THE CYBER HYPE BLOG

As a .co.uk domain owner, you may have recently received an email from the UK Official Domain Registry – Nominet about a .uk domain.

 

When the .uk extension (or TLD – Top Level Domain) was released it was automatically reserved for 5 years for .co.uk site owners who owned their domain before 28th October 2013, so nobody else could register a domain name similar to yours, and to give you the opportunity to purchase the .uk domain if you wished to.

 

That grace period is now coming to an end and the reservations will be released on 25th June.  What this means is someone else can then purchase the .uk version of your domain name.  This may be a concern for you, it may not.

 

The reason for the .uk TLD becoming available was to bring the UK into line with other international TLDs – .de for Germany, .ca for Canada etc where the UK had held on to the .co.uk version.  .co.uk is not going anywhere but it does make more domain names available.

 

If you are hosted on Siteground, you may have your domain registered there too (if we transferred your domain when setting up your website, you do). If you would like the .uk domain you will have to purchase it just like any other domain name. The cost of this with Siteground is £14.95 + VAT per annum.  If you want to buy it before the reservation period ends, you do have to buy it where your .co.uk is registered.  You can then have the .uk redirected to your .co.uk with ease.

 

For a riskier but potentially lower cost solution, you may be able to register the .uk cheaper elsewhere but you will have to wait until after 25th June to do so and you will need to redirect it from whomever you buy the domain name from.

 

Whether to buy it or not really depends on your brand sensitivity and whether you think someone else is likely to want the domain name.  For example, there is a domain I really want but both the .co.uk and .com have been registered by someone else for many years so I will be trying to get the .uk from 6am on 25th June in the hopes that the person that has the .co.uk didn’t want the .uk TLD. I suspect there will be dealers on the case looking out for good names that weren’t taken up too.  If you are concerned and think you should get the .uk I recommend doing it now.

 

Contact your domain registrar for a price now.  Bear in mind that your domain registrar may not be your host.  You can find out who your registrar is here https://www.nominet.uk/whois/

 

You can find out if you have rights to the .uk by checking with Nominet at https://www.nominet.uk/reserved-uk-rights-faqs/

 

I notice Nominet themselves have transitioned to .uk, it does look neater.

 

If you are unsure or need some help with registering your domain or transitioning to the .uk version, please do get in touch.