How likely do you think we are to see a .uk go ahead?

[simondooner]

The Germans see no threat...

Lesley's blog post said...

“the German registry – running .de – does not believe that gTLDs will pose a threat to them.”

Does anyone know precisely why the Germans don’t see the new gTLDs as a threat?

 

[GreyWing]

The choice is ultimately not the boards, the company is owned by the membership and it's the membership that either decides the issue or decides on the board.

Registrars don't want this as much as people think, well apart from Host Europe to name one.

 

[Blossom]

Does anyone know precisely why the Germans don’t see the new gTLDs as a threat?

Can't see them ranking well in search engines (especially local variants like DE and UK) except for perhaps big brand search results like .coke etc.

Not particularly memorable, esp. for average consumer. (Might not be the case for geos with widespread adoption and lots of real-world advertising, but would really still need a local search engine to tie everything local together).

More characters to type - goes against the shift of using mobile devices and preference of shorter URLs (see status, URL shorteners, .uk launch, general simplicity and likelihood of typos).

Strikes me as a novelty thing more than anything else.

 

[foz]

I voted 50/50 which I still stand by (at the moment) although if the trend continues in the direction I feel it is going it, I consider V2 .uk would not go ahead!

Voted likewise 50/50. As V2 is so domainer friendly, no trademark queuing or auctions, a domainers dream come true if you don't have a current stake in .co.uk. So I suspect this is why the poll as turned out top heavy in favour.

 

[Edwin]

Does anyone know precisely why the Germans don’t see the new gTLDs as a threat?

Language is definitely part of it. The highest profile new GTLD extensions tend to be English extensions in the main, so German companies literally couldn't care less.

But I think they can also see through the hype and realise that any extension that only has a few million dollars of marketing budget behind it, launched at the same time as 1,000 other new extensions, will have near-zero impact.

 

[timter51]

Voted likewise 50/50. As V2 is so domainer friendly, no trademark queuing or auctions, a domainers dream come true if you don't have a current stake in .co.uk. So I suspect this is why the poll as turned out top heavy in favour.

All auctions would do is further benefit and bolster the pockets and portfolios of the big domainers / internet marketers, many of whom could out-muscle many small to medium businesses in a domain auction. The rich will just get richer, I genuinely believe the current oldest reg'd idea is about the fairest thing to do. I do agree on trademarks though, that should come into it.

 

[Stephen]

vote?

The choice is ultimately not the boards, the company is owned by the membership and it's the membership that either decides the issue or decides on the board.

Disagree, I think if the board think they can push it through and not loose control of Nominet to the government, I think they will try, unless they think a bit more what is best for the .uk namespace.

I do not think Nominet will go the members and ask them to vote on .uk.

Registrars don't want this as much as people think, well apart from Host Europe to name one.

Agree, I have not seen a big need for .uk apart from Nominet staff.

 

[GreyWing]

I got one of my friends to ring registrars about it and do some canvassing of opinion. They don't like the idea, they said there are no margins in domain sales anymore. They make their money through hosting, extra services.

So bringing in a new .uk extension won't make a bit of difference to them financially as there won't be anymore websites appearing and competition will mean there is no money in the actual domain sale. What will happen is they will spend hundreds of hours helping people with the confusion. They think they will take the brunt of customer confusion, not Nominet. They will have to spend money, not Nominet. If people buy the names, they will have to spend time helping with redirects, not Nominet.

That was the general thrust of their arguments against it, they didn't want it either, was a surprise to me but when they gave their reasons they actually have more to lose than anyone else.

 

[namealot]

Lesley's blog post said...



Does anyone know precisely why the Germans don’t see the new gTLDs as a threat?

The timing of domains starting to become more widely acknowledge not just a fade of the odd geek conveniently coincided with wave of patriotism national pride etc bought about by reunification the enormous growth etc and everyone not wanting to be known as GDR FRG Deutschland . de fitted in perfectly in the early days it was strange you could sell the ,de and sometimes the com was free to reg that has just stuck in germany so they tend not to give a toss about anything else com org net wise are all irrelevant same as all the others coming out

 

[Maccke]

Lesley's blog post said...

Does anyone know precisely why the Germans don’t see the new gTLDs as a threat?

New gTLD's are not even a small threat for the highly popular .DE extension. ALL businesses in German have to use .DE to be taken seriously. .COM is not a competitor so why would any new gTLD be a threat?

In UK, you're taken MORE seriously if using .COM. .COM is more memorable and shorter than .CO.UK (.org.uk and .me.uk), so way quicker to type and the preferred choice among many super brands. This phenomenon doesn't exist in countries where a two letter extension is standard (such as Germany, Sweden and more or less rest of Europe).

Out of five major supermarkets in UK, four use .com instead of .co.uk. A joke? No it's the result of a long domain extension.
Tesco.com, Asda.com, Waitrose.com and Ocado.com use .com VS sainsburys.co.uk using .co.uk.

In Germany and Sweden - ALL supermarkets use the local TLD. It's short and easy to remember and the only choice for a serious brand.

 

[tifosi]

Some big inacuracies, sure you've not just made this up?

In UK, you're taken MORE seriously if using .COM. .COM is more memorable and shorter than .CO.UK (.org.uk and .me.uk), so way quicker to type and the preferred choice among many super brands.

The evidence speaks largely against this for uk based businesses where 60-80% (the figure varies depending on report) state that they prefer the .co.uk domain for their business and .co.uk is widely recognised as the prime tld for businesses, not .com. Nothing to do with domain tld length.

