What would you do with a single-letter domain name anyway?

Posted on 15 Mar 2010 at 15:02

If you've ever wanted to turn your initials into a UK web address, you may be about to get your chance. Nominet, the UK's domain registry, has begun an open consultation process on its plans to make one- and two-character .uk domain names available.

A few companies would benefit from this, although the first one that springs to mind, BT, already has a two-letter .co.uk domain, as it registered this before 1996, when Nominet took charge of the UK's domain names.

If the consultation provides a go-ahead for one- and two- letter domains, any domain that has already been reserved will go to the individuals or companies who made those reservations, starting with the holders of registered trademarks.

Obviously, gems like me.co.uk and uk.co.uk will be snapped up as soon as they become available, but it's a good bet that plenty of other, less immediately desirable domains will be bought up by speculators hoping to resell a1.co.uk, 1a.co.uk and any number of similar variations on the theme at an inflated price. However, on a web where obvious and easily identifiable domains rule, it's questionable how helpful many of these short domains will be to their purchasers, regardless of how easy they are to type in a hurry.

Three-letter domain names are already allowed in the .uk namespace, so no-one's about to get lucky with sex.co.uk.

If you want to participate in the open consultation, you can do so at Nominet's website.

Author: Kat Orphanides

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