The .UK revolution

[3gmedia]

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

The .co.uk owners have had 5 years to register the .uk with nominet emails as well.

I would say that's a strong and valid argument if ever you go to DRS

Maybe somebody on here with legal knowledge could enlighten me.

 

[newguy]

The .co.uk owners have had 5 years to register the .uk with nominet emails as well.

I would say that's a strong and valid argument if ever you go to DRS

Maybe somebody on here with legal knowledge could enlighten me.

That's a good point. Also, most of the domains that people have their eye on currently are very generic in nature, and so I wouldn't think there will be many issues there. The place name that seems being mentioned with regard to 'passing off' has nothing to worry about in my view for instance.

 

[Nigel]

Can you imagine the furore if a Nominet DRS expert handed over a .uk domain containing a commonly used word or geographical term to the .co.uk owner, for no other reason except that the .co.uk owner had an existing site up and running. I can't see it happening - DRS decisions seem to be fairly consistent these days - and it is nominet, after all, who opened up the .uk extension for the sole reason that .uk domains be registered even if the .co.uk is owned and used by someone else.

 

[diablo]

Can you imagine the furore if a Nominet DRS expert handed over a .uk domain containing a commonly used word or geographical term to the .co.uk owner, for no other reason except that the .co.uk owner had an existing site up and running. I can't see it happening - DRS decisions seem to be fairly consistent these days - and it is nominet, after all, who opened up the .uk extension for the sole reason that .uk domains be registered even if the .co.uk is owned and used by someone else.

Agreed.

Until very recently, the RoR gave the impression that the .co.uk and .uk were somehow linked and this was reinforced by those insisting both had to be sold together, etc.,

It is clear now that .co.uk and .uk are as distinct as .co.uk and .me.uk and that's how they will be treated at DRS. Any right the .co.uk registrant had expired when they did not exercise RoR.

 

[Reddy]

One of the criteria for a DRS to be successful is it must be shown to be an abusive registration.

One factor which Nominet lists to show the registration is not abusive is:

- The domain name is generic or descriptive and is being used fairly.

 

[jmcc]

The .UK as it was in the survey of 01 July 2019 .UK domain names (2,105,158)

Content: 2.02%
No content: 42.45%
Templated content: 10.52% (PPC, sales, affiliates)
Redirects: 13.68%
No Site Response: 31.32%

There are 23 different categories of usage in this survey so I've simplified it a bit.

Other interesting data:
HTTPS redirects: 1.54%
Sales: 2.23%
Matched domain name redirects:

Top ten matched TLD redirects (redirects to sites with the same domain name stub in other TLDs): 8.89%

.co.uk 167,249
.com 12,869
.org.uk 3,977
.org 546
.net 505
.eu 382
.me.uk 320
.de 277
.co 207
.nl 176

Still working on some parsers and code.

Regards...jmcc

 

[cloud]

I honestly believe that there are plenty of .UK sites to be discovered that I can't discover through Google alone. I found https://dg.uk today. A real company, a fantastic domain looking great on a .UK.

I've updated the list on https://switchedto.uk with the latest sales and some more .UK switchers.

 

[jmcc]

I honestly believe that there are plenty of .UK sites to be discovered that I can't discover through Google alone. I found https://dg.uk today. A real company, a fantastic domain looking great on a .UK.

Google is flawed when it comes to generally detecting new websites. This is because it primarily relies upon following links to detect new sites. With the propaganda about "bad" links and SEO, new sites don't have many inbound links. Google murdered many of the web directories and these would have been, after links from friends and family owned sites, the first major links that many sites would have gained. Many ccTLDs no longer publish their zonefiles or new registrations. That makes things more difficult for search engines to detect new sites.

Regards...jmcc

 

[jmcc]

I think you're pulling at straws with some of the domains. It seem like you're struggling to find any decent sized companies that have made the switch?

Doing it manually is almost impossible as it depends on search engines to detect these sites first. It is possible to automate the process but it involves checking at least the entire .UK ccTLD's non-.UK domain names and websites. That's approximately 9.5 million or so domain names.

