Report: UK businesses in favor of short domain names for their website

The registry for UK website names, Nominet, announced in March that it would be making shortened domains available in June and advised businesses to take part in a survey to pool opinions. PC Advisor reports that since the consultation period started, 87 percent of responding UK businesses wanted a one- or two-word domain name.

Only 13 percent of responding businesses were against the shortened domains.

Nominet's current rules prevent single-letter domain names and only allow a two-letter name if it includes a letter and a number.

One responder to the registry's survey stated "there are plenty of UK brands which use a valid two-letter identifier which would be legitimate use for a domain".

While many businesses in the UK do have two-letter domain names going against the current Nominet rules, they were created before the registry site took domain responsibility in 1996.

As of June 2009, Nielsen reported that nearly 80 percent of the UK population uses the internet, surfing the websites that Nominet oversees.