I took a first look at the new “.uk” top level domain a few weeks ago, but one or two people have asked if they should register one for their company, so here’s a quick recap. I’ve done it in the form of a flowchart to make it easier (click for PDF).
As a campaigner for the removal of compulsory second-level categorisation of “.uk” domains (e.g. “.co.uk”), Stephen Fry moved his website to www.stephenfry.uk immediately, and is being held up as an example of how to change over if you want to …although at the time of writing, Google was still showing www.stephenfry.com as its main result, so don’t expect the rest of the web to catch up with you immediately. And there’s also an issue with compulsory publication of the name and address of the owner of a “.uk” site, if there’s any commercial activity on it. This won’t affect a business like yours, of course, but then again, businesses are the least likely to want to drop the “.co” part of their domain names in the first place.
So, if you’re a “.co.uk” website owner, should you buy the “.uk” version now? Read my original article and take a look at the flowchart to find out.