Regards...jmcc

 

[jmcc]

I agree but you wouldn't need scan 9.5 million domains. You only want to focus on 'big' or 'meaningful' companies that are changing though.

It would be easier to check all of them and see which of them are forwarding to a .UK. The other aspect of surveying the remaining 9.3M or so is that it would provide some insights on the state of the .UK ccTLD and how domain names are being used. Most domain names in a ccTLD will be unused or on holding/PPC/sales. These can be excluded easily. Checking which sites redirect is part of the process. Ther number of actively developed .UK sites is still quite low as it is still relatively new. Detecting sites that are redirecting to a .UK is a bit different to detecting new .UK websites. Using a tool to detect the top 20K UK sites limits the view to those sites. The top sites rarely change that quickly because many of them have invested in SEO. The ones that do change are often small business and personal sites. These are the ones to watch with a new TLD launch. They decide whether it is a success or a failure.

Regards...jmcc

 

[super-whois]

Just use a tool to find the top 20,000 UK websites or something and check those for any changes.

Just check what's in the various top domain files, there will be some incorrect data, but the domains are more mainstream.

Using some old files:

$ grep '^[^\.]*.uk$' alexa-top-1m.csv | head
2937,unblockpirate.uk
7706,eplsite.uk
11094,soccerlive.uk
14343,bl.uk
19619,parliament.uk
22375,kidsflix.uk
30800,mod.uk
32204,steamid.uk
34419,totalsportek.uk
42298,hsbc.uk

$ grep '^[^\.]*.uk,' majestic_million.csv | head
21921,608,friendsoftheearth.uk,uk,4144,5507,friendsoftheearth.uk,uk,22103,613,4135,5487
24331,678,easily.uk,uk,3870,5120,easily.uk,uk,24427,681,3869,5125
35358,1085,gov.uk,uk,3095,3961,gov.uk,uk,36581,1123,3043,3881
51561,1521,osws.uk,uk,2519,3270,osws.uk,uk,50556,1501,2547,3299
58746,1691,fashionunited.uk,uk,2355,2984,fashionunited.uk,uk,54008,1584,2462,3111
71303,1982,cancelme.uk,uk,2146,2743,cancelme.uk,uk,71089,1989,2150,2733
74125,2061,awanshost.uk,uk,2111,2576,awanshost.uk,uk,73793,2058,2116,2573
89270,2430,dbang.uk,uk,1932,2536,dbang.uk,uk,90175,2468,1923,2529
93954,2549,foreversun.uk,uk,1886,2208,foreversun.uk,uk,93773,2541,1887,2208
95022,2568,gglink.uk,uk,1876,2258,gglink.uk,uk,94975,2572,1876,2259


$ grep '^[^\.]*.uk"' top10milliondomains.csv | head
"127","gov.uk","8.13"
"935","nhs.uk","7.43"
"1175","parliament.uk","7.33"
"1231","bl.uk","7.31"
"9948","mod.uk","6.81"
"12623","royal.uk","6.74"
"17632","transitcenter.uk","6.67"
"20293","mssoc.uk","6.67"
"20294","warminstertownfc.uk","6.67"
"36443","ticketweb.uk","6.53"

$ cat umbrella-top-1m.csv | grep '^[^\.]*\.uk.$' | head
52218,jpimedia.uk
69114,royal.uk
92053,zpbt.uk
102172,netweaver.uk
105952,bl.uk
107826,mod.uk
108874,yummly.uk
111204,abaresearch.uk
115530,parliament.uk
116583,nic.uk

Yes, some of these never switched to .uk, as they've always been using .uk, so should be excluded.

 

[jmcc]

So it looks like two possible questions. The first is which UK websites have switched to .UK as their primary site. The second is which sites are redirecting to a .UK site.

