Wanted: Domain Appraisal highway-code.uk - and how .uk changes some domains

[inbound]

Just a thought...

Although the domain highway-code.uk isn't great due to the hyphen; I'm sure there are loads of domains that make much more sense as a .uk rather than .co.uk

How much "better" do you think the domain is having dropped the .co part? Let's see percentage uplift rather than absolute value

 

[Edwin]

Impossible to say since it depends on how quickly .uk steals mindshare from .co.uk, which is something we will only find out after launch.

If consumers quickly get used to web addresses ending in .uk, that pushes the value MUCH higher than if it is seen for years as a weird/typo extension.

 

[Skinner]

I was saying this to a fellow acorn'er the other day, that .uk changes hows how come domains look and sound when said outloud so having to reconsider lots.

 

[websaway]

Geographic's uk is the most obvious beneficiary of the changes.
But others are going to benefit also, particularly if the address bar becomes a popular use for search as it becomes more difficult to rank for high search terms on the engines.
The future is about solid pure domains which are memorable and where advertising is not lost because of the lack of easy recall, particularly as things will become more confusing because of the new gtld's.
It would be fantastic if the big geo names were developed so that London dot uk was a London website, and paris fr Tokyo jp Dublin ie, it's bound to happen and the internet landscape will change. I think the 5 year thing gives owners a breather to look at the benefits of developing maybe through partnerships.
Will it get traction ? My bet at the moment is that it will, again because of the 5 year rule, plenty of time for the change, no panic, no registering the name and leaving it on the shelf indefinitely. The present .uk programme to me is the next best thing to a straight giveaway to all co.uk owners, which of course would have been the ideal outcome and that which a lot of people had proposed.

 

[Edwin]

Will it get traction ? My bet at the moment is that it will, again because of the 5 year rule, plenty of time for the change, no panic, no registering the name and leaving it on the shelf indefinitely. The present .uk programme to me is the next best thing to a straight giveaway to all co.uk owners, which of course would have been the ideal outcome and that which a lot of people had proposed.

Actually, the psychological hurdle of a 5 year limit may be an advantage when it comes to boosting actual use of the .uk.

If it was "free forever" for .co.uk owners, there would literally be no pressure/incentive for them to start using the .uk extension - for a business owner, the status quo is always the easiest path when you're too busy concentrating on a million other things.

However, by introducing a 5 year deadline thereby forcing them to - slowly, carefully - consider when/whether to register it or not, they're also effectively being pushed to consider when/whether to use it or not.

Time will tell, so we'll have to wait and see - but I believe it will be "unrealistic" for a business owner to claim a full 5 years after it was launched that they've never heard of a ".uk" and therefore missed out on it.