The .UK revolution

[cloud]

You will be trying to buy switch.uk next

I mean... I wouldn't say no...

MasterCard own it though

I registered both switchto and switchedto at the same time when I thought of creating that microsite.

 

[cloud]

Nice to see the job seeker website Zoek advertising on TV with the domain Zoek.uk. A decent one for the list for .UK exposure-wise.

 

[rocket]

I can't imagine anybody wanting diving.uk for £450 but someone obviously wanted it for £452 so there we go. The buyer, whom you will all note from the WHOIS now, is not a noob in the domain industry. I think that in itself is a good marker for how .uk is doing and how it will do. I regret auctioning diving.uk so soon, I think I'd have rather held on to it for a while and developed something on it then sold it. I think it will sell for 10 times the price it sold for.

All I've heard from people like OP all week is the same drivel, yet people are buying these domains. Just today I had a meeting with an associate in business who knows .uk is about to kick off and I'm now partnering with to supply .uk domains to his customers in bulk. These are end users. The market is there, if you don't know how to sell the product maybe you're in the wrong industry. Get with the times or be left behind.

I have the domain boatdiving.com

 

[super-whois]

NHS moved to .uk lol. When did that happen?

They had it before 1996.

 

[cloud]

How when .uk launched in 2014?

There were some names that existed early on. I remember the days when there was nhs.uk, bl.uk and bt.uk. I can't remember any more tbh. I think that these names were already delegated and then they introduced .co.uk.

 

[Murray]

How when .uk launched in 2014?

Wasn't publicly available but gov.uk, ac.uk, sch.uk, police.uk etc were all in use

 

[diablo]

There were some names that existed early on. I remember the days when there was nhs.uk, bl.uk and bt.uk. I can't remember any more tbh. I think that these names were already delegated and then they introduced .co.uk.

nls.uk is another.

 

[LCHappy]

Wasn't publicly available but gov.uk, ac.uk, sch.uk, police.uk etc were all in use

.uk's were once available publicly. There are still a few private .uks from that time knocking about. .uk's were the original platform, they changed it to .co.uk but left the original .uk's to continue. Was very early on, pre Nominet and only for a short time.

https://whois-search.com/whois/bl.uk being one

 

[jmcc]

People need to be very careful, at the moment we're in a bull market driven by hype, off the back of a few over ambitious DL bids.

Was looking at the patterns of new .UK registrations over June 2019 by nameservers/hoster. The bulk of new registrations seem to be concentrated on the 1&1 nameservers. (80.87% of new .UK on UI-DNS.COM). One of the important things in a land rush for a new TLD or subdomain are the percentages going straight to PPC/sales.

SEDOPARKING.COM 8,931 1.14%
UNDEVELOPED.COM 2,085 0.27%
BODIS.COM 1,263 0.16%
PARKINGCREW.NET 887 0.11%
BUYNAMES.CO.UK 141 0.02%
BUYDOMAINNAMES.CO.UK 141 0.02%
UNIREGISTRYMARKET.LINK 90 0.01%
AFTERNIC.COM 72 0.01%
VOODOO.COM 72 0.01%
CASHPARKING.COM 23 0.00%

As expected, the numbers of brand protection hosters is relatively hight. But there is some diversity in the kinds of hosters with a lot of one domain name registrations. By comparing the number of .UK domain names on a hoster and the number of .co.uk/etc on the same hoster, it is possible to estimate a sort of prior rights percentage. Some of the domain sales sites don't seem to move domain names for sale to their own nameservers. The interesting thing was the low number on Godaddy's PPC parker.

It might be worth doing a web usage and development survey on the .UK domain names to establish which are developed, holding pages/PPC/sales and which are redirects. Luckily it is only about 3.61 million domain names for the .UK to the end of June.

Regards...jmcc

 

[jmcc]

Some more work on the end of June .UK set:
In zone: 2,105,428 (There's approximately 1.5M no nameserver domain names.)

These percentages are based on presurvey figures from DNS and website lookups and IP records.

No site: 22.75%
Survey set: 35.26% (these are the sites to be checked)
Holding pages: 25.24%
PPC: 6.50%
Redirects: 8.92%
Sale: 1.33%

The survey crunch will reduce that 35.26% considerably. The interesting thing is the high level of redirects so far. Basically there's a lot of redirection to active websites in this and it may be to the registrant's primary website (typically .co.uk or .com).

Regards...jmcc

 

[domainscot]

Looks like good % of those.Uk domains that sold auction still with original catchers. Wonder why taken so long to tranfer to new owners or is it the dropcatchers bidding on own domains to set a value on .UK domains.

 

[Murray]

Looks like good % of those.Uk domains that sold auction still with original catchers.

I just looked at some of the biggest sales, looks like the majority have been transferred?

