Which domain name should I use for a UK website?

What should be the extention of my domain is it .uk or .co.uk

[mann]

Hello Friends,

I am planning to entered in UK market for Online Finanical Service.

Can you please suggest me What should be the extention of my domain is it .uk or .co.uk

Another question,
Should I go with firm name only in Domain or should I put service related keyword/s in Domain?

Thank You

[OptiRex]

What should be the extention of my domain is it .uk or .co.uk

There is no .uk domain, the following are all the ones available, I think!

co.uk
uk.com
uk.net
gb.com
gb.net
me.uk
org.uk

Apart from government and educational etc.

Please feel free to add if there are any more.

[Little_G]

Hi,

You can get .uk on it's own, see here [google.co.uk] but I don't know where from.

Andrew

[inbound]

.uk is not a domain that you can get on its own unless you are very important to the UK, usually a public service or the controller of the domain space.

The .uk namespaces that we most people will have heard of (and be able to register) are overseen by Nominet (which perversely has its own second level uk domain - nic.uk), these include

.co.uk - meant for companies, but open
.org.uk - meant for organisations, but open
.me.uk - meant for individuals, but now open
.net.uk - lesser known and meant for network operators
.ltd.uk - only for uk private limited companies, very strict naming rules as they must be the same as the company name
.plc.uk - onlu for uk public limited companies, same naming and rules as .ltd.uk

Additionally, there are other .uk names that are not administered by Nominet such as:

.gov.uk - government
.sch.uk - schools
.nhs.uk - national health service
.police.uk - police
.mod.uk - ministry of defence
.ac.uk - academia

The above are the official UK names (the UK also has rights to .gb but does not use it), others are not official such as:

.uk.com
.uk.net

etc.. These are pseudo registries (I would not go there unless there were very compelling reasons).

So, you should go with .co.uk, it's the only serious real UK domain that is recognised by the public. (.ltd.uk and .plc.uk are not widely used).

Googd luck with finding a nice name (it's hard in your sector, but easier in .co.uk than .com)

[topr8]

>>uk.com
>>uk.net

these are not uk domains, they the one is a dot com the other a dot net, the subdomains are resold, personally i wouldn't get one.

>>You can get .uk on it's own

as far as i know you can't, nominet the uk registry have a nic.uk, there are also a few others that are government agencies or such like, but they are not generally available.

[wmuser]

You cant get .uk,most of comapnies are getting .co.uk and it works fine

[mann]

Thank you friends.

You make me understand that my knowledge is so limited about uk domains. And all your post added to my knowledge.

But Friends my real question yet there without answer.

My Question is :

1)There should be keywords in Domain, related to my Site Subject or
2)Shall I choose other name as domain which by name it self didn't reveal that WebSite is for Financial Service?

Regards

[inbound]

Why hide the connection to financial services? It can't be for search engine reasons as they will easily tell.

I find that click through's on SERPS and PPC are higher with a better domain, the problem that you have is finding a decent one in your sector.

Maybe an off the wall name could work, in the UK there are mny strange brands used for financial/insurance companies, such as:

Egg.com
IF.com
Elephant.co.uk
Confused.com

One thing to seriously consider is the type of business that you are promoting, is it going to make money from other financial firms by the way of PPC/Affiliate programs, is it a brokerage/other intermediary or is it an actual provider of the services the site describes. The answer to that will in some way determine what would be a good/bad name for your site.

[inbound]

I just noticed you meant the company name or keywords.

I think the company name will be fine for visitors looking at SERPS or PPC ads, if you intend on getting a lot of inbound links then the keywords are always handy.

Why not try a combination such as

[CompanyName]Loans.co.uk

or something similar

[OptiRex]

Should I go with firm name only in Domain or should I put service related keyword/s in Domain?

Keywords in the domain name definitely work well with Google/Yahoo/MSN.co.uk results.

A point to remember is that some 75-80% of all UK searches start with Google!

Presumably you are going to host your domain in the UK therefore have you considered a .eu name if the .co.uk is not available?

[mann]

Keywords in the domain name definitely work well with Google/Yahoo/MSN.co.uk results.

A point to remember is that some 75-80% of all UK searches start with Google!

Presumably you are going to host your domain in the UK therefore have you considered a .eu name if the .co.uk is not available?

Thanks for suggestion.

But I didn't find a good host for UK with in my region and I can not book from UK as I have no CC. So how if I book domain from non uk base host?

[Lobo]

I don't know what these people are on about?

If you want to use a UK domain then the only one is .co.uk anything else is pointless pish...

[OptiRex]

anything else is pointless pish

Not if all the desirable domain names have been taken and the UK market is sophisticated enough to understand all the extensions such as .tv are just as valid.

.com, net, org, biz and info all work well in the UK so long as the site is hosted on a UK server.

I can not book from UK as I have no CC

Have you a PayPal account? If so, several UK based hosts accept it.