.uk V2.0 Questions to Nominet & their Answers

[GreyWing]

1) Has the government departments asked for the .uk names to be reserved for them or is this just a proposal by nominet.

Mark, you can stick in a freedom of information request for that. If the Gov have asked nom for anything, it will be there. If not, why have Nom stuck them on the list? That is your best bet mate, Nom won't answer, Gov have to.

 

[Stephen]

buy a domain name now - you will also have a right of refusal .uk?

From Nominet Q & A about V2.0 .uk proposal

http://www.nominet.org.uk/how-participate/policy-development/current-policy-discussions-and-consultations/SLDR-qanda

Q. I am interested in a .co.uk domain name for my business. Should I wait?

A. There’s no reason to wait or not to register a .co.uk domain- they are trusted and popular, and our proposal is not to replace, but to complement the registrations that already exist.
If you buy a domain name now, you may find that in addition to the domain name, you will also have a right of refusal on the corresponding second level domain. If this is important to you, and you would wish to take up a second level registration if available in future, you can check the status of your proposed domain by looking on the WHOIS - remembering to check all of the options under the .uk family.


Do you think a lay person without reading the entire .uk proposal and the several documents, would understand the answer fully?

The Whois tool at Nominet website does not list all UK tld's on that page or have a link to those extensions?

http://www.nominet.org.uk/uk-domain-names/about-domain-names/domain-lookup-whois/whois-tool

 

[Stephen]

Going Forward....

Come on lads, we need to stop talking and asking questions and start fighting for direct.uk to be scrapped.

Most of these questions are unanswerable at this stage because this is a consultation. Nominet (if we assume they're playing this straight) are still deciding what's best.

Now is the time to make suggestions, not ask questions.

Thanks and you are welcome to start a thread, poll or campaign to do just that.

In some of the questions (post #1) are alternative solutions/suggestions framed as questions.

I believe in asking questions and exposing the full story both good and bad about .uk,
so everybody concerned can access a more complete and accurate picture.

Rather just what digest the limited and biased view Nominet create and publish
and then people can decide what they believe is right for the UK namespace.

How can somebody honestly answer the consultation of "for or against .uk" when
they are not provided with all the relevant information on which to base their decision.

I'm grateful for any help in raising any questions either "pro .uk" or "anti .uk"
that create a fuller picture.

It is my intention that if Nominet do not provide answers to these questions,
directly or via the Nominet Q & A page, then I will attempt to get MP's and journalists to obtain the answers for all stakeholders.

 

[julian]

Nominet are saying that they want to release the .uk before the new GLTDs are releases. All that the new GTLDs are going to do is cause confusion to the general public and small businesses, they won't take off and challenge the .co.uk. This in turn will strengthen the existing .co.uk and .com domains as this is what people are used to and understand.

How do you know that to be true?

What's wrong with London.hotels, war.movies, cheap.flights etc

might take a while to gain traction - but the logic is undeniable.

 

[markb]

How do you know that to be true?

What's wrong with London.hotels, war.movies, cheap.flights etc

might take a while to gain traction - but the logic is undeniable.

It's just my opinion. Nothing wrong with your example, but your examples would be difficult to rank in google due to being exact match domains, plus with the cheap.flights domain for example, you'd get people typing in cheapflights.co.uk because that is what they are used to in the uk. Plus the owner of the .co.uk version might take legal action for passing off, if you create a similar site.

 

[Stephen]

Seo -emd

It's just my opinion. Nothing wrong with your example, but your examples would be difficult to rank in google due to being exact match domains, ....

As I understand SEO, exact march domains (EMD's) only have a problem at Google and other search engines, if they do not have quality and relevant content.

It was more that EMD's had the ranking advantage removed that due to the keyword relevant, they used to obtain higher rankings, even if they had little content, that advantage has been removed.

 

[Stephen]

New gTLD's

How do you know that to be true?

What's wrong with London.hotels, war.movies, cheap.flights etc

might take a while to gain traction - but the logic is undeniable.

As domainers we are aware of the situation and I'm sure there are mixed views on how successful the new gTLD's will be.

Out of the 1,000 new gTLD's quite a few I seem to remember reading are for defensive or brand purposes (closed to registration),
whilst a lot were obtained by Amazon and other IT companies who have not made public what they are going to do with them.

