What will deliver more value? Selling .co.uk and .uk as a pair? Splitting them?

[Sound]

I believe they were always going to be sold separately I will sell mine together if asked by buyer but has never happened..

On a side note it cant be healthy to sit at home for nearly three years sending out nearly 50 thousand tweets about something you have no control over seems a total waste of a life....

 

[willbon]

If they're not together they're not going to be super-premium....
IMHO...
I think to be super premium, premium or even a minnow, brand and domain name protection is key.. so I think someone would pay a premium for them together.... or certainly should do!
If they both went to auction, then presumably whoever got the first would also aim for the second... so only naughty domainers would try and intervene to push the second one's price up... I'd guess unless a name had been totally absorbed into the co's brand.. and they'd pay 'silly money' for the second, they'd let it go and rethink the name to something cheaper... and maybe use the one they got for other purposes than the main brand.

However, I do think that we're not far away from .uk supermacy over .co.uk and .co.uk will be an afterthought.....

 

[philiporchard]

Edwin is no idiot, so I'm pretty sure he has a good idea of the facts - even if you disagree with him.

And I'm not sure Doug is only saying that the .uk is the dominant one because he managed to 'nab' a few - unless of course nabbing a few is bidding 50k for a single domain!

These guys are not newbies...

 

[willbon]

Based on what?

IMHO... and .uk is shorter, easier and more flexible.... but that's my opinion...

 

[willbon]

You can't go around saying we're not far off .UK supremacy just because you prefer it. There has to be some sort of somewhat data backed reason.

The reality is, is that .co.uk domain owners have had a long time to consider the .UK versions of their websites and the extremely vast majority of domain owners have thought the .UK isn't version isn't worth it. The mere fact that so many people have been able to grab 'good' .UK domains, shows how most end-users don't care about .UK domains.

Just stop... i said it's my opinion.

 

[WalkinDude]

Reading through the comments seems to me more clearer. There's no right answer cos there's no one type of domainer.

Some are thinking long term. Some Shorter. Some are delighted with opportunity to upgrade their portfolios, some already have portfolios it's difficult to improve upon. Some hardheads won't change from domaining principles they had a decade or more ago. Some are more visionary. You have the winds of the economic uncertainty coming.

Domaining means so many things. Alot of new domainers or recent ones I struggle to see furthering unless they develop as well.

Each year new concepts come into the market that need to be domained, and each year old concepts die. It's probably a modest linear climb of concepts.

There is however only in any useful period a limited no of commercial value domain names - i doubt it's more than 1 in 20 domains, maybe 1 in 50 regardless of optimistic effort that goes into them - I read once it was 14% of domains but that seems far too high to me

I really can't see how you can go wrong with the quality some people have hauled in recently but suppose that also depends on how you define success and failure. But a once in a lifetime change to acquire meaningful notable domains for a fraction of their potential open market value???

Regardless of the wrongs and rights and of how it all came to be, the most interesting aspect for me is it won't happen again. They can introduce yet another UK or .eng TlD but you can't reduce .UK down any further. This was a bonafide one-off.

 

[JMI]

Thanks, loving all the replies. Please keep them coming. Even though there's no overarching concensus it's good to get everyone's input.

(Oh, and just to say I'm not back regularly. If you've seen my Twitter recently you'll know I'm very busy with a certain event that shall not be named. But I will drop back in and see how this thread develops.)

Edwin, I never knew you were such a political animal, looking at your twitter clearly your a bit upset about the UK leaving the EU.

 

[bonusmedia]

If you have two end user buyers, then splitting them ought to worth more, in theory. As a buyer, I'd pay more for a domain I planned to use than one I only wanted for brand protection. That said, I will only buy pairs for now and there will be others who feel the same, so you've got a smaller pool of potential buyers. Your ideal is probably to find one buyer who believes .uk is the future and one who thinks .co.uk is king

I'm not convinced either way, but certainly wouldn't bet against Doug being right.

Looking forward to your book, appreciate your efforts

 

[dougs]

Remember I also own quite a few nice .co.uk's ( most of which we also own .uk), but some I only have the .co.uk. My bets in life are always the same, minimise the downside risk and hope the upside is huge....you need so few upside bets to happen that it can make the losses seem trivial. When .uk's appeared I just took it as an opportunity to make a calculated gamble.

Brexit .... I am not selecting a side ( my views have been public on twitter for over 3 years ) but saying that when dramatic changes happen opportunities appear in abundance for people who are willing to make bets, many bets will be stupid in hindsight but some will be wow. Brexit is such an event.........uk's were such an event