Why are companies registering only .co.uk when the .com version is available?

[Tom K.]

Hope this is the right forum to post this question.

I've noticed that a number of established and well-to-do companies are ignoring .com and only registering .co.uk. What is the reasoning behind that? I appreciate that their market is the UK but they are missing out on direct traffic and possible expansion opportunities. Could it be attributed to lack of domain knowledge?

We're getting the odd inquiries through our dot com domains directed to the .co.uk business (generic names of course), and just came across a business few minutes ago that claims to spend large sum of money in paid advertising but the dot com of their name is readily available for anyone to register.

[Dale Hubbard]

That's a big mistake on their part. Any .co.uk registrant with half a brain would register the.com if it was available.

[biggedon]

i'm no expert in the.co.uk arena but...

.co.uk is well established and many co's in that region who don't have it, probably just aren't interested in .com



and maybe some that don't have the .com , don't have a US presence either


you might see a similar pattern with .de domains as well

[Tom K.]

I believe these companies are getting bad advice from their management/marketing people. I haven't come across the same with .de but of course I haven't looked or stumbled upon it like with the .co.uk. All the .de sites that I've seen so far have the .com redirect to .de.

[katherine]

That is the power of ccTLDs. You see the same with extensions other than .co.uk, because many businesses are 'local' in nature, and don't need the global reach of .com...
Yet, they should register it for defensive reasons and to possibly expand overseas later in the future.

Oh yeah, I know they will want the .co because they are used to .co.uk and shorter is better right ?
Some people are really clueless about ccTLDs