.UK (Warning: not for over 40s)

[JMI]

Just a pondering thread..

Looking at prices .uk fetching on average I feel it's more of a young man's game.

I think the old school got defo emotional attachment to .co.uk and rightly so as .UK not yet proven, but unless I know nuzzing about domains in last 23 years, and I'm seeing 5k-10k domains going for £50! I think we're in about stage 2 of 4 (like bitcoin adoption by general public is about stage 3 if they can overcome making it easier for bloggs in the next few years), so this is a great time to invest potentially.

 

[JMI]

Some fair points you've made, but to say "It just is that ".co.uk" is seen as the main domain for the UK and it will always be so" is a very brave statement and obviously would suit anyone who has not invested in owning both .co.uk and .uk. 6 years is true and things should be better you could argue, but its not been a "clean" 6 years whereby I mean there has been a chance for the UK digital economy to settle and branch out properly, let the younger generations come through who are less concerned with dogma e.g. we've had the hash tag era, QR Code era, App Era, Brexit, general elections, Covid. I feel it won't happen on a noticeable scale for 3-5 years.. and you could be right and .UK linger in background as the ugly sister forever.

Sorry one other thing, you can't really compare .com with .net, .info etc. .com is king of kings in global terms, that's like comparing .co.uk to .org.uk.

 

[seth]

Interesting post. I googled ' royal family' the other day.
royal.uk was first in search.
And it's the official web site of the British Royal Family

 

[seth]

Does anyone know of any .UK websites which are popular? I mean, I doubt there any .UK websites as popular as Autotrader or Rightmove, but does anyone know of any .UK websites which come to the top of search like the Royals .UK site did

 

[dazc]

Does anyone know of any .UK websites which are popular? I mean, I doubt there any .UK websites as popular as Autotrader or Rightmove, but does anyone know of any .UK websites which come to the top of search like the Royals .UK site did

nominet

 

[Admin]

.UK domains have had 6 years (nearly) to prove themselves. How many more years do they need to prove themselves?

I think you have slightly missed his point in relation to timescales. When bitcoin was 6 years old it was still only worth a few hundred dollars a BTC. Its now 30x that. Its 6 years for .uk ....so..? I'm not expressing an opinion as I'm really not sure what will happen to .uk values but his analogy was good in terms of timescales...

 

[3gmedia]

Does anyone know of any .UK websites which are popular? I mean, I doubt there any .UK websites as popular as Autotrader or Rightmove, but does anyone know of any .UK websites which come to the top of search like the Royals .UK site did

NHS.uk

 

[Admin]

Imagine if google.co.uk became google.uk - big impact?

 

[Admin]

I wasn't comparing the time-frames. I was replying to the .uk and bitcoin sections as completely different topics.

Really? I thought when you said

.UK domains have had 6 years (nearly) to prove themselves. How many more years do they need to prove themselves?

You were saying 6 years was long enough, well it wasnt for Bitcoin..... but since then it has (in terms of monetary value), which was JMI's point.

 

[dee]

.UK domains have had 6 years (nearly) to prove themselves.

Have they though ? They were completely tied to the co.uk unless dropped, so were effectivly handcuffed for that whole period. They have had a year, granted, but still early days.

 

[Admin]

I'm moving acorn to acorndomains.uk next week, that will shake the market up lol

 

[WalkinDude]

Its Gov.uk, and especially through the pandemic there are going to be so many people using the Gov.uk service platforms.

Just the way it works, at the very top, Government, Royals as someone pointed out, the situation is a .UK situation and next will come the toffs and after that you and I.

What is up in the air is timescale but simple reality is .UK is more flag waving and this is post Brexit Britain that's going to be very interested in a lot of flag-waving once those Trade Talks really get down. I'd be shocked if a major initiative was launched on .co.uk as opposed to .UK as a platform. .UK just sends the message faster, sleeker, punchier. It's the Royals, the Gov, the idyllic British Villages, Tourist Attractions, .UK is UK's chance to have a TLD that's globally renown, means something, intrinsically British, isn't just about what's going on in the UK but is also about what the .UK can offer the world!

I can see the campaign 'At '"World Class UK company name"', we are switching over to our new .UK platform, to show the World Britain is open for business once more, a new more United Kingdom.... ready for tomorrows challenges... inclusive, united.....with our World Class Engineering/Customer Service/Green technology... yadiyadiya.."

There are no comparison comparing .com with .co cos first of all .com is the global standard domain suffice that has no peers but more importantly .UK actually means something whereas .co doesn't exactly roll off the tongue in meaning.

If there's only a 3% chance that one of the big boys Amazon, Google, Argos etc will switch to .UK each year over the next ten or 15 years that small possibility starts edging nearer to a certainty over time just to distinguish themselves. Meanwhile .UK could stagnate, but once the flame is lit that's it because the situation is one of public consciousness not just what the stats say or trends. Another possibility is an influencer, just one who blows up, launches on a .UK platform, big marketing, a new idea.... all possible.

As pointed out if you are a new domainer and all we had was .co.uk you have a steep climb because of how tight it is but if you look at .UK the pricing, in some cases beer money, and consider what that could become if .UK starts trending as a domain then you got little to lose and potentially something to gain. .UK is a beauty just waiting for it's ball.

With .UK you are talking about half a dozen astute buys, see what happens, you don't need to remortgage the house unless there's something you can't live without, and you may just gain.

Disclaimer I'm small change in domaining, so just having a say but I'm expecting a prime.co.uk ending up with 60 or 70% value of an identical prime .UK in the long term. Now what's important is all .co.uk owners had their 5 years to grab their .uk's and cover both possibilities. So shouldn't matter either way to them how it ends up.

