Native UK domain extensions, co.uk, org.uk, plc.uk, ltd.uk, gov.uk, ac.uk, sch.uk and the most recent addition, me.uk, are all governed by an overall body, Nominet. This is a not-for profit organisation supported by the Dti to provide domain name registration services either directly to the public or through accredited domain name registration registrars, known as Tag Holders.

Tag Holders can offer domain name registration at much more cost effective prices to the public than going direct through Nominet as these Tag Holders are purchasing by volume. For this reason, Nominet often discourage direct registrations. This is why the bulk of all domain name registration deals are done through Tag Holders.

In the UK there are stringent rules applied to domain name registration. Domain name rules state that:

• Two letter names are not allowed as these are reserved for ISO country codes.
  
• Two character names are allowed. i.e. 3x.co.uk where the format is not aa.co.uk.
  
• All second level names of .uk are banned from being used as third level names. e.g. nhs.co.uk would be banned as it is a second level name.
  
• All top level domains are banned from being used as third level names. e.g. net.org.uk and org.co.uk are not allowed.
  
• All one character domain names (ie [a-z0-9].xxx.uk) are reserved for possible future sub-domain usage. The only one currently delegated is X.CO.UK. The owner shall still maintain it unless they volunteer to relinquish it.
  
• There shall be at least two nameservers for the domain (with addresses specified in the request) operating at the time the request is submitted. There is no restriction on the physical location or IP address of these nameservers.
  
• The ltd.uk and plc.uk domains are intended to allow a unique mapping between company names registered under the Companies Act with Companies House and a DNS name. Although it was envisaged by the Naming Committee that only ltd.uk was required, Nominet UK's legal advisors have said that a public limited company registering within ltd.uk would be committing a criminal offense. Therefore the additional plc.uk is required before domain name registration can take place.
  
• The only characters from a registered company name allowed in a DNS name are the letters A to Z, a to z, the numbers 0 to 9 and hyphen. These will be known as the "allowable" set.
  
• Certain words will be removed from the registered company name where they occur at the end of the name before the DNS name is generated, these are known as the "reserved" words. They are "limited", "public limited company" and the Welsh Language versions ("cyfyngedig" and "cwmni cyfyngedig cyhoeddus") along with the abbreviations of these words, e.g. ltd, plc, cyf and ccc. More domain name registration rules follow
  
  • The rules are:
    One name per company name registered at Companies House
    
  • The name shall correspond exactly to the registered name save for characters not in the "allowable" set which shall be interpreted as below and the "reserved" words. Where the definite article appears as the first word of the name it may be omitted
    
  • White space between words shall either be ignored or replaced by a single hyphen "-"
    
  • All other characters shall be removed
    
  • Company names written in a non English character set are not allowed in this version.
    

Nominet UK reserves the right to check a sample or all of the requests for accuracy (before or after delegation) and, pending resolution, may remove a registration, if the rules have been violated.

• In the event of a dispute over a name an appeal shall be allowed to the Council of Management of Nominet UK.
• The grounds for the appeal shall be in writing and the decision of the Council of Management shall be final.
• The Council of Management may request the advice of the Nominet Steering Committee.

Thousands of UK domain names are registered every day, and therefore itís important to be flexible and creative when choosing your web address. Where a web address has multiple words, use hyphens to separate them. Not only does this make it clear to read on printed materials but it also allows some of the more complex search engines to parse each of the keywords in the name. When youíre choosing a domain name specifically as a keyword-rich method of improving search engine success the hyphen is critically important.

Choosing a UK domain name does not discourage global visitors from coming to your site. In the current technology climate, US users and the like are as likely to visit a co.uk every bit as much as a com as this simply defines the country of origin for the business or individual.

And finally, domains are renewable in the UK every two years, so if the domain you want is not available right now, it may still be released for some oneelse to register in the future. With this in mind, take a note of the expiry date on any registered domains you are interested in and remember to check whether it's available when that re-registration time has passed.