This hub answers thirty common UK domain-name questions with dated, sourced facts: Nominet runs .uk and .co.uk, wholesale is £3.90 per year ex-VAT (frozen since January 2020), and retail renewals vary widely. We lead with three widely misunderstood topics: .co.uk is not a top-level domain, .io remains operational in mid-2026, and domain flipping is legal but cybersquatting is not. Last reviewed June 2026.
Consumer help · Last reviewed June 2026
Dated answers to UK domain, registrar and DNS questions, built for consumers and answer engines. Vendor-neutral: criteria, not rankings.
Last reviewed: June 2026. dateModified: 2026-06-04.
These topics are often misunderstood in generic advice. Each has a dedicated reference page.
No. The top-level domain is .uk (the UK's country-code TLD). .co.uk sits under .uk: Nominet registers .uk names at the second level, while a name like example.co.uk is registered within the .co second-level domain. So .co.uk is effectively a third-level registration under the .uk TLD. (Nominet, 2018.)
Read the full answer →.io is fully operational and safe as of June 2026. ISO 3166-1 still lists IO unchanged; no IANA or ICANN delegation change. The UK and Mauritius signed a Chagos treaty on 22 May 2025, but sovereignty transfer is not complete. Developing situation; last reviewed June 2026. (ICANN, 2024; House of Commons Library, 2026.)
Read the full answer →No. Buying and reselling domains, domain flipping, is legal in the UK. What is unlawful is cybersquatting: registering a name in bad faith to exploit someone's trade mark or goodwill. Disputes over .uk names are handled by Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service; the Trade Marks Act 1994 and passing-off law also apply. (Nominet, n.d.; Trade Marks Act 1994.)
Read the full answer →Yes. Almost anyone worldwide can register an available .co.uk; there is no UK-residency requirement. Nominet requires only valid, contactable details and a postal address that can receive mail. You register through a Nominet-accredited registrar, not from Nominet directly. (Nominet, 2025.)
Choose an accredited registrar, search availability, and provide accurate registrant contact data.
Neither is technically better. Both are equal members of the .UK family, share the same wholesale price, and carry the same trust and SEO value in the UK. .co.uk is longer but far more established; .uk is shorter and more modern. Choose .co.uk for familiarity, .uk for brevity; many businesses hold both. (Nominet, 2025.)
Many brands register both and redirect one to the other for brand protection.
Nominet's wholesale price for any .uk or .co.uk is £3.90 per year ex-VAT (frozen since 13 January 2020). Retail varies widely: first-year teasers from about £0.01 to £3.99, while honest standard and renewal prices for .co.uk typically run roughly £8 to £22 a year inc-VAT depending on registrar. Always check the renewal price, not the headline. (Nominet, 2026; registrar pricing, 2026.)
Wholesale is what registrars pay Nominet; retail is what you pay the shop. Promotional first years often rise sharply on renewal.
Few. There is no residency requirement, but you must give accurate, contactable details and a valid address. Names use a to z, 0 to 9 and hyphens (3 to 63 characters, with hyphen-position rules). The 2014 to 2019 reserved-rights period for existing .co.uk holders ended at 06:00 BST on 25 June 2019. (Nominet, 2018; Nominet, 2019.)
Reserved-rights rules no longer block new .uk registrations for legacy .co.uk owners.
Yes. Anyone worldwide can register an available .uk through any Nominet-accredited registrar, with no residency requirement. Search the name, provide valid contact details and an address, pay the registrar's price (1 to 10-year terms), and it is yours to renew. (Nominet, 2025.)
This answer consolidates related questions about buying .uk from Nominet directly (you cannot; use a registrar) and general purchase steps. See also our sections on cost and registrar choice.
Also covers related questions consolidated in this section.
Nominet UK, founded in 1996, is the official non-profit registry that operates the entire .UK namespace, including .co.uk. Nominet maintains the central register and DNS infrastructure; it does not sell directly to the public, accredited registrars do that. (Nominet, 2025.)
Registrars are retailers; Nominet is the wholesale registry operator.
For a UK audience, .co.uk or .uk signals you are British and trading locally, which builds trust and can help local SEO; .com is the global default, best if you trade internationally. Neither ranks inherently higher in search. Many UK businesses register both and redirect one to the other. (Nominet, 2025.)
Match the extension to where your customers are, not generic SEO myths.
A .co.uk domain is any UK web address ending in .co.uk, for example bbc.co.uk or yourbusiness.co.uk. The part before .co.uk is your chosen name; .co.uk marks it as a UK site.
Yes, for UK audiences. .uk is the official ccTLD, run by Nominet, trusted, and the sixth-largest TLD in the world, about 10.2 million domains under management at 31 March 2025, a 52.0% share of the UK market. Short, credible and competitively priced. For purely international brands, .com may suit better. (Nominet, 2025; Verisign, 2025.)
Market share figures come from Nominet and Verisign industry reporting.
.uk is the UK's country-code TLD, managed by Nominet. Beneath it sit second-level domains: .co.uk (commercial), .org.uk (organisations), .me.uk (individuals), .ltd.uk and .plc.uk (registered companies), .net.uk, plus restricted ones like .ac.uk, .gov.uk and .sch.uk. .ltd.uk is reserved for UK limited companies whose registered name matches. (Nominet, 2018.)
