‘New’ Nominet’s strategy for dot uk.

[DesD]

Nominet members have appeared well aligned recently and it is likely that members will soon realise that they can indeed have a say in leading the direction of the organisation.

What I would like to understand is whether there is a well thought out strategy for the promotion and development of dot uk?

Do members want businesses educated that moving to the shorter dot uk url might be a good move in the longer term, aligning us with the major European & World markets.

I’d love to understand where Sir Michael and Axel stand on this matter.

Should the PB campaign prevail in its entirety, would they invest, canvass the members or reject the promotion of dot uk in the near term?

Personally, I’d prefer to see energetic leadership in this type of question, as opposed to the current board’s wider non-core strategy.

 

[LCHappy]

The time for doing it has no passed. All you will do now is show people the rights that they can no longer exercise due to the publicising of .uk being poor. Now it has to be left to the free market. Nominet shouldn't be involved in it.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I think there's plenty of scope for .uk, in my mind it's a much better extension than .co.uk. It's shorter, sharper, blah blah. It's better. It looks the part. Whether people adopt it now remains to be seen. I have seen plenty of people using them out there in the wild, but when I speak to domain customers of mine a lot of them are really not that clued up on .uk or domains in general. These are the kinds of people who want .com domain names because it's "all they know". The new generation, the internet-savvy Gen-Z and "Generation Alpha" don't give a sh*t about .com because they know it's all about content these days.

I think it's probably too late to push a .uk promotion, but I don't think there needs to be one at all. I think it exists and that's enough. If people want it, they want it. If they don't, they don't. Pretty simple, really.

 

[DesD]

My point is, a lot of investors and businesses had invested in dot uk (whether knowingly or unknowingly) in the belief that it would become a notable extension - driven by Nominet. I would like to understand whether that push will now be forgotten as crooked policy or whether the organisation will drive awareness to promote the use of dot uk going forward.

if you’re an investor in it, it’s an important question, right?

 

[getmein]

My point is, a lot of investors and businesses had invested in dot uk (whether knowingly or unknowingly) in the belief that it would become a notable extension - driven by Nominet.

I'm not sure that I had the belief it would, but perhaps the belief it could. From what I remember at the time Nominet were pushing the .uk on the basis it would increase choice. I haven't seen much evidence of that.

Looking at the gtlds with the exception of .xyz which managed to drive some adoptation through promotions and .club which seems to have found a niche that makes some sense, it's seems that usage is driving awareness rather than registry promotion. The perfect storm of a few large UK businesses moving to .uk which then drove a flurry of activity in .uk hasn't happened yet - I'm not really sure even with a big .uk marketing budget Nominet could significantly influence that move.

As I reflect on it now, it would seem that the increase in income from the larger registry has driven investment in non-core functions and executive pay. Perhaps over time they'll reassess this and start driving down prices rather than simply freezing them. If the .uk was a cheaper choice for people buying their domain name that would probably drive some additional usage over .co.uk.

 

[cav]

It will be when the big players start using .uk instead of .co.uk, the likes of BBC and Amazon, then the public perception will begin to change. I don’t think those two even bother to redirect the .uk at the moment.

 

[xdnet]

I know when I was talking with Nominet around the time of .UK launching/promo there were certainly conversations around Nominet pushing .UK adoption by large brands - unfortunately it seems the corp brands like Amazon and BBC look at it and simply don't see the RoI for the HUGE cost to rebrand their domain for no obvious benefit beyond a little vanity of the shorter domain.

I don't expect we're going to see any change around how this is handled now. The only potential improvement I could see would be if Nominet decided to pair unregistered .UK domains to the .co.uk. So if both are available, when you buy you automatically get the other at no extra charge and if the .UK is not taken, it's re-reserved for the .co.uk owner permanently. But I don't see it happening now, too late, too complex and very little benefit to existing owners.

I think it would be better to focus on putting Nominet back on track and try and cut the waste so the price can come down, helping reduce the negative impact of now having to maintain (at least) 2 .UK domains to protect your brand online.

 

[martin-s]

And include it at no cost where you have both the .co.uk and .uk registered, I agree. Trying to rollback some of the problems created by .uk would go a decent way towards rebuilding trust.

 

[Siusaidh]

if Nominet decided to pair unregistered .UK domains to the .co.uk. So if both are available, when you buy you automatically get the other at no extra charge

And include it at no cost where you have both the .co.uk and .uk registered

That's what SHOULD have happened from the start. But the motive wasn't helping people, it was making extra profit for Nominet.

And I agree, Martin. Considering we're actually talking about strings of digits, if Nominet exists for the benefit of the UK public (and other users) rather than for itself, it would be fine, even now, to couple the .co.uk and .uk's whenever one is registered and both are available.

The launch of .uk was really frustrating for all companies, charities, and individuals who already had .co.uk because they were pretty much forced into a corner to buy, unless they wanted market/brand confusion. I think it was the wrong thing to do. They should indeed have been coupled automatically.

All that said, I am not against the .uk suffix itself because I think it's neat, short, and sometimes more relevant than adding the 'company' suffix to a name that is, for example, a charity.

But the .uk programme epitomises the way Nominet's mindset had not really been 'public interest' in the best interests of the namespace (seeing themselves as servants of others), but rather, trying to extract money from people for the benefit of Nominet.

 

[Sound]

It would be a good gesture if nominet agreed that owners of both co.uk and uk could pair them together and pay one fee.

When .UK was agreed there were lots of domainers on this forum who were very happy about getting a free .uk domain to sell along with the .co.uk with five years grace