10 Million .UK Domain Names – And Still Growing

A small – and now famous – company has registered the 10 millionth .uk domain name for their new magazine. Nominet, the operator of the registry, has seen registrations grow at an average rate of 10% per year recently from the 26,000 in existence in 1996, with the first million mark achieved in 2000. The UK domain name is now the second most popular country code suffix in the world after Germany's .de with 15 million registrations.

There are a whole new raft of domains to be launched next year with the forthcoming announcement in May from ICANN on the list of applications for the grant of new generic Top-Level Domains. A huge expansion from the current 22 is expected.

As with all new domain suffixes, this increases the opportunity for cybersquatters as the variety of naming options increases. While the megabrands may solve the problem by buying a domain suffix incorporating their mark, the smaller brand owners will have to watch for cybersquatters.