An analysis of the first year of .uk registrations

[Edwin]

With the anniversary of .uk's launch coming up next week, I thought it was high time to analyse registration patterns and trends in detail.

To that end, I have prepared a comprehensive report (using Alexa data, and Nominet registration stats) which you can download from here:
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/happybirthday_uk.pdf

(I apologise in advance for the number of tables filled with numbers - but they all have a purpose!)

A few take-aways:

• Only 14.6% of eligible .co.uk registrants (in Alexa's 1,000,000 largest sites) have registered the corresponding .uk
• Growth of .uk has bottomed out at around 20,000 new registrations per month (whole market) and just 0.25%/month take-up (largest sites)
• On current trends, there will only be 1,300,000 .uk registrations at the end of 5 years
• Only 1 in 3 existing .co.uk registrants (largest sites) will register the .uk during the 5 year reservation window

Of course, I can't take into account the "known unknowns" such as the effect of Nominet's upcoming £1 price promotion, or the potential for a late flurry of interest as the 5-year deadline to register the matching .uk approaches.

 

[anthony]

Maybe they can see the criticism coming 4 years down the line over .uk, the £1 deal is looking like a desperate measure at the moment!

Maybe direct contact next, you watch!

 

[Edwin]

Maybe they can see the criticism coming 4 years down the line over .uk, the £1 deal is looking like a desperate measure at the moment!

Maybe direct contact next, you watch!

Well, anything they do will be better than sitting on their hands, which has pretty much been their approach for the first year of .uk's existence.

Especially since, as I wrote in the introduction to my report: "It should be noted that the introduction of .uk was not without controversy, though this has been extremely well documented elsewhere. Since the .uk extension exists and is live in the market, nothing would be served at this juncture by rehashing the underlying arguments against .uk. In other words, .uk needs to be treated as a 'fait accompli' in order for there to be any chance of the market progressing."

That said, their recent homepage update isn't very promising - but we'll see what they do once the £1 promotion kicks into gear.

 

[martin-s]

Noticed a .uk site advertising on the Tube this week: www.zoek.uk

Couldn't help but think "what a useless brand," particularly when the .co.uk is owned by someone else.

 

[Edwin]

FYI, it's not a significant change, but I've added 1 more table of stats to the ".uk registrations by Alexa rank" section of the report so as to present evenly spread data. So if you've downloaded the report already, you'll need to download it again to get the extra table.

 

[Edwin]

Noticed a .uk site advertising on the Tube this week: www.zoek.uk

Couldn't help but think "what a useless brand," particularly when the .co.uk is owned by someone else.

Interesting. "Zoek" means "search" in Dutch, so maybe one of the founders was from the Netherlands.

 

[Systreg]

At Martin, although the .uk goes to the Zoek site, the Who-Is shows that it's Zoek who own the .co.uk, someone else owns the .uk that shows their site for whatever reason

Their Dutch site zoek.nl has been around since 1996

 

[UncleBob]

At Martin, although the .uk goes to the Zoek site, the Who-Is shows that it's Zoek who own the .co.uk, someone else owns the .uk that shows their site for whatever reason

Their Dutch site zoek.nl has been around since 1996

i could be mistaken, but wasn't there something about .uk domains being able only to be registered by people with a UK address, unlike with .co.uk?

 

[Edwin]

i could be mistaken, but wasn't there something about .uk domains being able only to be registered by people with a UK address, unlike with .co.uk?

No. You only need a UK "address for service". It's an extra hurdle for overseas registrants, but they are not forbidden from registering .uk domains.

See the first FAQ answer on this page: http://www.dotuklaunch.uk/faq/how-will-it-work

 

[martin-s]

Thanks guys - that makes more sense

 

[Edwin]

Worth noting that Nominet's email campaign to existing domain registrants took place from 15 September 2014 to 7 November 2014.

There is a small but definite spike of registrations around that time, so there are hints that it had at least a token effect on boosting .uk take-up (Nominet's monthly figures showed that October 2014 - i.e. the peak month for their email campaign - was the busiest for .uk registrations since July 2014, and has not been surpassed since)

This "registration spike" can be seen in the Alexa and Nominet "registrations over time" tables in my report, linked in the first post of this thread.