.UK Announced

[Brassneck]

I asked the same question and received the same answer.

Oh, and they didn't get any kind of external risk assessment done either (neither for the consequences of launching .uk, nor for the consequences of PROPOSING to launch .uk i.e. the "chilling effect" of all the uncertainty).

At what point does disinterest become actionable neglect?

Devil's advocate here, but if they had spent a lot of money on external legal opinions and consultants would people also be complaining?

It's still at the consultation stage so may never happen. You could argue the right time to spend money on that sort of thing is when they want to build the policy from the consultation results. Of course, this all assumes that the consultation is a 'real' consultation and I am still giving them benefit of the doubt.

Stephen.

 

[Simon]

Perhaps I am nieve to the way nominet works.. however got to wonder if they roughly threw together a consultation document with a few contentious issues, to test the water and get the initial research done for relatively cheaply. Its a win win situation for them as they know what arguments will be thrown up, who will support them, who will be against them how powerful they are, and even get some workable solutions to the problems they forsee.
This is after all the same organisation that has applied for .wales/cymru which I would presume will weaken the position of .co.uk even more. Quite suprised they have not tried to go for .england at the same time.

 

[Brassneck]

Perhaps I am nieve to the way nominet works.. however got to wonder if they roughly threw together a consultation document with a few contentious issues, to test the water and get the initial research done for relatively cheaply. Its a win win situation for them as they know what arguments will be thrown up, who will support them, who will be against them how powerful they are, and even get some workable solutions to the problems they forsee.
QUOTE]

I think this is a possibility.

An analogy from Govt is that you often see all kinds of bizarre / extreme ideas floated in the Sunday newspapers never to be seen again. It is a way of testing opinion and often quickly forgotten about. In the case of the Nominet proposals, seeing as all the 'bad publicity' seems to be confined to domainers and a few industry specialists, this approach might not have any significant long-term damage on Nominet. If it never happens, 99 per cent of internet users will never know it was even considered.

Stephen.

 

[Stephen]

What of the Future?

An analogy from Govt is that you often see all kinds of bizarre / extreme ideas floated in the Sunday newspapers never to be seen again. It is a way of testing opinion and often quickly forgotten about. ….

Government use PR, leaks and press releases they don’t go for an expensive
option of this sort of consultation process, unless the board believes in it.
From seeing the Board member in action at the Nominet meeting this week, they really mean it.

….In the case of the Nominet proposals, seeing as all the 'bad publicity' seems to be confined to domainers and a few industry specialists, this approach might not have any significant long-term damage on Nominet. …

It is not over yet, the facts are still being gathered, every day something comes up
which shows that Nominet’s best effort at a plan is ill thought through at best.

This is compounded that there are major conceptual flaws in what they are proposing.

These opinions and objections about the proposal get turned into predicted consequences like 1,000,000 cyber squatters
holding .uk domains, etc. as stated in an earlier post about what the media may form from the situation.

Then it will be a story that Nominet will not be able to control.

….If it never happens, 99 per cent of internet users will never know it was even considered.

I disagree, Nominet unless there is a severe u turn will not be trusted by the domaining community
and I’m sure some individuals will carry on the fight against Nominet, well after the proposal is shelved (if indeed that is what happens)
and get the matter brought to the attention of as many people as possible.

It maybe we even end up with totally different governance of the UK
namespace because what has been started?

 

[namealot]

No Nominet have not, they only received an in house legal view, they did not seek or obtain an external legal opinion for the current .uk proposal.

I raised this at the Nominet roundtable meeting in London and this position
was confirmed by 2 Nominet staff present.

