Nominet wants to fight shrinkage without self-abuse
Nominet has acknowledged that .uk has been shrinking for some time and wants to do something about it without accidentally inviting hordes of spammers and scammers into its zone.
The registry said this week that it is responding to calls from its registrar members by introducing a new .UK Growth Programme, set to launch June 3.
.uk peaked at 13,348,378 domains in July 2019 (that number includes second and third-level registrations) but it’s lost three million since then, reporting 10,371,270 names at the end of March.
Nominet is throwing money at the problem, saying the new program will offer registrars “either a .UK price promotion or marketing campaign funds”. Public details are scant, but the company said:
The marketing option would be competitive, with campaigns selected on their ROI potential, with caps to ensure a variety of members can take part. The promotions route would offer a discount on new registrations across the .UK family for the first year, during a specific month.
But Nominet acknowledged that discounts often lead to increased abuse and/or reg spikes followed by junk drops, and says it want to design its program to minimize these negate effects. How? The registry didn’t say.
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