Shorter .UK Web Address To Replace Some Sites Next Year

New .uk web addresses are looking to be introduced next summer as an alternative to .co.uk and .org.uk domains. Nominet, the non-profit organisation in charge of the naming system, said bringing in the shorter suffix was the biggest change for years.

The domain name can be used in addition to or instead of an existing address. Websites who already have a .co.uk or .org.uk site will be refused for up to five years. Brand new .uk web addresses, where there is no existing equivalent, will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis.

Where one person owns the .org.uk domain name and another owns the .co.uk, priority will go to the owner of the .co.uk site. Nominet had initially scrapped the plans amid concerns that .uk domains would be confusing for some users, but is now going ahead with the scheme. The new domains will cost £3.50 per year for one-year registrations and £2.50 per year for multi-year registrations.

Many countries already have a similar system, including France, which uses the .fr extension, and Germany, where websites are given the .de suffix. It was also announced last week that London is to get its own web suffix. The number of generic top-level domains, such as.com and .org, is set to expand massively from 22 to more than 1,400.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers agreed the move last month, saying it wanted to “promote global innovation, competition and consumer choice”.

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