41,000 .uk domains registered during massive drop of second level domains.
Over 41,000 second level .uk domain names were registered last week, the first week they were available to people that didn’t have a matching third-level .uk domain.
Back in 2014, .UK namespace overseer Nominet started allowing people to register second level domains such as example.uk. Before that, they had to register third level domains such as example.co.uk.
For five years, owners of existing third level domains were grandfathered and could register the matching second level domain.
The grandfathering period has ended and the second level domains are now available for registration by anyone.
Nominet says Z.uk was the most contested domain released last week. 80 registrars tried to register it on Friday. (Registrar “Dmitry Morgan” snagged it. That’s not a public registrar.)
Other highly contest domains include law.uk, k.uk and wedding.uk.
Of the 1.8 million newly-released second level domains, 2.26% were registered in the first week. There are a total of 3.65 million second level .uk domains registered so far.
Richard says
Crazy to see that a major insurance group like ZURICH had 5 years to secure the z.uk domain name for $10 /year and just failed to do so.
Whoever is managing their portfolio (which I assume could be pretty big) really dropped the ball in this one.
Sam says
Yes very crazy some great names dropped and who ever manages these domains they didn’t seem to care as people still don’t get .uk they didn’t need to release .uk when we have co.uk which everyone knows it’s going to get confusing with them all split with two people trading on each one… If your going to do it right you need to have the co.uk and .uk
Richard says
There definitely will be lawsuits and high court decisions once some of these companies wake up and realise someone is using the same domain just without the .co… What a mess Nominet.
Bul says
Please explain why you think that 5 years isnt good enough to get some sloppy to get a move on?
Richard says
Doesn‘t matter what I think but I know the British legal system and it‘s just a matter of time before the lawsuits will start.
snoopy1267 says
Why would they care about it? Someone else can pay the renewals on it for the next 20 years.
Shamil Magomedov says
and what’s more surprising is that the owner of the webhosting.co.uk domain who bought them for hundreds of thousands of dollars did not register the same domain in the .UK zone – it looks like the sale of the domain webhosting.co.uk for $ XXX, XXX is fake
Shamil Magomedov says
What a pity I did last week, because I wanted to intercept these exempting domains in the .UK zone from the rester, but as usual I could not intercept anything (((
I have travel.me.uk, news.me.uk, auto.me.uk domains. That before such a general release of domains in .UK zone I could get these domains: travel.uk, news.uk and auto.uk , what do you think?
Richard says
Only the .co.uk domains had grandfathering rights, even if the me.uk or org.uk’s were registered before the .co.uk.
steve says
I picked up a few names in the auction. A few others I let go after the bidding got crazy in the last 5 minutes. Curious to see what the final tally for the .uk sales will be.
I still don’t like the process. I received notification that I had won some super premium key words in the extension, then 2 days later received notice that someone else had won. But that’s what happens with auctions. Maybe blockchain can provide more transparency.
Bul says
Where was the bidding happening?
joesaba2014 says
I just searched for 50 very British keywords and there is a lot to register in (.com) being 48 domains registered and in (.uk) none.
Happy Day. Jose.
Anthony says
Where do you find this data?!
Robert McLean says
The release schedule for Stage One is as follows:
1st July – Batch 1: Domains beginning 0-9, a-b
2nd July – Batch 2: Domains beginning c-f
3rd July – Batch 3: Domains beginning g-m
4th July – Batch 4: Domains beginning n-s
5th July – Batch 5: Domains beginning t-z
crooked
par for the course for the crooked domain name business!