Many of you have recently had emails from the Government Digital Service (GDS) about different domain issues relating to your .gov.uk domain which has caused concern and an influx of emails to our support team.
Why are we receiving these emails now?
In December of last year, the cabinet office sent out an email asking you to attach at least one .gov.uk role-based email to the domain name. The person who that email belongs to is now the appointed domain name administrator who has the authority to request significant changes, potentially affecting services or applications associated with it. Until December of last year, we were likely the main contact for the domain name and all emails relating to your domain would be sent to us. Now that your email is associated with the domain name, you are receiving these emails.
Please note if you do not currently have a .gov.uk email address you will need to create one if you wish to set up a .gov.uk domain name.
Locking a Domain Name
The most recent email sent to you from the cabinet office is asking you to lock your domain name. This is a simple process that you should now be implementing to help ensure changes cannot be made without the domain administrator being made aware. It will also track any DNS changes and let you know when there have been made.
The domain administrator has to do this and can easily be actioned from the following website: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/GDSRegistryLock/
Renewing a Domain
As the organisation who is the registrar for your domain, we still receive reminders to renew your domain prior to it expiring. We normally renew the domain 1 month before the expiry date but since JISC is sending out more emails that are causing concern, we will be renewing domains two months before the renewal date to remove any confusion over if this has been actioned.
If you receive the email about domain locking, please ask the domain administrator to follow the instructions through the link above, there is nothing we can do to action this for you. If you still have questions about these changes and your domain name, please call us on 01392 669497 and we’d be happy to talk you through it.