Out of five major supermarkets in UK, four use .com instead of .co.uk. A joke? No it's the result of a long domain extension.
Tesco.com, Asda.com, Waitrose.com and Ocado.com use .com VS sainsburys.co.uk using .co.uk.

Understandable as all these businesses are global (or globally orientated) not purely uk businesses. Asda as a walmart brand needs global significance. Tesco tried its hands in the US, others I think have ambitions in other EU countries or are already there.

As for Germany & Sweden, they have what they have, and have had that from the start.

Less opinions more facts would be better!

 

[retired_member29]

New gTLD's are not even a small threat for the highly popular .DE extension. ALL businesses in German have to use .DE to be taken seriously. .COM is not a competitor so why would any new gTLD be a threat?

In UK, you're taken MORE seriously if using .COM. .COM is more memorable and shorter than .CO.UK (.org.uk and .me.uk), so way quicker to type and the preferred choice among many super brands. This phenomenon doesn't exist in countries where a two letter extension is standard (such as Germany, Sweden and more or less rest of Europe).

Out of five major supermarkets in UK, four use .com instead of .co.uk. A joke? No it's the result of a long domain extension.
Tesco.com, Asda.com, Waitrose.com and Ocado.com use .com VS sainsburys.co.uk using .co.uk.

In Germany and Sweden - ALL supermarkets use the local TLD. It's short and easy to remember and the only choice for a serious brand.

This post in my limited experience is partly why i think .uk in the long run will be a good thing. If it's good enough for Germany and sweden... There must also be factor in what % of business you do internationally and nationally ?. I.e if your business is > 80% national you use local tld but if you were a business with 30% international trade and 70% national you maybe more inclined to use .com, If the extension was a shorter version on the other hand maybe the % of local TLD of uk vs .com would change.

 

[Systreg]

If it's good enough for Germany and sweden...

There's a big difference, see Tifosis last post directly above yours, they haven't changed from .co.de or .co.se, they've always been .de and .se

There must also be factor in what % of business you do internationally and nationally ?. I.e if your business is > 80% national you use local tld but if you were a business with 30% international trade and 70% national you maybe more inclined to use .com, If the extension was a shorter version on the other hand maybe the % of local TLD of uk vs .com would change.

That doesn't make sense to me, some use the .com for doing business internationally, others prefer .co.uk for the national UK market, why would businesses decide to use .uk instead of .com for their international presence? They wouldn't rank anywhere internationally except in Google UK, .uk would be for the UK market as .co.uk already is, not international, they would still use the .com for that.

 

[retired_member29]

There's a big difference, see Tifosis last post directly above yours, they haven't changed from .co.de or .co.se, they've always been .de and .se



That doesn't make sense to me, some use the .com for doing business internationally, others prefer .co.uk for the national UK market, why would businesses decide to use .uk instead of .com for their international presence? They wouldn't rank anywhere internationally except in Google UK, .uk would be for the UK market as .co.uk already is, not international, they would still use the .com for that.

If it was .uk i would put good money on the 60-80% figure being higher. I just thought some business's may be more likely to have a purely .uk domain if it was the shorter one, if not i will go back to the sidelines lol.

So can you confirm that in the long run 3 shorter didgets to 100,000s of business's is a bad thing?

 

[timter51]

They wouldn't rank anywhere internationally except in Google UK, .uk would be for the UK market as .co.uk already is, not international, they would still use the .com for that.

It will be interesting to see how Nominet are working that out with Google, as I understand it they are currently in discussions. As we know, .co.uk is force geotargeted to the UK (you can't change it in GWT, like you can .com, .net etc). Will that be the same with .uk? Or will Nominet look to make .uk a real option for UK companies trading internationally, with Google allowing geotargeting?

 

[DarrenTSO]

I think that if it does go ahead, what you're effectively going to be left once most people are satisfied with the various aspects with is some kind of a managed transition from .co.uk -> .uk.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but of course unless .co.uk is run side by side indefinitely, then there will be rebranding costs for every business that wants to use their grandfathered .uk rather than their .co.uk.

 

[tifosi]

The 60-80% I was just quoting adhoc from a couple of Nominet 'state of the uk' reports they churn out annually. I don't have the exact figures but they're currently in the upper limit of .co.uk being the recognised/preferred uk business tld. I think the greatplacetobe report/site says the same.

Whe I see a .com on the side of a lorry I automatically think global business. Invariably the domain name yields the same result.

 

[Edwin]

In UK, you're taken MORE seriously if using .COM. .COM is more memorable and shorter than .CO.UK (.org.uk and .me.uk), so way quicker to type and the preferred choice among many super brands. This phenomenon doesn't exist in countries where a two letter extension is standard (such as Germany, Sweden and more or less rest of Europe).

Nominet says this about .co.uk: "Since its peak in 2001, making up 93% of the uk registry, .co.uk has remained extremely stable during the last 12 years. Despite a small drop of 2% in 2004, as .org and .me have experienced growth, .co.uk clearly continues to be the preferred choice of SLDs. As .org and .me have gradually declined since 2007, .co.uk has grown steadily to re-establish this 2%, making up almost 93% of the register again in 2012."

On Nominet's AGreatPlaceToBe.co.uk campaign website, they state: ".co.uk [is] the most popular choice of domain for business and enterprise in the UK. 4 in 5 people searching online in the UK prefer .co.uk websites."

All 10 of the top selling car brands in the UK operate from .co.uk websites, as do 12 of the 13 largest newspapers. 63 of the top 100 UK advertisers are on .co.uk domains, and 142 of the top 250 brands in the UK chose .co.uk domains for their websites.

Source: http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/ukpositionpaper.pdf