everyone was eagerly waiting on BBC or a major newspaper to swap over and start a landslide of others following suit. Its been a decade now...
over 10 years since .uk launched, there is no chance whatsoever its going to win now. Its on life support, time to pull the plug (but continue to pay the Nom tax so you don't end up in a Brightworks situation of someone piggybacking on your name)
But there are more active .uk websites this year than last, there was more last year than the year before. .uk is growing in popularity, every active business that uses it spreads the word.
I wouldn't say they have been available for 10 years, I think it's probably been 5 since they went on general sale. Lots of them were held by domainers for the first year or so after the 2019 general release. Then you had a few years of covid, fewer new businesses launching in those times.
In my opinion it was always going to be grass root businesses using .uk that would eventually lead to a big player moving, then the snowball would get going. At the moment I see more and more grassroot businesses using them. In my opinion, things are still on track.
They said that some registrars surveyed their customers and found most wanted a direct second level .uk. This was certainly true, people did say they wanted it when you asked them straight out. We did some cold calling and checked it for ourselves.
I don't think the decision to launch .uk was about the money, but I think the way they launched it was 100% about the money and the way they launched it was the third version, the previous two versions of the rights issue would have been horrific and made Nom even more cash.