The first is going to be very tricky to answer without a baseline survey. The second could be answered with a full survey of the remaining non .UK websites. The 01 July 2019 zone had 9,243,800 non .UK domain names (if I'm reading this right on zero mugs of coffee). Of these, approximately 8,084,856 had websites. This figure will drop as the DNS responses for each of the websites are checked. Some can be immediately excluded from the survey due to the host being a parking host or the IP address being invalid. The process generates a set of candidate sites for surveying. This survey would provide a baseline to check which domain names subsequently switch to .UK as their primary site but it would require other surveys to track the changes.

Regards...jmcc

 

[super-whois]

Over the last fortnight, .uk registrations have increased by an average of 751 per day, whilst .co.uk has decreased by an average of 1632 per day. If the trend continues, then the number of .uk registrations will overtake .co.uk in around 6 years. I suspect the trend will accelerate, and .co.uk will be history before then.

 

[Murray]

Over the last fortnight, .uk registrations have increased by an average of 751 per day, whilst .co.uk has decreased by an average of 1632 per day.

I expect it's people just hoovering up any .uks of interest, probably wont last but we shall see

 

[jmcc]

Over the last fortnight, .uk registrations have increased by an average of 751 per day, whilst .co.uk has decreased by an average of 1632 per day. If the trend continues, then the number of .uk registrations will overtake .co.uk in around 6 years. I suspect the trend will accelerate, and .co.uk will be history before then.

What you are seeing is a classic domain name land rush. There's a spike in registrations as a TLD goes into general availability and people start registering domain names. Within a few months (between four and six months), the number of new registrations per month declines to a typical new registrations pattern for the TLD. I graphed the .ASIA land rush to show a typical land rush and what follows. (Not sure about posting the link to it.) The land rush lasted from April 2008 to September 2008 and then the new registrations fell to the normal levels. The echoes of the land rush could be seen for years afterwards with a spike in deletions around the land rush anniversary. The .EU was even more pronounced and the echoes of the .EU land rush (April 2006 to June 2006) was even worse and visible for over ten years since land rush. The .EU is an abnormal ccTLD in that it doesn't represent an actual country and some of the member countries were only allowed to legally register domain names in the ccTLD a year or so after the land rush.

With a typical land rush, a Junk Dump follows on the anniversary of the land rush. This is where many of the domain names that could not be sold or developed are dropped. Some of the registrar land grabs (protecting their customers etc) will amplify that effect on particular registrars during the Junk dump next year.

The .CO.UK has separate dynamics and there is a fall off in registrations between April and September with many mature TLDs. However, it has a momentum of its own that is quite separate to the .UK subdomain and it is the first choice TLD for new UK registrations. The redirects for .UK from the survey that I posted earlier are a good indication of how the market is reacting to the .UK launch. Most of the exact match redirects are to the equivalent .CO.UK domain name. If there was a shift to .UK as the primary subdomain in the ccTLD then what one would see is an increase in .CO.UK websites redirecting to the equivalent .UK site. There is a lot of brand protection registration activity in .UK and this is exactly what happens with a new TLD that is considered important by registrants in a market. The .CO.UK is likely to dominate the UK market for the next few years at least.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Murray]

Anyone had an uptick in .co.uk interest since .uk release?

I don't know if it's coincidence but I've had 4 offers in July for co.uks and 2 sales, which for me (sadly) is marked improvement

 

[cloud]

I was just driving on the motorway and saw that a haulage company is using .UK and is redirecting the .CO.UK to .UK --> https://owensgroup.uk

It's plastered all over their trucks which is nice.

 

[lazarus]

I was just driving on the motorway and saw that a haulage company is using .UK and is redirecting the .CO.UK to .UK --> https://owensgroup.uk

It's plastered all over their trucks which is nice.

Large company with £70 Million turnover

 

[3gmedia]

I was just driving on the motorway and saw that a haulage company is using .UK and is redirecting the .CO.UK to .UK --> https://owensgroup.uk

It's plastered all over their trucks which is nice.

Thats great, i've met their marketing guy Julian a couple of times, his marketing company website is Brand.wales

 

[cloud]

Large company with £70 Million turnover

Then it'll make a great addition to the https://switchedto.uk .UK propaganda website...