[Colonel Panic]

What is the collective take on whether the new .uk (as opposed to .co.uk) will become the New Normal?

I have a few .co.uk domains and I understand that I can also have the .uk versions so long as I register them before 25th June 2019.

Have to say that I have yet to come across a .uk domain in real life, which TBH slightly surprises me.

[rikur_]

Personally it annoyed me - it was all announced as a public benefit, but actually means in practice I need to register twice as many domains for brand protection purposes.
I've registered all my relevant .uk domains, but generally don't use them, other than brand protection.
I do use one of them, where I have a three character domain name, as a way of giving short URLs when required.
Generally to me '.co.uk' still represents 'established business' and '.uk' look a bit like 'newcomer'.
I see no bbc.uk nor google.uk, and facebook.uk appears to be cybersquatters .... so gives a clue about how much the bigger players care.

[Genghis the Engineer]

All sorts of people use all sorts of domains for various reasons. It just adds to the complexity - it won't create a standardisation that was never there.

uk.com has been around for years, I use .org.uk for a club website, and .com for my personal email.

Really doesn't matter to most people, and won't change anything.

G

[PeteSpencer]

I've got a .uk domain parked against the day my .com domain gets nobbled.

Got it for free from my ISP a while back.

Peter

[riverrock]

Feels like a money making scheme to me - another TLD for people to pay to get registered. I suspect few will use it but many will register for brand protection purposes.

[Colonel Panic]

Generally to me '.co.uk' still represents 'established business' and '.uk' look a bit like 'newcomer'.

I do agree, but presumably this has not been an issue with .fr, .de, .nl etc etc etc.

[rikur_]

Generally to me '.co.uk' still represents 'established business' and '.uk' look a bit like 'newcomer'.

I do agree, but presumably this has not been an issue with .fr, .de, .nl etc etc etc.

Public perceptions are based upon what they are used to .... people are used to .co.uk in the UK.

[Rob L]

I have a .org.uk domain, so that comes within the Colonel's remit.

I agree with some of the previous posters, in that .uk looks a bit more legit than (for example) .aero or .biz , which I would never entertain.






But I own . uk.porn which is another UK-based 4-letter domain name conglomerate, and that is going to be my pension fund. So there you are.

[Bert Presley]

You have to be really careful with URLs.

Witness the medical professional who registered therapist.com. And the Pen Island Tourism Office who published penisland.com.

[rikur_]

You have to be really careful with URLs.

Witness the medical professional who registered therapist.com. And the Pen Island Tourism Office who published penisland.com.

or https://www.whorepresents.com/, https://masterbaitonline.com/

Or any website in the Cook Islands (.co.ck)

[avtur3]

We recently registered a new domain name to facilitate a new email address for Mrs Avtur, we nearly went with a ".uk" but stepped away from it and chose ".co.uk" because the world is so familiar with ".co.uk" that if you offer just ".uk" it actually confuses people.

I did a trial with a different ".uk" address and in any face to face dealings it just didn't work, it's OK if using it for anything online but if it involves a conversation with anyone then ".co.uk" is so familiar that if you offer something slightly different it is more trouble than it's worth. So Mrs Avtur's new domain and email uses ".co.uk"

[PeteSpencer]

I also keep .co.uk, .org and .net spare .

I started using one solely for internet purchases to see if I could trace spam source a few years ago when the Russian spammers nobbled me for a couple of weeks but it turned out to be a bit of a faff so I reverted to .com when the Russkies went away

Peter

[Genghis the Engineer]

I have a .org.uk domain, so that comes within the Colonel's remit.

I agree with some of the previous posters, in that .uk looks a bit more legit than (for example) .aero or .biz , which I would never entertain.

My tailor (in Bangkok) uses .biz, which seems to work out for them although I have heard a few people suggest that it is mostly associated with the dodgier end of internet business.

When .aero came along, it looked like a good idea to me - but whoever owns it has always wanted so much money for .aero domains that I think that the uptake has been tiny. A shame, but also an illustration of the perils of profiteering.

Anyhow, I think that things are relatively stable now concerning domain names, useage and habits - something like this is probably guaranteed to have virtually zero uptake now.

G

[cockney steve]

Number 2 son is in the IT business and has worked for a couple of ISP's He holds the "family surname" dot me.UK name I think he let the "name.org " go to another family with the same surname, but apparently no relationship with us, despite having a very rare name and links to their part of the country......anyway, , I pay his domain name registrations via Andrews and Arnold . they are extremely modest sums......I also get annual "invoices" from domain-name registration-services, offering to renew at about 4 times the A7A fee and intimating that if I don't renew through them, I'm in danger of losing the domain.

Plenty of sharks out there!

[Colonel Panic]

Grrrr

By way of an update - and I am seriously miffed ...

A few days before the end of the grandfather rights period I grabbed ~7 .uk domains via my hosting firm, Krystal.co.uk . More as an insurance policy that anything else.

Today I get an email saying that "we've been unable to register the domain name due to the contact details being used not matching the .co.uk domain you have with us. Unfortunately the domain name is now unavailable and has been registered elsewhere as such we've now refunded your registration fee and marked the domain as cancelled within your account."

So the registration of the only domain that was VERY important to me failed on a technicality. Nowhere in the sign up process did it mention how details had to match, and TBH I never checked what they were (other than me) anyway. Not sure whether I should be annoyed at Krystal, Nominet ... or me!