Be surprised they would need to get official outside opinion.. there are many on panels working within top law firms etc
The legal action route with the chance of a mega payout for nom and as far as I’m aware no personal liability on those driving it forward if they loose although not sure of what sort of bonuses be they back door or upfront would be in the trough distributing all that windfall (will line some pockets for sure )

Would they even care the recent unfair dismissal case and the million or so cost it seams unlikely,,, In comparison to the amount they stand to gain then there going to be shoveling 10 of millions at it ( can members somehow stop that)

The opposition to .uk atm seams to be maybe a few businesses but a majority of domainers
Who seam at the momment at least to be already loosing the PR battle against nom...who is putting up the millions a legal action would take... David and Goliath is ok for fairy tales

If nom win and set a precedent then bang goes any realistic chance of any others winning and what would happen to co.uk if nom lost went bankrupt… Any new entity that came along could have cart blanche to do as they wished that could see any legal threat as about effective as asking them sternly in a letter not to bring out .uk …

Personally believe PR campaign against nom making them out to be the baddy so to speak and if those driving the proposed .uk could be personally made liable somehow would be a more realistic attack..

another attack should be against the outsiders that atm stand to benefit e.g. registrars etc I ‘d say there going to be behind it big time but no ones slinging mud at them there just sitting back rubbing there hands ready to go… everyone should let there;s no they’d boycott them should they sell them hitting them were it hurts in the pocket might make them less in favor

Do nom just have to launch them or do they have to do so effectively or run the risk of one big lemon like so many other TLds etc in the past

 

[Brassneck]

I disagree, Nominet unless there is a severe u turn will not be trusted by the domaining community
and I’m sure some individuals will carry on the fight against Nominet, well after the proposal is shelved (if indeed that is what happens)
and get the matter brought to the attention of as many people as possible.

Stephen

Happy for you to disagree with me, however you said above that Nominet "will not be trusted by the domaining community"..... That's about 0.01 per cent of people registering domain names in the UK and a group of people with few fans amongst the general public.

 

[GreyWing]

Stephen

Happy for you to disagree with me, however you said above that Nominet "will not be trusted by the domaining community"..... That's about 0.01 per cent of people registering domain names in the UK and a group of people with few fans amongst the general public.

What I'd say mate is that anyone with a domain is technically the "domaining community". Also that 0.01% might account for 60% (rough guess) of the domains and fund 70-80% (including transfer fees) of Nominet's income.

Plus the value that confidence brings to all .co.uk names (not just those for resale) can be used as equity in developing real world businesses online. If that confidence is lost then so is the equity, how many of us have started partnerships where one side brings the name and the other brings the skills?

Things like that will be less likely.

Just to add I know you are devils advocate on it, and are right about the view of domainers in the publics eyes.

 

[Blossom]

PROVIDE A OFFSHORE REGISTRAR,HOSTING SERVICES
THAT UNDER CUT , ALL UK PRICES , THUS AFFECTING THERE BUSINESSES
LIKE THEY ARE AFFECTING OUR S

It's called the US hosting industry. In any case, .uk domain names would still have to go via Nominet.

Back on topic

Does anybody know any more ways the new possible .uk could effect SEO or any comments on below please;

1. For somebody who doesnt provide linked pages from prior site,
   add a link inwards from anywhere else or submit new domain name
   to search engine, they may not get their new .uk site ranked for several months

Yes, but that's the site owner's reponsibility. 'Several months' is highly unlikely for Google, especially if any visitors use Chrome. If the site already has an established brand/following behind it it seems highly unlikely it wouldn't pick up ANY links anyway.

Ranking would be reduced if full and proper migration was not done to new .uk site

Ranking might potentially be reduced anyway. There are a series of completely unknown factors as it stands, such as how Google will decide to place .uk extensions (equal to .co.uk? more influential? ignored?)

The search engine algoritham uses the age of the domain as one of the many factors, so a new site via a new .uk will not rank as high even with same content, would make larger difference if prior site was very old

I know a lot of people believe this, but I'm yet to see any hard evidence. In fact, some of the evidence I've seen suggests, if anything, that newer (NOT 'new') sites that gain higher quality links over a shorter period of time have the advantage. It's hard to prove either way, because older domains tend to pick up more links by default, and it's likely to be that where most of the value lies.

If they run both sites .co.uk and .uk at same time, it would be classed as duplicate content and sites would be marked down for ranking or at worst ignored

Depends on the authority of the sites in question. I would suggest it's not wise to have 2 websites for the same purpose anyway, much as you'd not have a .co.uk and a .org.uk with identical sites.

existing inward links to your site from other websites would not work

You'd set up 301s. Or, alternatively, you could do something creative with your original site to 'manually' redirect people to your new site, and have some good links and secondary links to it. Although this probably wouldn't be practical or appropriate in most situations.

would have to change other 301 redirects from other domains currently used for SEO to new site

Could do, would be slightly better than chaining redirects.

