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The .UK revolution

Discussion in 'General Board' started by Breakline, Jul 10, 2019.

  1. martin-s United Kingdom

    martin-s Well-Known Member

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    I wonder if investment in BOTH .uk and .co.uk will tail off, just because of yet more uncertainty?
     
  2. Domain Forum

    Acorn Domains Elite Member

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    IWA Meetup
     
  3. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    Perhaps in the future but at the moment, a lot of .uk sites are redirecting to .co.uk sites. It will take a few years of acceptance before there is a major change.

    Regards...jmcc
     
  4. newguy United Kingdom

    newguy Well-Known Member

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    That's true, but I think it was a matter of reserving them and waiting things out. Where I do agree is that it will take some more big names moving to .uk to set that as a meaningful trend.

    Though of course, trend or no trend, setting up a site on .uk in its own right can be successful.
     
  5. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    Latest on that .UK survey.

    No site/No response: 31.34%
    Active: 3.02%
    In page redirect: 0.28%
    Not found etc: 10.91%
    Holding pages: 30.49%
    PPC: 7.84%
    Redirects: 12.75%
    Sales: 1.76%
    HTTPS redirect: 1.54%
    Unavailable: 0.09%

    The websites are still being categorised so some of these percentages will change.

    Regards...jmcc
     
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  6. RobM

    RobM Retired Member

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    Well if people bought uks for development it can take months for a finished site to roll out. I'd revisit at the end of the year and see how it's going.
     
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  7. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    A lot of wait and see registrations are are dropped around the third renewal when registrants have to make the hold'em or fold'em decision. If a TLD does not show signs of development then, it generally means that it is going to find it hard to gain new registrations. The worst thing that can happen to the .UK subdomain is that it becomes another .EU ccTLD where people go before being redirected to the relevant ccTLD or .COM website.

    It would be important for anyone setting up a site on a .UK to also have the equivalent .co.uk domain name. Otherwise they will lose traffic to the .co.uk site.

    Regards...jmcc
     
  8. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    This is just a "signs of life" survey of all 01 July 2019 .UK domain names. Websites have a development curve from when their domain names first appear in a zone. Some launch with a working website but others do take months before there's any sign of development.

    Regards...jmcc
     
  9. newguy United Kingdom

    newguy Well-Known Member

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    The opportunity to purchase a .uk instead of a .co.uk that would possibly never be available (or may be too expensive), may to a relevant factor in how important it is. It depends how .uk is eventually perceived. We may argue down the line that it was important for .co.uk owners to own the .uk of their domain, even though a great many failed to do so.

    It's all guesswork of course, with no firm answers, so i'm just throwing an opinion out there :)
     
  10. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    There's a switching cost involved. It can be expensive for a business that has branded with a .co.uk to switch to the .UK. On the web, it is simply a redirect but there's the problem of business cards, letterheads and signage that would have to be changed. It used to be argued that it was important for registrants to own the ccTLD and the .COM versions of their domain names. However, what happens when a ccTLD becomes dominant its market is that the number of unique domain names (they only exist in that ccTLD and not the gTLDs) rises.

    Hopefully the .UK will take off. Even though it has been around for about five years, this is really its land rush phase and nothing is certain in this period because it could become a massive success. It has about 3.6 million registrations at the moment and that's quite a good start.

    Regards...jmcc
     
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  11. newguy United Kingdom

    newguy Well-Known Member

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    Yes, there are lots of unknowns. I would guess in a year to 18 months we should have a good feel of where we're headed with .uk!
     
  12. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    It would be best to plan for at least a three year hold on domain names. Normally, it can take five years before a new TLD stabilises in terms of development and registration patterns but the third year is where a lot of the highly speculative registrations have been cleaned out. There will be a Junk Dump around this time next year of domain names that couldn't be sold or developed. It always happens. But there are ongoing deletions as the .UK has been around since 2014. I'd have to do a few queries on the databases to see which ones were deleting but some of the domain names in the 01 July zone were on deletion/renewal nameservers.

