welcometothe.uk at Heathrow

[Whois-Search]

.uk domain names are available for the first time ever after Nominet announced the launch with the world’s largest welcome sign unveiled at London’s Heathrow Airport and Stephen Fry has become the first person to launch a site with the suffix.

The ‘welcometothe.uk’ sign measures in almost 10,000sq ft, can reportedly be seen from 65,000ft away and is 40 per cent larger than the Holywood sign with 20 men taking eight hours just to unravel it.

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2014/06/10/uk-domain-name-finally-launches-first-site-goes-stephen-fry/

Photo: https://twitter.com/Nominet/status/476041966367436800/photo/1

Video: www.welcometothe.co.uk

 

[Skinner]

Kinda Sad the video site, says its a private video and needs a password to watch

 

[DaveP]

Nice surprised that domain was only first regged 28 Apr And yep can't see no video here either.

 

[philiporchard]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ritain-gets-simpler-new-uk-address-today.html

I also see that these domains were for sale on Acorn quite a while back:

http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/domains-rent/45880-welcometothe-com.html

 

[Edwin]

It may take a few hours to filter around the world, but Nominet are going to get a LOT of traction with that sign story! Good on them for making a "big" effort!

 

[DaveP]

I suggest they hurry up and sort the video out though! lol.

 

[Whois-Search]

I suggest they hurry up and sort the video out though! lol.

Can watch on it on Daily Mail story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ler-new-uk-address-today.html#v-3614863496001

 

[redbird]

. It's probably not every day that a domain name you were once the registrant of forms the basis of the largest airport advertisement sign ever?!

Had I not donated stephenfry.co.uk to him, he wouldn't have been the first either

 

[PanzerWagon]

When are browsers going to recognise .uk as a domain?

 

[Rob_F]

Had I not donated stephenfry.co.uk to him, he wouldn't have been the first either

Nice to do a search for Stephen Fry on G, click on stephenfry.com and watch the .com part disappear and be replaced with .uk

- Rob

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Murray]

Nice to do a search for Stephen Fry on G, click on stephenfry.com and watch the .com part disappear and be replaced with .uk

- Rob

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Is the .UK redirect geo specific on his site?

Do only uk visitors get redirected or is it everyone?

 

[PanzerWagon]

It may take a few hours to filter around the world, but Nominet are going to get a LOT of traction with that sign story! Good on them for making a "big" effort!

Nobody really cares about this launch though do they outside the domains world? I doubt it gets much publicity at all.

I think the way Nominet have done it is a bit of a flop, about 4 or 5 different websites, a giant sign that nobody will have a clue what it's about, a video that didn't work for half the day.

If you type welcometothe.uk in Chrome it doesn't take you to a website, you get a SERP result:

I bet educationuk get plenty traffic today

 

[diablo]

Nobody really cares about this launch though do they outside the domains world? I doubt it gets much publicity at all.

I think the way Nominet have done it is a bit of a flop, about 4 or 5 different websites, a giant sign that nobody will have a clue what it's about, a video that didn't work for half the day.

If you type welcometothe.uk in Chrome it doesn't take you to a website, you get a SERP result:

I bet educationuk get plenty traffic today

I use Chrome and when I type welccometothe.uk into the browser address bar it takes me straight to the website.

The Stephen Fry move was very clever too.

 

[PanzerWagon]

I use Chrome and when I type welccometothe.uk into the browser address bar it takes me straight to the website.

The Stephen Fry move was very clever too.

Clear your history and cache.

Chrome on dekstop and Android doesn't recognise .uk as a domain extension, it goes straight to a SERP.

Stephen Fry is known as an early adopter on everything going. Not really a standout IMO.

See who's talking about it in a week.

 

[Murray]

Chrome on dekstop and Android doesn't recognise .uk as a domain extension, it goes straight to a SERP.

Works with www. for me on chrome, without the www. it does a search

But as I never type www. (not sure what % of other people don't) it's not much good atm

It does come up with a grey bar at the top of the search "did you mean http://stephenfry.uk"

 

[PanzerWagon]

Works with www. for me on chrome, without the www. it does a search

But as I never type www. (not sure what % of other people don't) it's not much good atm

It does come up with a grey bar at the top of the search "did you mean http://stephenfry.uk"

All the promo and brand awareness doesn't have www. in so nobody will be typing it.

For 99% of people that sign in the field won't look like a domain anyway so they will have no idea anyway.

And for the 1% that do try type it, they'll end up on a search results page. I haven't tried on an iPhone however, guess it's same.

 

[PaulGregory]

They think putting a "welcometothe.uk" sign in that location and context creates a 'double meaning' as "welcome to the uk". I agree that without the www no-one will get the meaning that it's a domain - except maybe visitors from people used to .de and .fr etc who might not realise that .uk is new.

 

[paymatters]

I suppose one negative re .uk launch is if on the off chance Scotland vote to leave it and then wales will we still be called the uk? Then there may be a .eng!