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Most .uk registrants not interested in .uk

Kevin Murphy, March 27, 2019, 14:38:25 (UTC), Domain Registries

The majority of people eligible to register .uk domains at the second level have not yet chosen to do so, according to local registry Nominet.
Numbers the company released this week show that only two million 2LD .uk names have been registered since they first became available five years ago.
That’s despite the fact that the owners of over 10 million domains registered at the third level, such as under .co.uk or .org.uk, had exclusive rights to those names.
Today, the owners of 3.2 million .uk 3LDs have yet to exercise their grandfathered rights, Nominet said.
Those rights expire 0500 UTC June 25 this year.
Nominet plans to ramp up its outreach to affected registrants with radio, print and online ads in May, the company has previously told DI.
If you’re wondering why two million plus 3.2 million does not add up to 10 million, that’s because over the last five years about half of original 10 million domains with grandfathering rights have dropped.
Many will have been re-registered (which does not transfer the rights) or have been replaced with different fresh registrations, which is why Nominet’s total 3LDs under management has only declined from 10.4 million to 9.7 million since 2014.

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Comments (3)

  1. Snoopy says:

    Of those 2 million who took up rights most were robo registered, 75%. The real take up rate is tiny.

  2. Garth says:

    Established sites not changing to .uk
    Sticking with .co.uk or .com
    Like the new gTLDs an unnecessary launch.
    No public appetite.

  3. Matt says:

    Delete the 123reg automatic registrations and that wipes out 1.7 million .uk names none of those registrants chose to register. They where scammed.
    Where is google.uk ? Dead !
    Where is Google.co.uk ? Alive and growing.
    auDA , their auDA Policy Review Panel and Consultants should wake up and not F up the Australian namespace lying to Australians the direct .uk domain name is the most successful when it is not. The .co.uk is the preferred choice.
    Note .uk was also FREE!

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