    Regards...jmcc
     
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  13. Jiblob

    Jiblob Active Member

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    I'd really like to put some useful information onto switchedto.uk for people that are starting new companies/websites to convince them that .UK is the way to go. At the moment this is all I've got:

    "We believe that .CO.UK has had it’s day - we’ve now got a more concise and shorter alternative and that’s .UK!"

    Whilst everyone may not agree, I stand by that statement, I really do think that .UK is better than .CO.UK and should be switched to in the future. Most companies were on the ball enough to register their .UK and I think that .CO.UK is old hat, so if you can persuade new companies to use .UK to make it fashionable, then I reckon it's a worthy cause to get others to move to it. Even if it's just to make it so that we don't all have to hold onto and pay for two domains forever... .CO.UK needs to become the new .ORG.UK and die.

    Can anyone think of anything else that I can put on there that would persuade new companies/websites to choose .UK instead of .CO.UK? I'm looking for things that people will be considering and that they may find important when they're launching a UK website. Maybe drawing some comparisons to .CO.UK might be useful... eg .UK is just as good as .CO.UK from an SEO perspective (I have no proof for that at this point, but if you do, please let me know!)?

    I need some inspiration and you lot seem like the right people to ask.
     
  14. Alien

    Alien Well-Known Member

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  15. newguy United Kingdom

    newguy Well-Known Member

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    Regardless of a view on .uk , some sites will be switching to it. As a matter of interest I can see why a site detailing sites that have switched could be useful.
     
  16. Jiblob

    Jiblob Active Member

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    I would agree if there was much in it for me, but there really isn't a lot. I own more .CO.UK names than .UK. The site is intended to be a completely honest, informative resource and I have asked these questions in good faith. I don't want to put some bs on there that isn't true - hence consulting the community.

    My honest belief is:

    a) We shouldn't all have to pay twice to Nominet for domains just because one is popular now and the other one is better but no one uses them yet.
    b) .UK really looks better, cleaner, less confusing

    ...and it's perfectly OK to say that and endorse it.

    What I don't want to do is to endorse something that isn't true. It needs to be factually correct and useful as a means to say ".UK is OK, you know?"

    I hope that's OK!
     
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  17. Alien

    Alien Well-Known Member

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    It's your site - you are entitled to say what you like. :)
     
  18. Jiblob

    Jiblob Active Member

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    Thank you for the informative posts, maybe something that's not paid for by Nominet in there lol

    Thank you :D.

    @Trauiner I welcome the criticism and respect the vehement skepticism.

    Thanks for the comments.
     
  19. jmcc Ireland

    jmcc Active Member

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    Too many words. It is also saying that if the visitor has a .CO.UK domain, then their domain name is out of date. That would immediately put some people on the defensive.

    It might be better to use a simple question as a hook. "Where are you?"

    It gets the visitor thinking and then, mention the .UK. You are selling the benefits of the .UK rather than disadvantages of the .CO.UK.

    With a website, there's only a few seconds to make an impression on the user. A question is one of the best ways of doing it.

    Regards...jmcc
     
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  20. domainscot United Kingdom

    domainscot Active Member

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    Yep thew BBC is doing the correct thing by moving over to .com.
    The carry on with .co.uk and .UK basically killed the name space and downgraded the brand. The confusion this is going to create over the years will be worse that companys will move over to .com to protect there business.

    Basically the .UK should have been handed over to all .co.uk owners for free. But greed played a big part in this thats why dont rate the .co.uk name space any longer. Dont get me wrong still have a few .co.uk domains and did register some .UK. Do think when the disputes start happening when .UK gos after a .Co.UK and wind the domain. Thats when the real issues will be start to fold. Just think you registered the .co.uk for last 20 years and then someother person buys the .UK then says I have trademark on that name can you hand over the .Co.uk or else we due.

    Fun Fun Fun.

    Thats when negligence starts to happen who to blame for this.
     
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  21. newguy United Kingdom

    newguy Well-Known Member

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    I do agree that it's become complicated. In many cases a different company owns the .co.uk than the .com , so for companies that didn't register .uk and find that they may need or want it, they may find themselves in a tough spot. And as you say, if a site becomes established at .uk, that could also pose problems for a .co.uk owner that didn't previously exist