UK Domains are the 1st choice domain for most UK home users and businesses being the 2nd most popular country code domain. NominetUK is the registry for all UK domain registrations. They manage over five million domain names, making them the world's fourth largest Internet registry.

NominetUK was not set up and is not constituted to make a profit from its activities. Accordingly its charges are sufficient only to cover its operating costs.

But UK domain names are different to the standard com, net & org domains having completely unique system of management Unlike all other types of domain tld's NominetUK uses a Tag holder system for domain management

A Tag is one word all in capitals. The Tag is displayed within the WHOIS records and uniquely identifies a registration agent

Tag holders have the authority to register names on behalf their customers. Of course it is possible to register a domain direct with NominetUK but this is usually a more expensive option as the current rate is £80 + Tax for 2 years.

Tag holders usually provide a discounted rate for domain registrations and renewals and have the authority to delegate nameservers for the domain which they manage.

So what is the advantage of registering a UK domain name?

Firstly, if you are a business trading in the UK, this kind of domain is the 'natural' choice.

Why?...because it is familiar to the UK public. In general customers feel comfortable knowing that the website from which they are considering making a purchase is based in their country of origin and if this is the UK then a '.co.uk' ending is the natural choice.

Many UK compaines would also register the .com domain in addition to the '.co.uk' and maybe park it on the same website or create a doorway page to the same site.

Although the UK domain reassures the the user they are dealing with a UK company, a dot com domain is the 1st choice for search engine ranking since this kind of domain tends to rank higher than any other ending (excluding MSN which tends to favour .org domain names)

So if you are considering a starting-up a website trading in the UK as your target market it is wise to register both the '.co.uk' and the .com if they are available.