 

[Stephen]

Numbers?

Stephen

Happy for you to disagree with me, however you said above that Nominet "will not be trusted by the domaining community"..... That's about 0.01 per cent of people registering domain names in the UK and a group of people with few fans amongst the general public.

I do not want to get in to a disagreement about what is a domainer (and you have been at Acorn a long time) but my information shows rougly about 50% of all domains registered in the uk namespace are for sale in some way or other.

So I believe in number of domains held the % of registrants that are in the widest sense domainers (willing to sell their domain - regardless of number held) is probably somewhere between my 50% and your 0.01% of domain owners.

The reason the wider business holders of .co.uk are are also not happy with the proposals is they dont know about them and if they did it would need explaining to them, what it actually means to them. Then I believe the number would rise substantially.

 

[Brassneck]

I do not want to get to a disagrement about what is a domainer (and you have been at Acorn a long time) but my information shows about 50% of all domains registered in the uk namespace are for sale in some way or other.

So I believe in number of domains held the % of registrants that are in the widest sense domainers (willing to sell their domain - regardless of number held) is probably somewhere between my 50% and your 0.01% of domain owners.

Do you know where the 50 per cent comes from - about number of domains registered.

1000 domainers holding 1000 domains is a million names, yet a tiny percentage in terms of registrants. I suspect the number is much smaller than 50 per cent and lower than 10 per cent.

There are quite a figures being circulated in this thread (e.g cost to business) and I think it is really important to have solid evidence otherwise easy to discredit wider argument.

Stephen.

 

[GreyWing]

There are quite a figures being circulated in this thread (e.g cost to business) and I think it is really important to have solid evidence otherwise easy to discredit wider argument.

Surely that is the problem we are arguing mate, the burden of proof has to be the job of those who want to do something to prove, not those who don't.

Nominet won't give access to these figures, in fact a lot of stuff has gone missing from the site.

 

[Stephen]

whats in a number

Do you know where the 50 per cent comes from - about number of domains registered.

1000 domainers holding 1000 domains is a million names, yet a tiny percentage in terms of registrants. I suspect the number is much smaller than 50 per cent and lower than 10 per cent.

There are quite a figures being circulated in this thread (e.g cost to business) and I think it is really important to have solid evidence otherwise easy to discredit wider argument.

Stephen.

I'm trying to get accurate figures all the time

Waiting for figures from Sedo and Nominet on requests to them I have made to them (I'm trying really hard to get real numers and facts - but Nominet have not been easy to deal with on this)

but the figures are based on a sample of 25,000 random uk domain names that was ran, which looked at DNS settings and where the page resolved.

I'm counting not just the people who have over 10,000 uk domains, I'm also counting the people with 5 domains that they have on sale.

Also I'm saying 50% of the domains are held by domainers which will not be 50% of the registrants.

Plus the logic of france with a similar population as the Uk and they have 2,6000,000 domains wheras we have 10,000,000 in the UK - I'm currently working on sorts of stats to understand, who will genuinely be potentially affected by the proposal if it goes ahead.

I hope this clarifies the "apples and pears" comparision, between the number of people reading this thread and the number of domain holders who would resell there domains and might not like the proposal (if they knew about it and it was explained to them).

It would not make any difference to the original point, if there are only 1 committed domainer who felt aggreived at the way Nominet have behaved, that person can still bring it to the attention of the wider public, what nearly happened if this was all pulled and the issues that Nominet did not build into their proposal that maybe should have been considered. I have seen comment on this thread that would like the governance of Nominet to be changed, so that might be brought to the wider publics attention at a later date.

I would really like to get back on topic of moving forward by those that want to change the nominet proposal from what it is at present

 

[Stephen]

DRS and .uk

Extract from Nominet response in reply to points I requested clarification about DRS and .uk, that this thread discussed for a while;

-...The DRS will continue to apply to all .uk domain names under Nominet’s management. It would therefore be possible for the registrant of a .co.uk domain name to bring a complaint against the registrant of a .uk domain name, provided the .co.uk registrant was able to establish that i) they had rights in a name which is the same as or similar to the .uk domain name, and ii) that the registration of the .uk domain name in the hands of its registrant amounted to an abusive registration under the terms of the DRS policy.....