Even if a lot of the gTLD's are made to the public/business to register and as you example shows some of them would look great,
for the purpose they are created for, my questions would be:

• how many will be made into websites?
• how many of those websites will make it to top search engines rankings?

So in turn will the new gTLD's.s that can be used by businesses make a dent in the .co.uk dominance in the UK?

I do not think they will make a dent.
Check the directories of businesses in the UK for any industry and see the prominence of .co.uk and lack of .eu, .mobi, .co, .biz etc.
I do however accept there are quite a few .coms listed!

What this all leads to, are Nominet panicking unnecessarily and giving more publicity/credibility to the new gTLD's, which made improve there chances of gaining more of a foothold in the UK?

The above is only a view, whereas it is undeniable that London.hotels, war.movies, cheap.flights would make great websites.

 

[Stephen]

More questions, please

I actually believe there are only two questions to be asked.

What's the benefit ?
What's the cost ?

Thanks.

Question on benefit of .uk was on the list.

Regarding your comment on the cost, I have added this question in the Big Picture section:

"There could be consumer pressure on UK business to obtain the equivalent .uk and adopt it,
so businesses would incur potentially huge re-branding costs, has Nominet undertaken any studies to ascertain if this is likely to happen? "​

If anybody would like to add new questions, edit or suggest removing questions, please post or send me a PM.

Looking to get a good solid list of Questions, ready for the Round Table meeting next week.

 

[Stephen]

Who wins facility?

Added new question in consultation section:

"Why have Nominet not provided a facility to check a domain string and find which UK domain would be the oldest
and which domains would have right if they didn't register the equivalent .uk?"​

 

[getmein]

What is the justification for the premium in pricing for .uk?

What does Nominet believe the initial and long term take up of .uk to be?

What are they going to do with all the extra income?

What will they do about the short domains - using date here would be extremely unfair to those who have spent a substantial amount of money as they could not have anticipated the additional value that a date stamp might provide under these circumstances. How then will they resolve this? Within this group - it's safe to say that the registrants of co.uk/me.uk./org.uk will all want to obtain rights to the corresponding .uk. If they can't use date, then they will likely want to choose another method - what will that be (e.g. co.uk gets first right, auctions, name in a hat!) and will it be inconsistent with what they propose for the rest of the release

 

[monaghan]

What is the justification for the premium in pricing for .uk?

What are they going to do with all the extra income?

I see no justification for the increase, after all, it is a week or 2's work to change the registration systems then the rest is on automatic pilot.

Nominet is not for profit and has a very large bank balance and shifts lots of this into bonus schemes and into the Nominet trust and supporting the .wales domain, they do not need any more cash, so I guess even more will go into the bonus and trust so that they keep the books realistic for a NFP.

 

[Nigel]

I would be interesting to find out what date the .sch.uk domains are recorded as registered on. The whois is recorded against the thirst level but I am unable to find any record as to the second level.

If it is 1st October 1999 which is when the domains for schools initiative seemed to launch then the following domains people would be trumped by the .sch.uk

barnsley.co.uk
brighton-hove.co.uk
gloucs.co.uk
scilly.co.uk
leics.co.uk
n-yorks.co.uk
rotherham.co.uk
bathnes.org.uk
bromley.org.uk
calderdale.org.uk
cambs.org.uk
stockton.org.uk
tameside.org.uk
wrekin.org.uk

I have only ran the English domains so far.

Interesting study - thanks for that information. Just highlights the absurd situation where a .sch.uk owner might end up getting the .uk. The sch.uk tells everyone that this is a school/educational domain whereas .uk won't give you a clue as to the status of the owner (i.e. under nominets proposed chaotic plan it might be a business, charity, personal use etc). If the .sch.uk owner did get the domain I wouldn't be surprised to see them selling it at a later date because the .sch.uk is far better for their use.

I checked some of those on your list and none of the.sch.uk equivalents that I checked resolved to any website - I doubt that many will apply for the .uk but silly situation even contemplating allowing .sch.uk to participate in .uk

 

[monaghan]

I doubt that many will apply for the .uk but silly situation even contemplating allowing .sch.uk to participate in .uk

Why? If the Internet and technology is the way forward and being pushed more and more in the curriculum, then why shouldn't a school take the leading UK internet "name"? After all, an academy is a business who just happens to also teach a few kids as part of the business portfolio, more and more schools are being pushed down the academy route by the current government, many primary schools are also going down the academy route, I've already had 1 customer working on their re-branding away from the county provided .sch.uk name onto their .org.uk domain.

