A three-month consultation into the introduction of a new domain for UK web addresses has found that there is not enough support from the business community, leaving Nominet to shelve its plans.
Under the scheme, firms would have been able to have the address ‘company.uk’ instead of ‘company.co.uk’. With naming conventions and URL execution a big part of a successful search engine optimisation, it was widely thought that the take up would be large.
The additional security features being offered for companies switching was also thought to be an attractive prospect. The proposal was that all .uk sites would be harder to hack, as they were all being Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSE).
However, whilst the added DNSSE feature was much lauded, the additional inclusion of a ‘trust stamp’ was not.
Issues raised through the consultation included the additional cost for registering the sites and consumer confusion. Whilst firms appreciated the SEO benefits of a shorter URL, it was feared that both .co.uk and .uk websites running concurrently would muddy the waters for the user.
Though the plans have been stopped, it could only be a temporary thing. A statement released by the not-for-profit domain registry said:
“We are going to explore whether it is possible to present a revised proposal that meets the principles of increasing trust and security and maintaining the relevance of the .uk proposition in a changing landscape.”
The emphasis of the revision is likely to focus on increased security, better pricing and a more coherent registration and verification process.
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