On 10 June 2014 a new Top Level Domain is being made available by Nominet, the company who currently look after TLD's such as .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk. The new extension is just .uk. So instead of netquality.co.uk we could also register netquality.uk
There have been many new TLD lanches recently but I think this is one of the most significant, for UK businesses of course.
More information can be found on Nominet's .uk launch website.
Such new launches can cause a scramble to register the best domain names for the new extension but fortunately, Nominet have come up with an excellent way to protect current domain owners.
Registering the new domain name is a breeze and can be done with Net Quality for just £1 per month on top of your existing hosting contract.
No need to panic, your domain name is protected. There are seemingly complex rules on this but it comes down to this: if you own the .co.uk domain name you automatically have the right to own the .uk equivalent. So don't fall for all of these fancy and expensive pre-registration deals that some companies are offering.
It is easiest if you do this with the same registrar who looks after your .co.uk domain name. So if it is registered with me, I can register the new one for you. And even better:
You retain the rights to your domain name for five years!
So you don't need to be in any rush to register your .uk domain name. Your rights are protected until 10 June 2019.
As long as nobody has registered one of the existing extensions such as yourdomain.co.uk, yourdomain.org.uk or yourdomain.me.uk then you can register a name with this new extension as easily as you can register a .co.uk name today.
You cannot register before this date so please do not fall for any pre-registration deal. Your rights are protected and it is just a money making scam.