According to Nominet’s annual domain name industry report, 77% of British consumers prefer to use a .uk (.co.uk or .org.uk) rather than a .com when searching for information on the Internet. Consumers stated they would most likely click on .uk rather than a .com reinforcing that .uk is a relevant and trusted environment that presents the most appropriate and local information.

Nominet’s report also stated that despite the current economic climate the global domain name industry has seen an 8% growth with 187.6 million domain names registered worldwide. Generic top level domains (gTLDs), such as .org and .com, have grown on average by 6% whilst the country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) including .uk and .de (the German registry) fared slightly better and together generated a 10% average growth in registrations.

This strong growth is enabling country code domains to close the gap between the more well-established Top Level Domains (TLDs) and proving that the world’s connected consumers are becoming more familiar and trusting of localised domain names. Furthermore, they are increasingly expecting businesses to be represented by a site with a domain name that is appropriate for the region in which they are operating.

Phil Kingsland, Director of Marketing and Communications at Nominet, comments: “The findings show that businesses must now pay attention to Internet brand awareness and marketing strategies that are in line with consumer expectations. It is a global marketplace, but what we are seeing is that consumers trust and rely on a more local touch point with a brand.”

The Nominet Domain Name Industry Report 2009 is available here in full.