If you own a .co.uk you wouldn't sell for less than 10k and because of this you regged during the 5 years it's twin sibling in the .UK and that is currently worth 1k in a fair wind, then that's still 1k more than the 4quid you spent regging it. Your covered, either way, happy days, have a beer. I don't see any argument that you tend to see that asked so often; the question being why isn't the .UK also worth 10k? Why should it be? The UK economy didn't double overnight just cos .UK was launched, values of both could be trending up [premiums], and .UK could end up stealing value from .co.uk so it's complex in that sense. Bit like Canary Wharfs stagnant start, and it's position relative to the City nowadays.

 

[Admin]

I think it will at some point. I think it looks miles cleaner on .uk

and it would join a consistent form;

google.ie
google.fr
google.de
google.es
google.it

etc

 

[Edwin]

If we're really talking long-term i.e. a scale of many years, it's also worth thinking what could happen if Scotland were to gain independence. Does the "United Kingdom" even continue to exist as a concept then? And if not, what would that mean for the .uk extension?

 

[diablo]

If we're really talking long-term i.e. a scale of many years, it's also worth thinking what could happen if Scotland were to gain independence. Does the "United Kingdom" even continue to exist as a concept then? And if not, what would that mean for the .uk extension?

Great Britain would cease to exist.

The United Kingdom might well continue as England, Wales and Northern Ireland - assuming those three countries remain in union. The United Kingdom did once include Ireland too so there is a precedence.

 

[JMI]

Jimmy Krankie won't be getting her way for a long time. I don't think I've spoken to a Scottish person yet who wants to split from the UK, it's just that they feel they have little option but to vote for the incumbent.

 

[dee]

Jimmy Krankie won't be getting her way for a long time. I don't think I've spoken to a Scottish person yet who wants to split from the UK, it's just that they feel they have little option but to vote for the incumbent.

I think brexit was the nail in the coffin for Scotland staying. It was close last time, and having been there at the time I didnt know anyone that wanted to leave . I also didnt know anyone that wanted brexit but that happened.

I reckon Scotland will be oot first chance it gets.

 

[websaway]

Brave man that calls anything at this critical time in our history. Not sure most people have lived through a recession bordering on a depression. If the politicians make silly errors now or if someone decides it's a good time to invade a neighbour we could be into a time where nothing matters much other than survival. Most young people who have wanted to work have not found employment that difficult to find in the last 20 years. If there is no jobs it could be a rude awakening, especially for those who focus on the trivial and believe that everything is a human right. I think on one thing we can all agree, the current situation is surreal, I don't think anyone other than sci fi ists could have anticipated it. Strange days indeed.

 

[Siusaidh]

Although I personally like the neatness of .uk and the way it is 'what it says on the packet' - eg: it clearly states it's the national domain - my instincts suggest to me that for very many businesses, less informed people still regard .co.uk as the "official" and most important suffix, with .uk as an afterthought. This may change over time, I have absolutely no idea.

That said, as I have mentioned before, I believe .uk is better for various non-corporate websites - particularly in my own field, which is religious domains. Jesus.co.uk just sounds a bit "off" because of the clash between the religious theme and business/money. In contrast Jesus.uk cuts loose from that slightly jarring clash with business, and is a better match for a site about religion in the UK. Same with prayer, same with the Holy Spirit, same also with various other terms beyond the religious ones.

In most cases, it's the business domains that are more likely to generate the big money, and therefore be in greater demand, so I think .co.uk is likely to remain more valuable in most cases, for the foreseeable future. I say that, even though I personally prefer the compact .uk

For domainers late to the party, .uk offers the opportunity to invest in names that may still generate some profit. The likely release of hundreds of thousands of .uk domains this coming September (the ones mass registered without the authorisation of the .co.uk name holders by registrars like Fasthosts and Ionos 1&1) offers some very decent names likely to fetch £100s or in some cases £1000+.

Of course, Nominet has questions to answer on that one:
(a) Why they gave the go ahead for those mass-registrations, where the "registrant" hadn't agreed to the Nominet terms or the acquisition at all? And why those mass registrations were facilitated by a 'no cost' period, allowing the names to be registered for free?
(b) Whether any steps will be taken to tighten rules, to prevent any cartels gaming the system, and sweeping up so many names at the expense of other people?

Anyway, I think .co.uk will generally be more valuable than .uk for the coming years.

 

[Siusaidh]

One other thought crosses my mind: will those hundreds of thousands of free .uk domains be attributed to Fasthosts and Ionos 1&1 when it comes to calculating the weighted voting rights in the coming NED election? Technically they will have just passed their renewal date at that stage, but still be controlled by the registrars. Also, I'm not clear what the ceiling is (if any) when it comes to weighted votes.

There is also another possibility, which I'm waiting to see the outcome of, having spoken to the Fasthosts rep at the Members' Lunch in Birmingham. I fronted him on the question of whether they would release all those names, and he was frank enough to say that was something they were reviewing and they hadn't made up their minds. I suspect they will - because of the negative PR effects of trying to monetise the 'land grab' last year - but when I spoke to him, that was not a foregone conclusion. There are various other registrars who took the same approach as Fasthosts. Will they all release those .uk domains?

In my view, returning to the original post, the best way of promoting .uk as a suffix with value, is if domains actually get developed into sites that the public access. If the majority of .uk domains get warehoused, awaiting a random purchase at the desired price, then in one sense .uk becomes a kind of graveyard of mostly unused domains, or domains just used to point to the existing .co.uk

That doesn't make .uk look like the primary suffix.