The origin of '.co.uk'

Why do UK related websites have '.co.uk' when most only have one '.' related ending on the address e.g. '.com', '.lu', '.fr' ?

Why do we not just have '.uk' ?

 

.uk is indeed the country code, but in the UK Willie Black and the like elected to divide the namespace, into, for example, .org.uk, .net.uk, .ltd.uk, and .co.uk. No other reason than that.

-- Ian

 

There are other countries similar, notably japan where they use .co.jp, and south africa where it's .co.za

 

There are two types of Internet domain names, Top Level Domain Names (TLDs) and Country Top Level Domain Names (CTLDs). The original three TLDs were .com, ,.org and .net (more recently .biz, .aero and a couple of others have joined them). What you get depends on the Registry you use - there are international registries and national registries, and it is quite possible for one organisation to own, say, qed.com, and a completely different one to own qed.com.uk. The TLDs are the most desirable, but if you'te interested only in your own country, a CTLD will often suffice. I get a bit of this stuff, because it strays slightly into the trade marks area

 

Wasn't partly do with JANET? as they they have ac.uk as this these domains would have been one of the very first registered, I think Salford.ac.uk was registered in 1986, just 3 years after DNS was invented.

I think stuff like ltd.uk, biz.uk etc are new subdomains only added a few years ago.

 

The .uk TLD predates the modern DNS by a couple of years IIRC. The concept of domain names existed before the idea of distributing the namespace (prior to DNS every machine on the Internet had to have an /etc/hosts file, which contained IP address to name lookups for every other machine on the Internet, a mechanism which became impossible to maintain, hence DNS). Nominet is in charge of .uk, but doesn't run government and academic SLDs (.ac.uk, .gov.uk, etc), it does run all the others however. Nominet used to be very keen to ensure that domain name registrations were made in the "proper" second level domain, or SLD (only registered non-profit making organisations would be allowed .org.uk, for example), but largely gave up on that policy a few years ago, nowadays it's mostly a free for all (with some exceptions, such as .ltd.uk, which is restricted to limited companies, and .net.uk, which is limited to ISPs and bandwidth suppliers).

There's no technical reason for using the .co.uk SLD rather than the .uk TLD, it's purely an accident of history.

Nominet is an organisation that is in theory run by its members (I'm one of them, btw), but is in practice run by Dr Willie Black and a few of his cohorts, who make all the decisions about how to run the namespace.

-- Ian

 

Cheers chaps .

I can now amaze the g/f with your knowledge and pass it off as mine !

 

i can . . .

You could have a quick look at icann to get the offical view but the comments from forum members make much beter dinner party fodder.

Auric

 

Having met and trained Willie Black, it scares me to think he is responsible for this