Nominet Launches .UK Domain Names

On 10 Jun 2014, Nominet (the UK domain names organisation) is launching .UK as a new domain extension. We have 15 years of history of .co.uk, org.uk, and more recently .me.uk so this is quite a shake-up.

Nominet believes that .UK will be shorter, snappier and identify organisations as UK-based in a simpler and more memorable way.

Already own a .uk name?

Nominet recognises that existing owners of .uk names have spent years and millions of pounds building value into their domain names, so they are giving current owners special rights to reserve and register the .uk names.

The equivalent .uk domain names will be automatically reserved for customers until 10th Jun 2019. If not registered by then, the names will be put on general sale for anybody to register.

There is an order of priority:

• .co.uk domain name owners will have first priority to register the equivalent .uk name
• if no equivalent .co.uk domain name exists, the right to reserve and register the equivalent .uk name will be given to the owner of the equivalent .org.uk domain name
• if no equivalent .org.uk domain name exists, the rights fall to the owner of the equivalent .me.uk

You can use Nominet’s Rights Lookup Tool to find out who has the right to reserve and register a name you’re interested in.

How to register

You’ll be able to register your new .UK names through UKcentric in the normal way – online or over the phone. The price will be the same as for .co.uk – £5.99 per year including VAT.

If you have any questions please get in touch.