Choosing a domain name for your organisation becomes much simpler when you have a little knowledge. As .com and .co.uk are the most widely used domain name extensions for UK websites, it's worth remembering to make the domain extension clear on any promotional material if you choose a different domain extension.
Here's our simple guide:
.com - is accepted as the most popular domain extension and tends to be used by big brands and commercial organisations.
.co.uk - is the domain name code for the United Kingdom. .co means “commercial”. However, you don't have to just operate in the UK. For example – a multinational company can have country specific domain name extension codes for their operations in a specific countries in order to appear more national.
Examples of other country domain name codes are:
.us American websites
.de German websites
.cn China
.eu - European Union (certain requirements must be met to register for .eu)
.net - means “network”. This is often used by technology and internet based companies such as web hosting services and internet service providers.
.org - means “organisation”. It is not generally used by commercial groups, but organisations such as charities, not-for-profit and trade organisations.
.biz - means “business”. It is specifically for small businesses.
.mobi - means “mobile” and is for websites that have been built to be accessed by mobile devices. This is separate to responsive designed sites that don't use a separate domain name.
.tv - is used frequently by the entertainment industries of television, video and multi-media organisations.
New domain extensions
In recent years there have been a huge increase in domain extension options. There are hundreds of new options available for example. .london, .restaurant, .bike, .gifts, .money and .band. These domain names are all available to buy and can be a useful addition for a brand. Despite all these options .com and .co.uk still remain the most popular and memorable, so where possible we would suggest trying to register these domains as a priority for your business.
