(Date March 23rd 2020)
I have recived several enquiries about messages from Nominet contacting domain name owners telling them that their domain name is about to expire, do they want to renew it?
This applies to anyone using a domain name ending in .uk. First point is if I am looking after your domain name, it will auto renew even if I have not raised an invoice for it yet. So continuity is always assured. The only exception to that is where you have told me that you are moving, or you are closing.
With regards to the messages from Nominet, if you read them carefully they are not actually for your domain name, but they are genuine messages from Nominet, here is what has happened:
myorganisation.org.uk vs myorganisations.uk
A year ago Nominet started issuing free domain names to anyone that held a .org.uk or .co.uk domain name. These were issued and added to your accounts without your (or my) permission by Nominet; the body which manages these things. I guess it was an initiative for making money, if we had used it, then people would have been coming to your site at the location, and now they would be asking you for money!
The domain name was the same as the start of your current domain name but just ended in .uk (so no .co.uk or org.uk).
I never used any of them, but had to go through my master account and set every one of them to auto expire, otherwise I would be charging you for two or more domain names.
Do I need it?
Short answer is no, you do not, and don’t feel you have to protect your brand by securing it. As things stand all domain names are well established in Google and Bing already. If some third party picks up your equivalent domain name but ending in .uk vs .org.uk or .co.uk and starts pretending to be you, then you can take legal action against them. I have never heard of it happening, but I guess you can never tell.
If you do want to secure it, let me know very quickly.