Weycrest Knowledgebase

Nominet is the organisation responsible for most domains ending in .uk. There are a number of second level domains over which  it does not have any control. These include .nhs.uk, .gov.uk and .ac.uk, domains of the NHS, government and academic organisations respectively. However Nominet is responsible for the following:

me.uk - personal domains

org.uk  - organisational domains

ltd.uk - reserved for limited company’s

plc.uk - reserved for public limited company’s

co.uk - one of the most popular “uk” registrations (ie: bbc.co.uk)

There are a number of UK domains Nominet has jurisdiction over. These are sch.uk which is reserved for schools and net.uk for network operators.

Nominet  is a “not for profit” organisation, limited by guarantee. Though controversially it does make substantial profits. It is recognised by the UK government, the Department of Business, as the official registrar of the .uk TLD.

Unlike the equivalent bodies in most other countries, Nominet does not itself sell or register domain names. This is carried out by registrars such as weycrest.com (who were formerly known as “tag holders”).

However Nominet is able to provide independent advice to registrants about registering, maintaining and protecting  their Domain Names. Currently, there are estimated to  be over 6 million .uk domain names in use.  .uk is the fourth largest TLD in the world.

Nominet welcomes suggestions about  the development .uk policy. For instance one of Nominets responsibilities is to deal with domain names disputes, via the Dispute Resolution Service (DRS), which offers a mediation service as an alternative to going to court. This body deals accusations of abusive registrations such as “cybersquatting” or trademark infringement. Nominet was founded in 1996 and replaced the “Naming Committee” which could no longer cope with demand for UK domain registrations.

In recent months Nominet has decided to create a Nominet Foundation as it means, which donate money to internet good causes in a way to distribute its profits.

When transferring your domain between Nominet accredited registrars, it is important to know the IPS TAG of the registrars concerned. This is usually based on their organisation name. For instance Weycrest’s IPS TAG is WEYCREST whilst 123-Reg’s tag is 123-REG and so on. IPS TAG’s only apply to .uk domains (not .com’s, .net’s or other domain extensions).