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.uk is just about keeping UK namespace growth positive

Discussion in 'Nominet General Information' started by Edwin, Jun 8, 2016.

  1. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Using Nominet's public stats, I took a look at the evolution of the number of domains in the UK namespace for the past couple of years.
    http://www.nominet.uk/news/reports-statistics/

    Although the number of second level domains has been dropping pretty consistently, the .uk registration growth has meant that overall the UK namespace has just scraped out growth, even if it's at a historically slow pace. Indeed, apart from a couple of quiet months, there has been tiny but steady growth in overall domain registration numbers just about every month.

    In the table below, the second figure is the total for second level registrations + .uk registrations.

    Jun-14 10,536,038
    Jul-14 10,523,464
    Aug-14 10,510,549
    Sep-14 10,510,330
    Oct-14 10,530,860
    Nov-14 10,547,438
    Dec-14 10,519,020
    Jan-15 10,532,829
    Feb-15 10,549,435
    Mar-15 10,586,358
    Apr-15 10,588,100
    May-15 10,571,442
    Jun-15 10,574,668
    Jul-15 10,597,846
    Aug-15 10,596,373
    Sep-15 10,596,348
    Oct-15 10,618,593
    Nov-15 10,641,572
    Dec-15 10,637,764
    Jan-16 10,660,818
    Feb-16 10,678,105
    Mar-16 10,711,103
    Apr-16 10,718,252
    May-16 10,700,029

    Of course, the price rise is still fresh - we'll need another 6-12 months of data at least to be able to tell with any degree of certainty whether it will make a difference...
     
  2. Domain Forum

    Acorn Domains Elite Member

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  3. Bailey United Kingdom

    Bailey Well-Known Member

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    About one domain for every 6 in the population. I wonder what the figure would be like if you took-out the 'Speculative' registrations
     
  4. Skinner

    Skinner Well-Known Member

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    I commented to the same effect a while ago when analysing my daily updates, your numbers are more precise and prove it, mine were almost anecdotal.
     
  5. foz

    foz Well-Known Member

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    So would it be far to say .co.uk is contracting? Do Nominet not release .uk and .co.uk numbers yet?
     
  6. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    You can find the breakdown by month at the link I posted in the first post (though it's only "third level" and "second level" so .uk vs .co.uk and .org.uk and .ltd.uk etc.)
     
  7. foz

    foz Well-Known Member

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    Thanks, overlooked. Cagey of them. :)
     
  8. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Pragmatic, I think. Last time we had data, I seem to remember that non-.co.uk was about 5% of the second level, so it would make the stats table pointlessly long to break every extension out individually. Anyway, now that the zone files have been released, I'm sure somebody can cook up an exact count if they want...
     
  9. GUI United Kingdom

    GUI Active Member

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    I've just extracted the following from my dataset as a quick guide for second and third level numbers;

    uk, 580,861
    co.uk, 9,430,941
    org.uk, 534,233
    me.uk, 95,611
    ltd.uk, 7,640
    net.uk, 412
    plc.uk, 292
    sch.uk, 35,322

    Second 580,861
    Third 10,104,451
    Total, 10,685,312

    This is from a snapshot as of Monday 6th June.
     
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  10. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Fantastic, thanks for going to the trouble to break out the data by extension!

    And for anyone who doesn't follow these things so closely, it's worth mentioning that .ac.uk and .gov.uk are not managed by Nominet so they don't show in the overall figures or in the zone files.
     
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  11. namealot United Kingdom

    namealot Well-Known Member

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    I wonder what those figures would be if a consideration was names/sites that made profits, or those that where actually useful :)
     
  12. foz

    foz Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for that.
     
  13. Mark84 United Kingdom

    Mark84 Retired Member

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    Plenty of tv ads using .uk now, one that doesn't even own the .co.uk

    Sixpad.uk was on tv this week during the footbal

    .uk is coming through
     
  14. foz

    foz Well-Known Member

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    Interesting. I own 8,000 .uk. Only sold one thus far :)
     
  15. Mark84 United Kingdom

    Mark84 Retired Member

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    I'll dig out other examples if I can remember them but certainly over the last month I'm starting to notice some larger organisations using them instead of going for .co.uk. I've not seen anyone switch though, these were all new sites.
     
  16. foz

    foz Well-Known Member

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    I think its new ones coming to market too. http://www.chinaexchange.uk/ comes to mind.
     
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  17. namealot United Kingdom

    namealot Well-Known Member

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    Does that mean since the uk cam onto the market you have only sold 1 co.uk also or buyers of co.uk from you weren’t interested in co,uk /uk as a package or you sold just the co.uk’s but kept uk.?
     
  18. invincible

    invincible Well-Known Member

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    It probably means he's registered a lot of second level .uk when they have become available FCFS after the matching .co.uk was deleted.