Recession 'has not damaged domain name trade'

The UK domain name industry has not been particularly impacted upon by the recession, it has been suggested.

Phil Kingsland, director of communications at Nominet, suggested that companies had continued to use domain name consultancies to register website addresses as they implement digital strategies.

He claimed that the overall register size continues to grow, and there have been no signs that this situation is likely to change.

Mr Kingsland commented that if there is to be a downturn in the market, there could possibly be a time lag before this takes effect.

Explaining this point, he stated: "Supposing a firm went out of business in, say, March of this year, and they had renewed their domain name a couple of months beforehand, it would take a further 22 months before those names had been released. So it will take a while for the impact to come through."

Last week, Mr Kingsland claimed that the introduction of non-Latin characters to domain names would improve accessibility for millions of web users around the world.

Written by Debra Hastings-Henry