analysis .UK Buyers Have Overpaid

[Business Brands]

Individuals who purchased recently released .uk domain names from auction have overpaid. They will either lose money or brake even, the probability of turning a profit is at around zero.

 

[jmcc]

Are you sure all of those are redirecting to .co.uk? I ask this because a person or script analyzing .UK domains may well have forgotten not to include the websites that are forcing redirects to the WWW subdomain. 13% seems pretty high to me.

The top 10 matched (same domain name stub in other TLDs) redirects 8.89% are:
.co.uk 167,249 (7.94%)
.com 12,869
.org.uk 3,977
.org 546
.net 505
.eu 382
.me.uk 320
.de 277
.co 207
.nl 176

The external TLD redirects which don't match the domain names in other TLDs: 19,388 (0.93%)

The internal (same site) redirects are at 0.84%

The HTTPS redirects (the site redirects to the HTTPS version) are at 1.54%.

The same zone redirects are at 1.12%

Unclassified redirects are at 0.36%.

The .CO.UK subdomain is the most used subdomain in the ccTLD. This pattern of brand protection redirects is exactly what would be expected with a newly launched TLD or subdomain targeting the same market.

Most of the names in question are not "brands" but simply keywords, and it's unlikely someone with webserver.co.uk is also going to need to spend a premium on webserver.uk, since Webserver is not a company name.

The .UK domain names are quite diverse and though there are generic domain names in the set, many are not generic. This is a survey of all 2,105,428 .UK domain names and their websites. There were 3,605,478 .UK domain names registered but 1,500,050 were not in the zonefile as they had no nameservers.

I would be interested to see examples of businesses that redirect their .uk domains to .co.uk.

That would require surveying the non .UK domain names and their websites. That's approximately 9.24 million domain names.

Regards...jmcc

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I would be interested to see examples of businesses that redirect their .uk domains to .co.uk.

Here's one https://hsbc.uk

Doh it seems that this doesn't work, it only works if you type hsbc.uk into chrome and press enter.

 

[The Durfer]

I think he means they have been using the .co.uk already and feels this is more business like for the uk then just .uk is. I could be wrong, but still will catch a lesser value than .com anyway.

 

[The Durfer]

What about the chinese number game also?

 

[MapleDots]

Now there is one trouble spot for .uk that nobody has mentioned yet.
Just like .eu there would be trouble if the union broke apart.

Most countries don't have to worry about that because they are a single entity but if the uk breaks apart for any reason then an investor owning thousands of these would have a problem.

 

[JagG]

I believe that shopping.uk was £45k. I can confirm that the purchaser of that name certainly doesn't feel like they overpaid, they're extremely pleased with the purchase by the sounds of things. Great name.

Yeah, was £45k Ref: https://www.brandwise.co.uk/Biggest_UK_Domain_Name_Sales.html

 

[MapleDots]

The question is would you want to if you are no longer part of the eu?

Same thing with uk... if there is no uk then it would no longer make sense.

The risks are pretty minimal but with the moron they just put into power one never knows.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

but with the moron they just put into power

Which rags are you reading?

 

[MapleDots]

Which rags are you reading?

The equivalent to our National Enquirer
https://www.mirror.co.uk/

Seriously though Boris Johnson does not sound like he is too stable either.
The UK is a union of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That being the key, a union so hopefully that will continue regardless of the leader that is elected.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I think we're all ignoring the fact that they had a referendum on it 2 seconds ago. They can't have another one until Nicola sTURDgeon (yes I added a d) gets what she wants. If it wasn't moaning about leaving the EU, they would be finding some other bs reason why they should have another referendum because something "changed".

The same people that moan about leaving the EU are the same people that moan about independence like a broken record.

Most people I know think that Boris is great and can't wait for him to deliver brexit.

 

[xynames]

Last year I sold a .com for high five figures to a Canadian outfit that had recently acquired the exact equivalent in .ca for registration fee. Didn't matter, they paid up.

And now we have a SECOND country extension .uk for yet another country where even the original .co.uk hasn't done that well over time to begin with.

So you tell me, whether it's a good idea to load up and pay high prices for .ca .co.uk or .uk

Is there a .ca .co.uk or .uk that has sold for even a high fraction of its equivalent .com ? Or is it more that .ca .co.uk have been steadily DECLINING in value which would imply that after an initial runup from investors piling into .uk that .uk will too follow suit, with declines.

 

[MapleDots]

Most people I know think that Boris is great and can't wait for him to deliver brexit.

See, everything I read across the pond here in Canada portrays him as a bumbling idiot.
So I was thinking... great all we need is another idiot running the country.

