Nominet not allowing overlap

[Arcath]

One of my schools is changing name and this of course means they need a new .sch.uk. domain name. I've approached Nominet about getting the new domain registered and they have told me that I can only have both domain for 3 months!

 

After a bit of complaining I've got that upto 6 months but that is still 18 months short of what I'd concider a minimum.

 

The main issue is the emails.

 

There are so many subscriptions and services that use the schools @oldname.lancs.sch.uk in the emails. My original plan was to have both domains in Office365 and swap users over once they were sure, but with the ability to swap back if needed. Too many companies, organisiations and county teams use the old email addresses to contact the school, we can't have it where after 6 months all that contact ceases to function.

 

Me and the head feel like we are slaming our heads against a brick wall with this, 6 months is just not enough and we cant fathom why its such a short time frame, particully with the level of internet(email) use in this day and age.

 

We are at the point of giving up on .sch.uk and just getting another TLD.

 

Has anyone had any success getting longer?

[Meldrew]

 

We are at the point of giving up on .sch.uk and just getting another TLD.

 

 

This is what we did. Depending on your school name there are some nice looking domain names, eg .college .academy and I think .school

 

They just cost a little more, £25 per year from memory.

 

Meldrew.

[Arcath]

This is what we did. Depending on your school name there are some nice looking domain names, eg .college .academy and I think .school

 

I have my eye on .school. Just not the same as a .sch.uk and it really annoys us that its Nominets policies stopping us.

[FishCustard]

Just a note that some older systems don't like the new gTLDs, particularly the longer ones. It's not a big enough issue to say "don't get them", but just have a backup domain for email as well.

[Arcath]

Just a note that some older systems don't like the new gTLDs, particularly the longer ones. It's not a big enough issue to say "don't get them", but just have a backup domain for email as well.

 

That is a concern, I also have worries that less informed users might get confused as .school is not the .co.uk or .com that they are used to.

[Jamman960]

We're currently using fullschoolname.co.uk and initials.school as the full one is a bit of a mouth full(we're independent and have never claimed the .sch address)

 

I find that .school works for most things but I've come across a few forms just won't accept it and most of the people I talk to on the phone seem to expect more when I use .school, I've had many add .co.uk onto the end because they think its incorrect(not good with invoices!)

 

James

[FishCustard]

Yes, that's the problem I fear with using those. We use schooname.uk.net (because our school name is quite common, it's the only reasonable one we could get!).

 

Still has very occasional issues (people reversing the last two components), but works well enough.

[old_n07]

That is a strange policy from Nominet, we are a college and therefore have ac.uk domains which are admistered by JISC and currently we have 4 of those registered as we merged with another college under that well thought out government scheme that has now been quietly pushed aside

 

1. Our original domain

2. The original domain of the college we took over \ merged with - this is now a forwarding url

3. A new domain for the college we took over to differentiate from the old organisation

4. A new domain for the newly created joint organisation

 

These domains have been registered by us and there are no restrictions on use \ time limits etc so I can't see why Nominet have a policy that a school can only have one domain registered.

[Steve21]

I don't know if you just mean in terms of free domains, but pretty sure you can pay for a 2nd one from Nominet, just the normal registration fees etc, it's been a while since we were looking at it when we were going to rename for a MAT so no idea if it's changed recently

 

Steve

[Cache]

I've done 2 schools previously both with the 3 month overlap from Nominet and we never had any noticeable impact.

 

We did 2 things:

 

1. Redirected all mail as you were planning too.

2. On staff mailboxes in Office 365 setup a mail rule which would autorespond if the received domain was the old domain rather than the new - this was the only time consuming bit which became a pain as it needed to be done individually within Outlook, there may be a better way of doing it.

 

The only other bit was timing so that we started the process at a reasonable point and knew when it would finish. One we did in July to finish at the end of September, the other we did September to finish in November.

 

There is only so much that can be done and the advantage of the .sch.uk domain is that it is unlikely anyone would ever pick up the old domain.

[mavhc]

Set up new name as a new school, don't tell them the old one has closed. Easier when merging schools though