# Why the .co in .co.uk and others?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 2, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680 "2009-09-02T21:44:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/1 "2009-09-02T21:44:46Z")
The question is pretty simple, I managed to dig up this after a lot of fruitless googling- [.co - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.co) which explains some details.
But it doesn’t seem to explain to me why certain countries use it and not others; for example Danish websites end in .dk, American ones end in .us, Irish in .ie etc. But British ones end in .co.uk, Japanese in .co.jp and amusingly enough the cook islands end in .co.ck.
So I was wondering if anyone can shed some light as to why this is. Those two letters are beginning to really get on my nerves.
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### Author:  [@QuercusMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuercusMax)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/2 "2009-09-02T22:06:38Z")
My guess: different countries’ domain registrars decided on different policies a couple decades ago. Why? Why do different countries do anything different from each other? Because they felt like it, most likely.
There probably is no answer, in the end.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/3 "2009-09-02T22:11:15Z")
Every country sets its own standards for use of their top-level domain. The UK has, for reasons of their own, decided to divide up the .uk domain into subdomains like .co , much like (in practice) American domains are divided up into .com , .edu , .gov , etc. The tiny island nation of Tuvalu, meanwhile, derives the largest part of their national income from sale of their .tv domain.
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### Author:  [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/4 "2009-09-02T22:11:16Z")
Alas you’re possibly correct, but its very unsatisfying. There must be some reasoning behind it though, why would they just throw in couple of extra letters with no purpose?
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### Author:  [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/5 "2009-09-02T22:12:00Z")
Not all British websites end in .co.uk; UK universities, for example, are .ac.uk, and other organisations are .org.uk. There are also several others: [.uk - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.uk)
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/6 "2009-09-02T22:17:29Z")
“.co” means commercial, the way “.com” is meant to. I think the whole hodgepodge of “.com” “.org” “.net” etc have proven useless for their intended purpose (segregating the net by sector-- profit-making, non-profit, network, etc.) I guess the older country-specific domains, like .xx.uk, started when this idea was still in vogue. Later domains, like .dk, started when ppl realized this idea is dumb. Or maybe they realized this from the start.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/7 "2009-09-02T22:19:05Z")
.co.uk = company (i.e. a business)
.org.uk = organisation
.sch.uk = school
.ac.uk = academic institution
.gov.uk = government organisation (local or central
.net.uk = intended for organisations dealing with the web itself (i.e. ISPs, domain registrars, etc)
Some of these are now in general use beyond their originally intended scope.
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### Author:  [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/8 "2009-09-02T22:19:27Z")
I see! The government at the time saw some benefit in dividing it into .co (commercial?) .ac and .gov that makes sense. So it forms some sort of authentication, you know .ac is academic or .gov is a government website.
Does that mean its impossible to register something as solely .uk?
It also begs the question as to why they don’t use just .gov or .edu as the US does. it seems more aesthetically pleasing some how.
Edit: You guys are way to quick.- I think I’m gonna start an online petition to change this 😛
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### Author:  [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/9 "2009-09-02T22:20:03Z")
British _commercial_ domain names usually end in [co.uk](http://co.uk) and British _government_ names end in .gov.uk. Just like american commercial sites end in .com but government sites end in .gov and educational ones in .edu.
The Americans just took a whole bunch of top level domains because they started the internet (more or less). Every other country gets a single top level domain and can make up their own rules on how to use it. Some countries like the UK divided their top level domain further in sort of logical categories but others, like the Netherlands, didn’t.
Also, .com domains were very popular in the early days of the web, just because again the Americans were more or less first in using it commercially, and also because it was cheap and easy to get a .com domain even if you’re not an American citizen - for example in the Netherlands there was a period between 1993 and 1999 or so where it was practically impossible for a private person to register a .nl domain, so many people just registered a .com, .org or .net domain name instead.
Also for some reason, the .us domain never really got popular (but I think that was a late addition anyway).
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/10 "2009-09-02T22:44:09Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> .co.uk = company (i.e. a business)
> .org.uk = organisation
> .sch.uk = school
> .ac.uk = academic institution
> .gov.uk = government organisation (local or central
> .net.uk = intended for organisations dealing with the web itself (i.e. ISPs, domain registrars, etc)
>
> Some of these are now in general use beyond their originally intended scope.
There’s also .mod.uk, used by the armed forces etc.
Also, for some reason, the British Library has [www.bl.uk](http://www.bl.uk) all to itself.
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### Author:  [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/11 "2009-09-02T22:52:28Z")
Huh, so my belief that the .co stood for _commonwealth_ – which I’m sure I had read somewhere – was apparently totally baseless. Whaddaya know!
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### Author:  [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/12 "2009-09-03T00:08:42Z")
It’s preety irrelevant these days. Anyone looking for a domain name puts the name into osmething like [register.com](http://register.com) (or another site) and determines what suffixes are available and chooses the one whch is most widespread. .com is preferred; if someone has the .com they might go for the .org or the .net. Sometimes if you’re in the UK you might chosoe .co.uk just to make that clear to domestic customers, but you may well go for .com anyway.
Domains have values and the .com version of a word generally has the highest value. So [sex.com](http://sex.com) is probably amongst the highest valued domain names.
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### Author:  [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/13 "2009-09-03T00:10:32Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#):
>
> The Americans just took a whole bunch of top level domains because they started the internet (more or less).
That’s a common myth in the US, but [the guy who invented the internet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee) is alive and well, and is British.
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### Author:  [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/14 "2009-09-03T00:22:51Z")
> [@Candyman74](#):
>
> That’s a common myth in the US, but [the guy who invented the internet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee) is alive and well, and is British.
Al Gore?
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### Author:  [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/15 "2009-09-03T00:24:15Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#):
>
> Al Gore?
Eh?
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/16 "2009-09-03T00:49:03Z")
> [@Candyman74](#):
>
> That’s a common myth in the US, but [the guy who invented the internet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee) is alive and well, and is British.
He invented the World Wide Web. "“I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and — ta-da! — the World Wide Web.” The Doman Name System, the topic of the thread, was already in place.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/17 "2009-09-03T01:54:36Z")
Yeah, the Web is just one of many protocols that uses the Internet. E-mail, VoIP, FTP, Telnet, and online games like World of Warcraft all use the Internet, but not the World Wide Web.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/18 "2009-09-03T02:01:40Z")
> [@Candyman74](#):
>
> That’s a common myth in the US, but [the guy who invented the internet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee) is alive and well, and is British.
Tim Berners-Lee had absolutely nothing to do with inventing the Internet.
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### Author:  [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/19 "2009-09-03T02:17:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Yeah, the Web is just one of many protocols that uses the Internet. E-mail, VoIP, FTP, Telnet, and online games like World of Warcraft all use the Internet, but not the World Wide Web.
You can use telnet to connect to the World Wide Web. I’ve sent raw HTTP requests manually, just for the hell of it.
```auto
borghunter@ares ~ $ telnet google.com 80
Trying 74.125.45.100...
Connected to google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:14:27 GMT
Expires: -1
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
--Snip (etc. etc.)--
```
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### Author:  [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-co-in-co-uk-and-others/508680/20 "2009-09-03T02:20:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Yeah, the Web is just one of many protocols that uses the Internet. E-mail, VoIP, FTP, Telnet . . .
And let’s not forget [Gopher](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)) and [Usenet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet). (Even if the rest of the world largely has.)
> [@Candyman74](#):
>
> That’s a common myth in the US, but [the guy who invented the internet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee) is alive and well, and is British.
It seems to be a common myth in the UK that a Briton invented the Internet. This is about the fifth time I’ve come across it in the past few years.
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