Popular websites that have switched to .uk

[Jamie101]

Looks like the few people/companies that actually got a .uk are just redirecting to the co.uk.

I know it's too early now to say it for definite, but this looks like a flop.

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[bulkcorn]

Looks like the few people/companies that actually got a .uk are just redirecting to the co.uk.

I know it's too early now to say it for definite, but this looks like a flop.

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It's too early. It's only just gone 12 hours since the launch! :lol: It will take time. I'd give it a year.

 

[invincible]

Looks like the few people/companies that actually got a .uk are just redirecting to the co.uk.

Noticed quite a few .mx domain names redirecting to .com.mx domain names.

I know it's too early now to say it for definite, but this looks like a flop.

It's much too early to judge that.

 

[bulkcorn]

Obviously one wouldn't actually drop the .com from registration. It would remain registered. However .uk is shorter than .com and for .com web sites that predominantly target UK customers, and taking into account the trust element that end users reportedly have for .co.uk, perhaps some businesses will make the switch and begin promoting .uk 2LD's (particularly when they are the registrant of the matching .co.uk) rather than their .com.

Yes, boss! :lol: :lol: I was only pulling your leg as to why!

 

[Edwin]

http://www.fasthosts.uk/ (Alexa UK rank #310)

They're using both that and the .co.uk to serve up the same site rather than redirecting - I presume they will plump for one or the other soon to avoid duplicate content penalties.

 

[diablo]

I know it's too early now to say it for definite, but this looks like a flop.

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Far too early to talk about it being a flop.

Ten million .uk domain names are reserved for people and Nominet aren't contacting them until next month. Then they have five years to exercise the option.

 

[Edwin]

All the following sites (within Alexa's top 500 UK sites) have registered the UK. None have (yet) switched to using it exclusively.

FastHosts.uk
HeartInternet.uk
Sainsburys.uk
Just-Eat.uk
Maplin.uk
O2.uk
Orange.uk
Santander.uk
TripAdvisor.uk
TopCashback.uk
Zoopla.uk

That's 11 out of the 102 sites that are within the list I have of Alexa top sites. However, the Whois is taking a while to update, so there may be more .uk registered than that...

 

[Edwin]

I know it's too early now to say it for definite, but this looks like a flop.

You're talking about a 5-year-long party being declared a flop because only a relatively few guests arrived in the first 12 hours? That's remarkably pessimistic.

 

[PaulGregory]

coop.uk and co-op.uk reg'd today but not wired up. The Co-operative are not averse to unusual domains, running with co-operative.coop. Interestingly uk.coop is someone else.

Also co-operativefood.uk but not co-operativebank as yet (different registrars I note)

For my money, the point at which this changes from "possible flop" to "definite success" would be when BBC, Google and Amazon switch. As yet they've not even exercised their right (and I can't believe the WHOIS is *that* slow or that they'd register so late in the day).

To my mind, if you're not registering on Day 1, you're waiting to see how things pan out. And the more big names that are holding out, the more doubt there is.

It needs more popular websites to switch *soon* for this to be the party to be seen at. Not slowly over the next 5 years.

 

[invincible]

Would be good to make a list of popular sites and top brands, and run a constant dig of their potential .uk domain name @ns1.nic.uk with an alert when any of them register. This wouldn't work if they registered didn't assign name servers because without name servers assigned the new .uk domain name would not be added to the .uk zone file.

 

[Edwin]

I very much doubt that Amazon, Google, the BBC etc. necessarily have a dedicated employee who just "does the domain names". It's more likely the tech team in question is going to have to have internal meetings and a chat about "strategy" because it's more than just a registration - that's the super-duper-easy bit that they have 5 whole years to take care of - but they also have to decide what to DO with the domain since you can bet names that important are going to get residual traffic day 1. So do they redirect? Keep it blank? Move (a major, major decision that will cost them millions in rebranding - that's not to suggest they won't do so, but it's not going to be an overnight thing) Put up a mini site? An explanatory site? Something else?

 

[invincible]

I'd love to wild card the c.uk as wonder if it gets lots of typos from mistyped co.uk.


(from iPhone)

 

[scooter]

Surely there is more to change than just swapping sites round so co.uk now points to .uk?

301's on a page by page basis?

I think it will be a huge success but will take a while for transition.

I wonder when we will see the first tv advert?



.

 

[Edwin]

Surely there is more to change than just swapping sites round so co.uk now points to .uk?

301's on a page by page basis?

I think it will be a huge success but will take a while for transition.

I wonder when we will see the first tv advert?



.

Oh, definitely. Anyone who knows what they're doing with a website more than a few pages in size will have to proceed very carefully, step by step, when they're working through the transition. Especially if they want to do the least SEO damage possible (all domain moves invariably involve a ranking "hit" but this can be minimised and shortened by doing everything just so)

It's fun to search Twitter for ".uk domain" and see all the people happily telling the world that they've now switched URLs. There's a new tweet every minute or so against that query.

 

[scooter]

I bet at lot lose their advantage in a competitive niche as they do a simple swap and then watch a competitor doing nothing and suddenly ranking higher.



.

 

[Murray]

Surely there is more to change than just swapping sites round so co.uk now points to .uk?

301's on a page by page basis?

You don't need to do it page by page if it's the same site just moved to a different domain

Pretty simple 301 redirect and change the internal links + maybe some other little bits and bobs, if all your page titles end "-domain.co.uk" for example.

So for the average small site it probably wont be too painful to do

But I could imagine quite a lot of people hurting their rankings by moving without researching or hiring someone to do it for them properly.

I can also imagine people letting their co.uk drop eventually and losing a majority of their links

 

[PaulGregory]

I very much doubt that Amazon, Google, the BBC etc. necessarily have a dedicated employee who just "does the domain names". It's more likely the tech team in question is going to have to have internal meetings and a chat about "strategy" because it's more than just a registration...

I don't expect any of them to have a dedicated domains employee! A good sign of a company having had a strategy meeting that ended up with "Yes we'll move at some point" would be that they would have requested the domain to be registered on day 1, and for that to have ended up on *someone's* calendar/to-do list. If they haven't reg'd on day 1, they either have not had that initial strategy meeting or the decision was "lets see what everyone else does".

I think a lot of companies won't have a single .uk strategy meeting until people start seeing amazon.uk, google.uk, bbc.uk - but then when all three do, every company will be having one. It's the tipping point.

 

[diablo]

I wonder when we will see the first tv advert?

That will be an important landmark.

 

[PanzerWagon]

You don't need to do it page by page if it's the same site just moved to a different domain

If you're migrating any site to a new domain extension you should redirect on a page by page basis. Otherwise you're going to suffer huge ranking losses.

 

[Edwin]

I don't expect any of them to have a dedicated domains employee! A good sign of a company having had a strategy meeting that ended up with "Yes we'll move at some point" would be that they would have requested the domain to be registered on day 1, and for that to have ended up on *someone's* calendar/to-do list. If they haven't reg'd on day 1, they either have not had that initial strategy meeting or the decision was "lets see what everyone else does".

Why? 5 years is a massively long time in corporate terms - think how many committee meetings that allows for

Just because a company hasn't acted within 24 hours gives absolutely no clue whatsoever about their intent in the coming days, weeks, months and years.