Nominet, the registry that controls all UK web domain names, is in the process of letting customers know about entitlements to the newly introduced .uk domain names.

What does this mean?

Well, if you already have a .co.uk domain registered, you might be entitled to its .uk equivalent before anyone else has a chance to register it.

So what will happen?

The .uk domains were made available on the 10th June 2014. Around 10 million uk domains have been reserved for existing domain holders, so if for example you registered ‘abcwidgets.co.uk’ prior to the 10th June 2014, you’d have the reserved right to register ‘abcwidgets.uk’!

Great! How long do I have?

The good news is, you don’t have to make your mind up until 10th June 2019. Your entitled domain will be unavailable for general registration until then. You can double check rights to a domain using the Rights Lookup tool here: http://www.dotuklaunch.uk/rights-lookup-tool.

What do I need to do?

If you find out you are entitled to register the .uk equivalent of one of your UK domains, simply get in touch with us and we can register the domain for you in the normal matter. Again, if you don’t want to do this right away, that’s OK too, just remember to do it before 10th June 2019 and that you maintain registration of your qualifying domain(s).