.gb.net Domain
A British Domain Without the Nominet Rules
Register your .gb.net domain from just £27.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included, plus free Nominet WHOIS privacy for UK individuals.
What is a .gb.net domain?
The .gb.net extension provides a British-flavoured domain outside the Nominet registry system. It's available to anyone worldwide, with no residency requirements or registration restrictions. For businesses that want a "Great Britain" signal without the formality of the official .uk namespace, .gb.net is a practical alternative.
Who should register .gb.net?
International businesses wanting a British brand signal, expats, and organisations whose preferred .co.uk has already gone.
Why choose .gb.net?
- British signal outside the Nominet namespace
- Open to worldwide registration
- No Nominet registry requirements
- Good availability of names
Who runs .gb.net, and since when
Registry data from the .gb.net delegation record held by IANA, which maintains the internet's root zone. Eligibility comes from the registry's own policy, and the prices are ours.
- Extension type
- Generic (gTLD)
- Registered under the .net zone
- Registry operator
- 8 Inc.
- CentralNic Ltd provides the technical registry, inside the .net zone that VeriSign Global Registry Services runs
- .net delegated
- 1985
- The date belongs to the .net zone, not to .gb.net itself
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no residency, company or Nominet requirement
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £27.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
Why .gb.net exists and the .gb domain never opened
Two country-code domains for Britain entered the root zone on the same day, 24 July 1985. One of them is .uk, run by Nominet, with millions of names beneath it. The other is .gb, and you cannot have one. IANA lists its manager as "Reserved Domain - IANA" with Jisc named as naming administrator, and no registry has ever taken public orders for it.
That gap is what .gb.net sells into, and it is honest about not being the real thing. It is not a top-level domain. It is a single ordinary registration inside the .net zone that Verisign runs, subdivided and resold by a private registry: the policies are published by 8 Inc., CentralNic Ltd provides the technical registry platform, and Gen.xyz handles support and abuse reports. Those policies set no eligibility restrictions of any kind, so anyone anywhere can hold one, for a term of one to ten years.
Be clear about what you are buying. It reads as British, it has nothing to do with the British government or Nominet, and a .co.uk costs roughly a third as much.
Is .gb.net the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.gb.net works well if
- The short British word you want went from .uk and .co.uk years ago, and you would rather have it here than pad the name out with extra words.
- You are based outside the UK, selling into Britain, and want a British-sounding address without implying a UK company registration you do not have.
- You are protecting a brand across the obvious British-looking variants and buying this defensively rather than as your main address.
Look elsewhere if
- You expect it to help you rank in Google UK. It sits inside .net, which Google treats as generic, so it carries no country signal whatsoever.
- The annual cost matters. A .gb.net runs close to three times a .co.uk, every year, for a name that is technically a level below somebody else's registration.
- People need to type it correctly after hearing it once. Two labels before the dot is one more than most listeners expect, and GB is not UK.
Want a British address that search engines actually read as British? The .co.uk does that for far less. See .co.uk pricing.
.gb.net vs .uk: which should you register?
The short .uk is the real article: a country-code domain run by Nominet from Oxford, open to anyone with no residency test at all, and on our price list a small fraction of a .gb.net. If your name is free at .uk or .co.uk, take it and the comparison is over.
What .gb.net offers starts after that, and it is an availability argument rather than a quality one. Short British words disappeared from the .uk namespace long ago and some are still findable under .gb.net. What you give up is the geographic weight Google attaches to a country-code domain, the Nominet dispute service, and the free privacy that keeps a UK individual name and address off the public record. None of that follows a name that is really a .net.
.gb.net domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .gb.net domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. IANA lists the manager of .gb as "Reserved Domain - IANA", with Jisc as the naming administrator, and no registry has ever offered it for public registration. It has sat in the root zone since 24 July 1985, the same day .uk was delegated, and .uk is the one that opened to the public. Anything sold today as a GB domain is a name under some other extension, .gb.net included.
Neither. The registry policies for .gb.net are published by 8 Inc., CentralNic Ltd runs the technical registry, and Gen.xyz handles support and abuse. Because the name sits inside .net rather than .uk, no Nominet rule touches it: the Nominet dispute resolution service does not cover it, and neither does the consent-based privacy that keeps a UK individual off the public record on a .uk domain. The contract is governed by the law of Nevada.
It does not. Google treats .net as a generic extension with no geographic meaning, and a third-level name inside .net inherits that, so .gb.net gives search engines nothing to associate you with Britain. Country targeting on a generic domain is done through hosting location, a Search Console setting, your address and your content, all of which you can do on any extension. If UK search is the goal, buy the .co.uk and spend the difference on the site.
Included with Your .gb.net Domain
DNS Management
Full DNS zone editor to manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and all record types.
Email Forwarding
Set up professional email addresses and forward to any inbox.
Auto-Renewal
Never lose your domain with automatic renewal protection.
Free 10GB Mailbox
One 10GB mailbox (POP3/IMAP) included with every domain, on any TLD.
Other UK Domains Extensions
Register your .gb.net domain today
Secure your .gb.net domain from just £27.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
