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uniqs
3205
59137280 (banned)
join:2006-07-06
Montreal, QC

1 edit

59137280 (banned)

Member

Why .co.uk and not .uk?

Why is UK still using a subdomain, like it's 1994?
For example, Ukraine dropped .org and now they mostly use simply .ua - so why UK not drop .co ??

wonko3fc
Verbum sat sapienti
join:2001-06-02
UK

wonko3fc

Member

A good question. Here's a few more.
Why was the .co imposed in the first instance? Why is it assumed that .com is American by default and not .us?

jvmorris
I Am The Man Who Was Not There.
MVM
join:2001-04-03
Reston, VA

jvmorris

MVM

Actually, these are two different extensions (conveniences, actually).

.co and .com are typically used for commercial organizations, which are also expanded by others like .org (non-profit), .gov (government), and .net (which I mostly see associated with ISPs, especially e-mail sites). In the US, at least, you're now starting to see .biz for business entities.

.us, like .uk and .ie, etc., is long overdue and I'm glad to see it's now starting to show up, but it's still a 'geographic' indicator if you will.

There's nothing really that compels organizations to use any of these extensions and it's not unusual to find URLs that don't or that use non-standard extensions.

And yes, when the whole thing started up, vision was somewhat limited and there's wasn't a lot of presumption that the internet would become an international phenomenon. Sort of parochial, admittedly, since the Brits were very heavily involved in the initial standard setting.

state
stress magnet
Mod
join:2002-02-08
Purgatory

state

Mod

Given some recent news headlines, in case you missed it, there may be another good reason to use more "geographical" domains and stay away from the popular .com and .net arena:

»ICE Says it Owns the Web

A little cocky if you ask me.

jvmorris
I Am The Man Who Was Not There.
MVM
join:2001-04-03
Reston, VA

jvmorris

MVM

More than 'a little' cocky, in my estimation.

However, I usually get a bit better information from the Netcraft toolbar that I have installed on my browsers which routinely tells me the nation in which the site is at least registered (which doesn't always, even then, correspond to where it actually is).
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to 59137280

Premium Member

to 59137280
said by 59137280:

Why is UK still using a subdomain, like it's 1994?
For example, Ukraine dropped .org and now they mostly use simply .ua - so why UK not drop .co ??

Because hierarchical namespaces are more useful than flat namepaces.

You can either throw all UK addresses in one big pile, or have a few somewhat smaller piles.

Do you keep all your files in a single directory?

wonko3fc
Verbum sat sapienti
join:2001-06-02
UK

wonko3fc

Member

said by dave:

Do you keep all your files in a single directory?



Yep! We all do C:\ - but I'm merely playing Devils Advocate
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

One of these days you're going to run into that FAT limitation of "no more than 256 files in the root".

(But 256 files ought to be more than enough for anyone)

wonko3fc
Verbum sat sapienti
join:2001-06-02
UK

wonko3fc

Member

He-he that's right up there with:

BG "Why would anyone want to exit out of Windows?"
Journo "So why is Windows supplied with an exit button then?"