Then again, I should not criticize Boris, or Trump on the US side because our Trudeau is just as bad. His answer to any issue is to take of his shirt and snap a selfie of himself. If that does not work he can pick a weaker opponent and step in the boxing ring pretending he was tough.

Now before a moderator deletes this post the discussion about the state of the UK is spot on when discussing the .uk extension because if the Union breaks up they will have to make a new extension for England and the value of the .uk would go down exponentially.

So if I lived in England and was a domain collector with a lot of .uk domains I would have a vested interest in a stable, capable politician at the helm.

 

[MapleDots]

So you tell me, whether it's a good idea to load up and pay high prices for .ca .co.uk or .uk

Is there a .ca .co.uk or .uk that has sold for even a high fraction of its equivalent .com ? Or is it more that .ca .co.uk have been steadily DECLINING in value which would imply that after an initial runup from investors piling into .uk that .uk will too follow suit, with declines.

Nobody is comparing the ccTLD's to the com. In most cases the com will be taken and the ccTLD is a viable second choice. It is BECAUSE they are more economically priced that they are a decent investment. You can buy them at a reasonable price and then sell them between 5 and 10 k. With a com you are not even in the ball park at that price.

So yes, I see your point but it the coms are so far out of reach for a lot of people and businesses that the ccTLD looks quite inviting. As an investor a quick 5k or so can be a decent sale in between the hugely anticipated looooooooooooong wait for the million dollar .com sale

 

[tonyk2000]

Well, for all domains in question the following is true:
1) corresponding .co.uk exists
2) the owner of .co.uk did not bother to acquire .uk even though he had a priority right to

So, I am wondering how many _endusers_ in .uk will develop the .uk if they do not own .co.uk as a pair, and also pay premium price for .uk? At least initially they will just deliver free traffic to competing .co.uk

 

[D Haynes]

Last year I sold a .com for high five figures to a Canadian outfit that had recently acquired the exact equivalent in .ca for registration fee. Didn't matter, they paid up.

And now we have a SECOND country extension .uk for yet another country where even the original .co.uk hasn't done that well over time to begin with.

So you tell me, whether it's a good idea to load up and pay high prices for .ca .co.uk or .uk

Is there a .ca .co.uk or .uk that has sold for even a high fraction of its equivalent .com ? Or is it more that .ca .co.uk have been steadily DECLINING in value which would imply that after an initial runup from investors piling into .uk that .uk will too follow suit, with declines.

In what way do you mean .co.uk hasn't done that well? It's certainly been adopted as much as if not more than .com here in England. Its a strong market on a local scale which is exactly what they are for.

Of course .Com names will sell for more because there is a vastly larger international user base for them.

As for .Uk I think the demand isn't there at the moment and some of the prices that have been paid by investors are probably higher than an end user would pay atm but I think its popularity will increase over time. A lot of problems may arise though for sites that don't own both variants.

Most of these points have been made as I typed this post.

 

[tonyk2000]

In a few years when .uk becomes more prevalent they will see the light and wonder if their .co.uk is available as a shorter .uk. They will be surprised to see a domain investor own it and at that time the haggling will begin.

UK or not, but if a domain investor in registering something with just one potential buyer in mind (.co.uk owner for example) - then the domain investor is not doing the right thing. Imho.

 

[MapleDots]

UK or not, but if a domain investor in registering something with just one potential buyer in mind (.co.uk owner for example) - then the domain investor is not doing the right thing. Imho.

I'm talking mostly about prime dictionary words.

fast.co.uk and I own fast.uk

I'm not necessarily targeting fast.co.uk because the word is generic and has a multitude of uses. As an investor I would not target fasteddies.co.uk by buying fasteddies.uk. That domain would target one client and never make it on the list of a good investor. Fast.uk or FastShip or something like that would be a viable investment.

As I said before though, I would be trying to buy up as many single words as I could get my hands on if I were living in the UK.

 

[jmcc]

they just announced
that the British can keep the .eu
even when they might leave the eu

The .EU ccTLD needs all the registrations that it can get and losing about 250K UK .eu registrations in November 2019 would not be good. There are indications of some registrars offering proxy services to registrants. Even the German .eu figure has been declining for some years now. At one time, it was over a million domain names. The number of .UK registrations was 3.61 million at the end of June. In five years it is larger than the .EU ccTLD. Admittedly, the .UK figures have been helped by registrar bulk registrations and the effect of those registrations will only be seen at renewal time next year.

Regards...jmcc

 

[The Durfer]

I have a bunch and on 4.cn as well. I think you definately need to be a Chinese speaker to crack those numbers. Lucky numbers alone don't seem to work.

All i know is they dont like 0 &4 and double and triple numbers are the bomb