Glasgow and Edinburgh notably haven't

Gay says "This sale was not completed." on the auction page

 

[twostepsbehind]

Saw an advert on the tube today for: kakaofriends.uk - no idea what is it

But a £xx,xxx marketing campaign for a .uk ! Good exposure surely

It redirects to a .com - but the .co.uk is parked on a hosting page

 

[dee]

Looks like good % of those.Uk domains that sold auction still with original catchers. Wonder why taken so long to tranfer to new owners or is it the dropcatchers bidding on own domains to set a value on .UK domains.

I just looked at some of the biggest sales, looks like the majority have been transferred?

Glasgow and Edinburgh notably haven't

Gay says "This sale was not completed." on the auction page

Very unlikely to get away with schill bidding on DL , as was the case on a sale that got ran up and then reset recently. The seller on all of those mentioned ( gay, edinburgh, glasgow) is known and doubt would trash reputation for a few grand.

 

[Alien]

It amazes me how many people got sucked into this .UK bs that's going on right now.

I must admit I'm surprised at the prices some of the domains are going for on DLORE, etc. I just don't (personally) think some of them are worth the money they are fetching. But great for the sellers! Perhaps the bubble will burst? Perhaps it will fly high....!

 

[newguy]

I must admit I'm surprised at the prices some of the domains are going for on DLORE, etc. I just don't (personally) think some of them are worth the money they are fetching. But great for the sellers! Perhaps the bubble will burst? Perhaps it will fly high....!

As with any domain it depends what you do with it. If the answer is 'nothing' (as is often the case!) then you are likely right, but if there is a plan or a passion involved it's certainly an opportunity. It's either .co.uk or .uk, it's not like another uk based opportunity like this is about to arrive anytime soon. It's a gamble, certainly, but one that is interesting to watch pan out.

 

[DaveP]

It's basic psychology.

.co.uk has more than 20 years head start on .uk. Over those years UK businesses have collectively spent billions (if not trillions) on marketing and advertising.

They're not all going to dump years of work they've put into their marketing and brand awareness in favour of switching to the .uk, this would mean they would have to spend again on their marketing and that's possibly a cost the majority aren't able to or willing to spend.

Consumers and business owners alike have been conditioned to .co.uk and .org.uk for the most part. It's been engrained into their minds far longer than .uk. I'm fairly sure most consumers don't even know .uk is now it's own thing. That kind of conditioning doesn't change over night and it's unlikely to ever change.

You're all trying to convince yourselves that .uk is going to succeed as you have pound signs flashing in your eyes, and you're blinded by the cold harsh truth that .uk will never supersede .co.uk.

 

[JMI]

It's basic psychology.

.co.uk has more than 20 years head start on .uk. Over those years UK businesses have collectively spent billions (if not trillions) on marketing and advertising.

They're not all going to dump years of work they've put into their marketing and brand awareness in favour of switching to the .uk, this would mean they would have to spend again on their marketing and that's possibly a cost the majority aren't able to or willing to spend.

Consumers and business owners alike have been conditioned to .co.uk and .org.uk for the most part. It's been engrained into their minds far longer than .uk. I'm fairly sure most consumers don't even know .uk is now it's own thing. That kind of conditioning doesn't change over night and it's unlikely to ever change.

You're all trying to convince yourselves that .uk is going to succeed as you have pound signs flashing in your eyes, and you're blinded by the cold harsh truth that .uk will never supersede .co.uk.

I would have 100% agreed with you 12 months ago. I think its just an awareness thing.

When we get taken out on the minibus on day release, we're on the motorway and I'm looking out the window and seeing more and more man-and-a-van using bloggselectrician.uk, bloggscatering.uk. I'm seeing it on daytime TV. Market awareness is slightly up and it will probably snowball within a 1-3 years. Don't underestimate what goes on on this forum in terms of affecting and impact on the nation's favourite extension.

But I agree with you, that right now .co.uk is 95% but I think there will be a tipping point - around 1-3 years, and all the sys-admins who binned .uk off are going to be in a world of hurt when the owners look to switch..

 

[RobM]

Pointless arguing about what might happen. If .uk takes off and you have nice uk domains - kaching. If it doesn't in a few years - let them go. Better to try and fail than fail to try in my opinion. Obviously if you're spending lots of money on that you're lowering your potential profit margins and increasing your risk. I think there is a 'bubble' borne out by some of the poor uks now appearing but I think the main players have got the domains they really want to sit on or develop.

 

[jmcc]

Pointless arguing about what might happen. If .uk takes off and you have nice uk domains - kaching. If it doesn't in a few years - let them go. Better to try and fail than fail to try in my opinion. Obviously if you're spending lots of money on that you're lowering your potential profit margins and increasing your risk. I think there is a 'bubble' borne out by some of the poor uks now appearing but I think the main players have got the domains they really want to sit on or develop.

It is the classic Land Rush period for a few TLD. The prices haven't really stabilised and a secondary market hasn't taken shape. The registration patterns are also abnormal and won't stabilise for another few months. There is an artificial inflation element with the numbers due to the registrar land grab and that's giving people a false view of development/usage in the subdomain.

Regards...jmcc