Nine Millionth .uk Address Activated

Nine million .uk addresses are now active, registry Nominet announced on Monday.

The nine million barrier was broken just over a year after the eight millionth address was registered. The nine millionth address was Active2011.co.uk, registered jointly by two Wokingham-based organisations, Nirvana Spa and Pulse 8 Health Club.

Nominet said it has seen an 11.5 percent increase in new domain registrations over the past 12 months, up from 11.2 percent in 2009. The company expects another 11 percent growth in 2011.

Steady growth

Overall there are currently about 200 million domain names worldwide, according to Nominet, up about six percent from a year ago.

The domain name registry business has continued at a steady pace despite the chaotic economic climate, Nominet chief executive Leslie Cowley said.

“March 2010 saw us hit 200,000 new registrations for the first time in 10 years,” Cowley stated. “We were pleased to see .uk regain our position as the world’s second-largest country code Top Level Domain registry after .de.”

Cowley said the company’s research showed that 80 percent of UK consumers preferred to use a .uk website over a .com website, up 3 percent from the previous year.

In November, Nominet launched an appeal to find out the identity of the first .uk domain name registered, just over 25 years ago.

The .uk domain was created in 1985, with Nominet officially celebrating the domain’s anniversary on 24 July. However, Nominet itself wasn’t created until 1996, by which time there were already more than 25,000 .uk domain names registered.

Also in November, the police asked Nominet to change the terms under which sites operate in the .uk domain, so they can be closed down for acting illegally, but commentators have warned that this would mean businesses could be closed down before any crime has been proven.