Just over a month after the official launch of the new, shorter .uk domains, Nominet has confirmed more than 100,000 registrations. Because of early concerns that there would be little interest in .uk addresses, the latest sales figures have come as a surprise to the industry.
As expected, two thirds of the registrations have been made by people and businesses who already own the matching .co.uk website address. To help ensure that scammers do not abuse the process, there is a hold placed on .uk addresses that match an existing .co.uk equivalent.
The most exciting aspect of the new Nominet figures is that one-third of the .uk registrations are for completely new domain names. Most analysts had expected little to no interest in .uk addresses from anyone other than businesses keen to prevent cybersquatters from grabbing addresses and selling them at a significant markup to trademark holders.
Nominet also reported that June was their most successful month for 14 years. There were 225,000 new domain registrations across each of the available variants (including .uk domains, .co.uk, .me.uk and .org.uk domains).
Nominet is also preparing for further top level domain launches later this year which should further boost the UK’s digital economy. .London website addresses will soon be available for registration by businesses located in the capital. Welsh businesses also stand to benefit from new .Wales and .Cymru domains which are hoped to provide additional impetus for the country’s digital economy.
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