Nominet Inquires Into .UK’s Origins

Nominet, the Internet registry for .uk domain names, has launched an appeal to find out the identity of the first .uk domain name registered, just over 25 years ago.

The registry’s director of marketing Phil Kingsland spoke on the matter at Nominet’s annual registrars’ meeting at the Science Museum in London on Thursday, according to reports.

Created in 1985

The .uk domain was created in 1985, with Nominet officially celebrating the domain’s anniversary on 24 July. However, Nominet itself wasn’t created until 1996, by which time there were already more than 25,000 .uk domain names registered.

Previous to Nominet’s formation, registrations were handled manually by a voluntary “Naming Committee”, consisting of members of the London Internet Exchange (LINX). The committee allowed the registration of .uk domains without a secondary domain such as .co.uk or .org.uk, a practice that was prohibited by Nominet.

Some of the original .uk domain names remain, such as mod.uk (the Ministry of Defence) or parliament.uk (the Houses of Parliament).

The first .com domain, registered on 15 March 1985, was Symbolics.com, followed in April 1985 by BBN.com and in May 1985 by Think.com.

Nominet also reported a surge in .uk registrations, reaching levels comparable with those in the dot-com boom era, to the point where .uk has replaced China’s .cn as the second largest country domain after Germany’s .de.

Registration boom

New .uk annual registrations are expected to hit two million for the first time this year, with March 2010 the busiest month for new .uk registrations since the .com boom, Nominet said in its fourth annual Domain name industry report, published last week.

The organisation found that 80 percent of consumers in the UK prefer to use a .uk website over a .com website, up 3 percent on 2009. The .uk domain is expected to reach nine million registrations overall by the end of the year.

Earlier this month Nominet announced plans to release 2,831 new short .uk domain names, giving companies the chance to bid for single character domains, such as 1.co.uk, and two letter domains, such as aa.co.uk.

According to Nominet, these short domains have previously been held back for technical reasons. However, following a policy review and a public consultation, the domains are now being made available.