.CO.UK

.co.uk is the extension British businesses have used since the 1980s, administered by Nominet. Since 2014 a shorter .uk has been available too, but .co.uk still has the most registrations and the most recognition.

The expiry process is unusual and worth knowing if you buy drops. When a .co.uk expires, Nominet suspends it for 90 days, during which the registrant can still renew. After that it's cancelled and released back to the pool. There's no registrar auction and no redemption fee. The name just drops, and drop-catchers compete for it at the registry.

Nominet publishes the list of upcoming drops, which makes the catching market on .co.uk fairly transparent by domain standards. Good generic .co.uk names sell steadily to British buyers, at a fraction of .com prices.