Second-level domains carry different eligibility rules; check Nominet policy for restricted suffixes.
For a UK business, .co.uk or .uk is usually best, both are run by Nominet, signal UK presence, build local trust and aid UK SEO. Add .com if you trade internationally or want to protect the brand. There is no single best; match the extension to your audience. (Nominet, 2025.)
Brand protection often means holding .uk, .co.uk and .com together.
Nominet is the official non-profit registry that runs the UK's .UK namespace, maintaining the central register of about 10.2 million domains (at 31 March 2025), operating the DNS to a 100% uptime target, accrediting over 2,000 registrars, running the Dispute Resolution Service, and tackling domain-related crime. It is treated as UK critical national infrastructure. (Nominet, 2025.)
Nominet publishes annual reports on registry scale and public-benefit work.
Nominet earns wholesale registration and renewal fees, £3.90 per .uk domain-year ex-VAT (unchanged since January 2020), paid by accredited registrars, not the public. Registry revenue was £41.1m in the year to 31 March 2024. It also runs a separate DNS and cyber-services business and reinvests surplus into public-benefit work. (Nominet, 2024.)
Retail prices you see include registrar margin plus VAT where applicable.
Yes. 123 Reg has been wholly owned by GoDaddy since April 2017, when GoDaddy completed its acquisition of Host Europe Group, 123 Reg's parent. 123 Reg still trades as a UK brand but is ultimately a GoDaddy subsidiary. (Domain Name Wire, 2017.)
Ownership facts help readers understand brand relationships, not as a purchase recommendation.
8.8.8.8 is Google Public DNS, a free public recursive DNS resolver operated by Google, launched 3 December 2009 (its companion address is 8.8.4.4). Anyone can use it as an alternative to their ISP's DNS, but it is owned and run by Google. (Google, n.d.)
Recursive resolvers are different from the authoritative DNS chain Nominet operates for .uk.
The four types of DNS server are: the recursive resolver (asked first), the root nameserver, the TLD nameserver (handles .uk, .com and so on), and the authoritative nameserver (which holds the actual records). People sometimes mean DNS record types instead (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT), so clarify which is wanted. (Cloudflare, n.d.)
Your registrar or host sets authoritative records; your device or router picks a recursive resolver.
IANA groups top-level domains into categories: generic (gTLD, e.g. .com), generic-restricted (e.g. .biz), sponsored (e.g. .gov, .edu), country-code (ccTLD, e.g. .uk), infrastructure (.arpa), test, and internationalised (IDN). In everyday use most people mean the three common types: gTLD, ccTLD and sponsored. (IANA via Wikipedia, n.d.)
UK businesses usually choose a ccTLD (.uk / .co.uk) or a gTLD (.com).
By registrations, per Verisign's Domain Name Industry Brief (Q4 2025, data to 31 December 2025), the ten largest TLDs were .com, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .xyz, .ru, .nl and .top, with .com dominant at about 161.0 million registrations. (Verisign, 2025.) This is not the same as the most expensive domain sales.
Sales headlines (millions for a single name) measure a different market from registration counts.
Yes. Zoho offers domain registration through Zoho Mail and Zoho Domains (it is ICANN-accredited and also registers via partners), letting you buy a domain and set up custom business email. (Zoho, n.d.)
There is no single best registrar; match transparent renewal pricing (not just year-one teasers), free WHOIS privacy where offered, straightforward Nominet IPS-tag transfers, and responsive UK support to your needs. (Registrar pricing analysis, 2026.)
Compare the renewal price you will pay in year two and beyond before you register. Check whether WHOIS privacy is included or paid extra. Confirm you can move your domain via Nominet's IPS-tag process without lock-in fees. Support quality matters for billing and DNS changes; large global brands and UK-focused shops both work if their terms are clear.
This question is outdated: Google Domains no longer exists. Google sold the business to Squarespace, announced 15 June 2023 and completed 7 September 2023, moving about 10 million domains. Former Google Domains customers are now Squarespace customers. (Squarespace, 2023.)
If you still see old advice comparing Google and GoDaddy for domains, treat it as historical. Today's comparison is between Squarespace, GoDaddy, and other accredited registrars using the criteria above, not a defunct Google product.
A truly free domain you own outright does not really exist. Free offers are usually year-one bundles with hosting or subdomains you do not fully control. Expect roughly £8 to £15-plus per year inc-VAT to own a .co.uk or .uk long-term. (Registrar pricing, 2026.)
Read renewal pricing before you accept a free first year. Subdomains on someone else's domain (yourname.theirbrand.com) are not the same as owning yourname.co.uk. Budget for ongoing renewal at the registrar's standard rate, not the headline teaser.
A .co.uk domain is any UK web address ending in .co.uk, for example bbc.co.uk or yourbusiness.co.uk. The part before .co.uk is your chosen name; .co.uk marks it as a UK site.
Yes. Zoho offers domain registration through Zoho Mail and Zoho Domains (it is ICANN-accredited and also registers via partners), letting you buy a domain and set up custom business email. (Zoho, n.d.)