back to article Short domain land-rush coming to .uk

Nominet is to make thousands of super-short .uk web addresses available for as little as £10 each in a "land rush", due to kick off next month. The .uk manager will release 2,640 previously reserved one- and two-character,, and domain names, starting 23 May. Many single-letter and single-number …


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  1. Anonymous Coward

    honest gov

    Can I register these please:

    I want to create a phishing site for The Co-operative Bank ...

    1. TeeCee Gold badge

      Re: honest gov

      You should be able to get those, just say you're a chicken farmer.....

  2. Alister Silver badge


    Why was American Airlines awarded a domain - surely it should have been the Automobile Association which is at least a UK based organisation. (Or Alcoholics Anonymous, but they're international aren't they?)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up


      American Airlines got it because:

      1) they have a special website for UK customers with UK content:

      2) they paid more at auction for it

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      1. foo_bar_baz

        wah wah

        Any person on earth can register your "prized" at any domain registry, so I'd have to conclude is not UK firm or even UK specific. The fucking point? Either you allow foreign entities to register, or you don't. How would you implement "primarily"? You gave up your national domain a long time ago, unlike some other European countries.

    3. Blake St. Claire

      That's the Royal Auto Club

      So why would RAC want when they've already got and presumably everyone knows them by that name? Is there another auto association in the UK?

      (It's Auto Association in NZ and ZA, and they've got and Oz has – cute a whole TLD for associations. But at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, NZ and ZA ain't Blighty.)

      1. Another Ben

        No it isn't

        RAC, formerly the Royal Automabils Club:

        AA, the Automobile Association:

  3. Anonymous Coward

    whois fix required




    Error for "".

    This domain cannot be registered because it contravenes the Nominet UK

    naming rules. The reason is:

    third-level domains may not comprise two alphabetic characters.

    WHOIS lookup made at 11:25:36 19-Apr-2011 fails with same error, works, works!

    whois however works as it is registered.

    so it looks like nominets whois servers are returning the message,

    1. Number6


      If you try one of the ones that has been assigned then it does return the details - the sites mentioned in the article work.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The WHOIS is not broken

      The WHOIS is behaving as expected. As documented on the Nominet website ( this will not be updated to allow two letter domains until the reserved domain process is complete.

      This means that the WHOIS will display the "naming rules" message for any two letter domain which has not yet been registered. The ones which you say "work" have already been registered, so the normal domain information is displayed for those.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Never Seen the Point

    I've never seen the point of a very short domain name unless it is actually your company name. for example makes sense while doesn't. I know Yahoo! have been known the throw Y! around as a logo, but nobody calls them Y, they call them Yahoo.

    People who don't know the URL for a company's website is likely to either try the full company name or use a search engine. Indeed the search engine route is probably more common. How many people are going to try the first letter or maybe first two letters of the company name?

    1. John Riddoch


      Bear in mind the proliferation of shortened links for redirects (e.g.; if Yahoo! can grab a piece of that market, they get some data from the requests which can be datamined to potentially help search results.

    2. Just Thinking

      When did they get to own the letter y?

      I agree that it might be counter-productive for Yahoo to use as their domain, but if they want to bid for it, let them, its their money.

      But why on earth did they Yahoo get priority? could be a lucrative domain name, similar to, which other companies might have wanted to bid for. Unlike bt, which is strongly associated with a large company to the extent that it could hardly mean anything else, y is just a letter which happens to pun with why.

  5. Ben Bawden

    What are my chances

    of getting

    That would be nice.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton


    maybe now will finally be known as

    1. Anonymous Coward

      you sound like a reputable person...

      ...selling BB ammo. So should be fine.

    2. <user />


      Not if American Airlines have owt to do with it.


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  10. copsewood

    @AC 19/4/11 10:31

    The point of a short domain name is to be memorable and easier to type. Sure, many people don't bother and use search engines for websites, but that needs good keywords which can be promoted by other parties. Given the explosion of use of mobile internet devices with crummy keyboards, having short and memorable domain names is more important than ever before. Also if you have to input email addresses in such devices quite frequently search engines won't help with that.

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  12. Neil C Burns

    aa. fools =american. pah

    why??? was won by American Airlines -

    this should have rightly gone to our uk automobile association?? given to a american company, PAH!!!!!!

    1. XMAN

      Wasn't given away

      I think you're perhaps misunderstanding the process. During the sunrise period, anyone could submit an application for why they think they should get the domain. If a domain received more than one application, it went to auction. So American Airlines have the domain because they bid the highest. It wasn't given to them.

    2. Anonymous Coward

      it's not our AA

      > this should have rightly gone to our uk automobile association

      The AA demutualised just over 10 years ago and was bought by Centrica (which once upon a time was called British Gas). Centrica sold it on to a private equity firm. So it belongs to them. It's their AA, not yours or mine. Last time I looked, the AA merged with Saga and was being lined up for a flotation on the stock market.

      Oh and most of the time it's first-come, first-served when there are competing demands for the same domain name. Bank of America is rather pissed off that British Airways got first dibs on

  13. Ben Norris


    its the 4th emergency airline

    1. BorkedAgain


      I understand the Coastguard (the *real* 4th emergency service) were a trifle miffed by that particular advertising slogan. Nice to see the meme being reinforced...

      1. Daf L

        4th Emergency Service

        Aren't Mountain Rescue the 'REAL' 4th emergency service?

        Or the RNLI?

        Or Cave Rescue?

        Or ALSAR?

        Or SARDA?

        Or RAF SAR?

        Or... anyone of the other 999 emergency services outside the main 3?

  14. Anonymous Coward

    I want

    1. Flybert

      perhaps you should buy that

      from Fu Associates .. Edward Y. Fu .. who has own the domain since 1994

      unless you are just advertising for him ..

      of course your joke makes little sense as the domains mentioned are not .com TLD

  15. Mr Nobody 1

    Looking forward to....

  16. Herby Silver badge

    Wrong place is wrong... It should be in .xxx:

    1. Dave Bell

      Was that a joke?

      I understand that "fcuk" is a well-known clothing brand in the UK

      But couldn't be a valid domain name.

      And if you want me to wear a t-shirt advertising the brand, you shall have to pay me. My hourly rate is quite modest.

  17. moraji

    Been looking through some of the one-letter domains

    There seems to be quite a distinct split between domains that have gone to the appropriate people (can't see anyone arguing with going to Q magazine for instance) and domains that have been snapped up by seemingly opportunistic companies with no real claim as far as I can see ( went to Zurich insurance, to some content writing company, seems to go to a link farm...). If I was Nominet I think I would have been a bit more selective in who I gave these domains out to.

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