I'm now very confused!

 

[GreyWing]

What exactly do you find confusing about your extract from them? It's the same as how the DRS functions now. One party can bring a DRS against another party.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think he means the whole process is confusing, rather than the particular statement. It is a bit like buying a stolen stereo from the cops and then getting charged with possessing stolen goods 10 minutes later.

 

[Stephen]

Yes

I think he means the whole process is confusing, rather than the particular statement. It is a bit like buying a stolen stereo from the cops and then getting charged with possessing stolen goods 10 minutes later.

Yes thanks GreyWing, not that I would have put it like that but the point is still the same.

 

[Murray]

I know a lot of people believe this, but I'm yet to see any hard evidence. In fact, some of the evidence I've seen suggests, if anything, that newer (NOT 'new') sites that gain higher quality links over a shorter period of time have the advantage. It's hard to prove either way, because older domains tend to pick up more links by default, and it's likely to be that where most of the value lies..

I shouldn't read the SEO chat on here, I get too worked up lol.

Domains, no matter their age, have no authority themselves, it's the site built on them and the trust over time with quality content and links that means aged sites may have more value.

such as how Google will decide to place .uk extensions (equal to .co.uk? more influential? ignored?).

Google gives influence to .uk in google.co.uk local searches because they're automatically set to geo targeting the uk, whether it's co.uk, org.uk, .uk, it doesn't matter, I have no idea why you would say it would be potentially ignored, that is pretty ridiculous.

 

[Stephen]

SEO and .uk

I shouldn't read the SEO chat on here, I get too worked up lol.

Thanks very much for your posting.

Having only read books about SEO recently rather than the real and fast changing world that SEO inhabits, I really appreciate being told what is current.

My basic understanding is, search engines use lots anf lots of factors, some major like page download speeds some minor like is their alt tags populated differently on each image.

On this thread we are really trying to understand the impact of the new .uk proposal from an SEO perspective.

I tried to post, what I saw as factors, remembering that over 4,000,000 .uk may be registered and over time the .co.uk owners that protected their domain names could migrate over to .uk and they all have different skill levels and budgets regarding a migration of domains which many of them would never have done before.

So looking for observations from those at Acorn that really know SEO to help by providing relevant and realistic consequences of .uk being introduced.

 

[monaghan]

There was another thread asking for people to comment on .uk drop catching, well, as I read it, the practise of auctioning names by registrars or catching by catchers will be replaced by a Nominet auction process as expired domains will be pulled back. If this is the case, I'm guessing we'll also see the transfer process getting a change pulling unwanted names back in house.

OK lots of self interest, but still wrong in my opinion, Nominet seem to be creating lots of windows for large revenue, for a non profit, there just seems to be too much excess money floating about in the form of bonus and the charitable trust. The cynical part of me does suggest that it does appear to be potential to become a for profit company or a direct feed to the UK treasury.

 

[retired_member33]

I think the .uk introduction is great....Why?

For too many years people have been sitting on domains which actually have no value to them but which are valuable to small businesses but whenever a business wants to buy the domain they are being told its £xxxx or some shit valuation, from my point of view this doesn't make any sense... I am a domainer and have a fair number of domains and when a business contacts me I make sure we sort out a price which works for the two of us... In my opinion that is what a domainer does...

But there are too many people on this forum who would rather keep their domains and sell them for a ridiculous price then to support a proper business...

From my point of view the .UK introduction is a breath of fresh air for many businesses who will get the domain they wanted opposed to paying silly money to domainers.

I can't think of the saying at the moment so I will make up my own.. We all live to evolve and the people who can't are just stuck in their own imagination.

 

[GreyWing]

From my point of view the .UK introduction is a breath of fresh air for many businesses who will get the domain they wanted opposed to paying silly money to domainers.

"From my point of view the .UK introduction is a breath of fresh air for many Cybersquatters who will get the domain they wanted opposed to paying silly money to current owners."

Couple of words changed word changed and your argument falls aparts.