 

[Nigel]

Why? If the Internet and technology is the way forward and being pushed more and more in the curriculum, then why shouldn't a school take the leading UK internet "name"? After all, an academy is a business who just happens to also teach a few kids as part of the business portfolio, more and more schools are being pushed down the academy route by the current government, many primary schools are also going down the academy route, I've already had 1 customer working on their re-branding away from the county provided .sch.uk name onto their .org.uk domain.

I personally would prefer to see schools or educational establishments using .sch.uk or .org.uk - In the same way I think a lot of charities will be very loath to use the .uk (i.e. a lot of them presently own the .co.uk version of their domain but virtually all of them redirect it to their .org.uk version)

 

[foz]

Question to Nominet;

What is the current average length of a .co.uk domain name? In context to the proposed shortening of the .uk extension, what advantage in relation to this number is gained when the domain itself is so long?

We are talking two digits here (.co) and their only argument to release .uk thus far.

 

[tifosi]

Why? If the Internet and technology is the way forward and being pushed more and more in the curriculum, then why shouldn't a school take the leading UK internet "name"? After all, an academy is a business who just happens to also teach a few kids as part of the business portfolio, more and more schools are being pushed down the academy route by the current government, many primary schools are also going down the academy route, I've already had 1 customer working on their re-branding away from the county provided .sch.uk name onto their .org.uk domain.

Apathy, ignorance and governance. The take up will probably reflect the voting stats for a local government election...

 

[monaghan]

I personally would prefer to see schools or educational establishments using .sch.uk or .org.uk - In the same way I think a lot of charities will be very loath to use the .uk (i.e. a lot of them presently own the .co.uk version of their domain but virtually all of them redirect it to their .org.uk version)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of the .uk proposals, I think the "co" "org" "sch" "ac" and so on add a huge level of value to the UK brand and define the use of the domain, however, if .uk goes ahead as proposed, then all should be able to use it and have the chance of getting it if they have the oldest registration.

 

[Nigel]

Ok - I just looked at the use of a couple of .sch.uk domains i.e. herts.sch.uk and Essex.sch.uk and they're used by the schools in their county for their websites. So you'll see results like this:

www.st-maryscofe.essex.sch.uk

Now I have no idea whether Essex.sch.uk is first in line for the .uk - but if it was, and if they went for the .uk then I assume that this school would move over to the domain

www.st-maryscofe.essex.uk

In my mind it would be a mistake to use that website address. Visitors would not know that this was a school at first glance - it could easily be a church.

 

[monaghan]

Ok - I just looked at the use of a couple of .sch.uk domains i.e. herts.sch.uk and Essex.sch.uk and they're used by the schools in their county for their websites. So you'll see results like this:

www.st-maryscofe.essex.sch.uk

Now I have no idea whether Essex.sch.uk is first in line for the .uk - but if it was, and if they went for the .uk then I assume that this school would move over to the domain

www.st-maryscofe.essex.uk

In my mind it would be a mistake to use that website. Visitors would not know that this was a school at first glance - it could easily be a church.

Agreed, the .sch does clearly identify as a school, but why shouldn't the school be able to get st-maryscofe.uk? If they had registered the .org.uk or .co.uk at the time, then they would be able to get it via the proposals, that still wouldn't clear up the confusion over the organisation behind the domain which is why we shouldn't be dropping the current naming convention, if anything we should be opening up more options under .uk not restricting them.

 

[markb]

How do you know that to be true?

What's wrong with London.hotels, war.movies, cheap.flights etc

might take a while to gain traction - but the logic is undeniable.

Does anyone know who's buying what GLTDs and what they are buying them for, as mentioned a lot of big companies will be buying their own for brand purposes, but what about generics, for example "Movies"? I would suspect it would be investors who buy generic names, and then will probably reserve the best names and sell them off for a premium to make a profit. I don't think people would be able to register really good names at a reasonable price.