.uk is just about keeping UK namespace growth positive

[Edwin]

Using Nominet's public stats, I took a look at the evolution of the number of domains in the UK namespace for the past couple of years.
http://www.nominet.uk/news/reports-statistics/

Although the number of second level domains has been dropping pretty consistently, the .uk registration growth has meant that overall the UK namespace has just scraped out growth, even if it's at a historically slow pace. Indeed, apart from a couple of quiet months, there has been tiny but steady growth in overall domain registration numbers just about every month.

In the table below, the second figure is the total for second level registrations + .uk registrations.

Jun-14 10,536,038
Jul-14 10,523,464
Aug-14 10,510,549
Sep-14 10,510,330
Oct-14 10,530,860
Nov-14 10,547,438
Dec-14 10,519,020
Jan-15 10,532,829
Feb-15 10,549,435
Mar-15 10,586,358
Apr-15 10,588,100
May-15 10,571,442
Jun-15 10,574,668
Jul-15 10,597,846
Aug-15 10,596,373
Sep-15 10,596,348
Oct-15 10,618,593
Nov-15 10,641,572
Dec-15 10,637,764
Jan-16 10,660,818
Feb-16 10,678,105
Mar-16 10,711,103
Apr-16 10,718,252
May-16 10,700,029

Of course, the price rise is still fresh - we'll need another 6-12 months of data at least to be able to tell with any degree of certainty whether it will make a difference...

 

[Bailey]

About one domain for every 6 in the population. I wonder what the figure would be like if you took-out the 'Speculative' registrations

 

[Skinner]

I commented to the same effect a while ago when analysing my daily updates, your numbers are more precise and prove it, mine were almost anecdotal.

 

[foz]

So would it be far to say .co.uk is contracting? Do Nominet not release .uk and .co.uk numbers yet?

 

[Edwin]

So would it be far to say .co.uk is contracting? Do Nominet not release .uk and .co.uk numbers yet?

You can find the breakdown by month at the link I posted in the first post (though it's only "third level" and "second level" so .uk vs .co.uk and .org.uk and .ltd.uk etc.)

 

[foz]

You can find the breakdown by month at the link I posted in the first post (though it's only "third level" and "second level" so .uk vs .co.uk and .org.uk and .ltd.uk etc.)

Thanks, overlooked. Cagey of them.

 

[Edwin]

Thanks, overlooked. Cagey of them.

Pragmatic, I think. Last time we had data, I seem to remember that non-.co.uk was about 5% of the second level, so it would make the stats table pointlessly long to break every extension out individually. Anyway, now that the zone files have been released, I'm sure somebody can cook up an exact count if they want...

 

[GUI]

I've just extracted the following from my dataset as a quick guide for second and third level numbers;

uk, 580,861
co.uk, 9,430,941
org.uk, 534,233
me.uk, 95,611
ltd.uk, 7,640
net.uk, 412
plc.uk, 292
sch.uk, 35,322

Second 580,861
Third 10,104,451
Total, 10,685,312

This is from a snapshot as of Monday 6th June.

 

[Edwin]

Fantastic, thanks for going to the trouble to break out the data by extension!

And for anyone who doesn't follow these things so closely, it's worth mentioning that .ac.uk and .gov.uk are not managed by Nominet so they don't show in the overall figures or in the zone files.

 

[namealot]

I wonder what those figures would be if a consideration was names/sites that made profits, or those that where actually useful

 

[foz]

This is from a snapshot as of Monday 6th June.

Thanks for that.

 

[Mark84]

Plenty of tv ads using .uk now, one that doesn't even own the .co.uk

Sixpad.uk was on tv this week during the footbal

.uk is coming through

 

[foz]

Plenty of tv ads using .uk now, one that doesn't even own the .co.uk

Sixpad.uk was on tv this week during the footbal

.uk is coming through

Interesting. I own 8,000 .uk. Only sold one thus far

 

[Mark84]

Interesting. I own 8,000 .uk. Only sold one thus far

I'll dig out other examples if I can remember them but certainly over the last month I'm starting to notice some larger organisations using them instead of going for .co.uk. I've not seen anyone switch though, these were all new sites.

 

[foz]

I'll dig out other examples if I can remember them but certainly over the last month I'm starting to notice some larger organisations using them instead of going for .co.uk. I've not seen anyone switch though, these were all new sites.

I think its new ones coming to market too. http://www.chinaexchange.uk/ comes to mind.

 

[namealot]

Interesting. I own 8,000 .uk. Only sold one thus far

Does that mean since the uk cam onto the market you have only sold 1 co.uk also or buyers of co.uk from you weren’t interested in co,uk /uk as a package or you sold just the co.uk’s but kept uk.?