Published by Gbaf News
Posted on October 29, 2014
3 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Add as preferred source on Google
Whilst the public may have voted ‘no’ to independence, businesses north of the border have been quick to recognise that pride and a sense of national identity are as important as ever to the people of Scotland. This is according to 123-reg.co.uk, the UK’s largest domain registrar, who is seeing rapid uptake of Scottish online domain identifier, Dot Scot.
The swift endorsement of Dot Scot by businesses with Scottish post codes is backed up by the findings of a survey carried out by 123-reg.co.uk this week, which revealed that more than 62 per cent of Scots are more likely to buy from businesses that are clearly Scottish.
With a current population of over 4.5 million, the number of Scottish households is projected to increase by more than a fifth over the next 25 years, according to the General Register Office for Scotland. A sense of ‘Scottishness’ is not confined to residents of the country itself, as an estimated 40 million people outside Scotland identify themselves as being of Scottish extraction. In view of this loyalty and affection, there are many potential benefits to linking your business with the Scottish nationality.
Borders College, the only provider of further education in the Scottish Borders, explained the significance of Dot Scot to its business: “As the only college based in the Scottish borders, it’s important to us to make sure that our brand reflects our location and nationality. Securing the Dot Scot extension allows us to protect our treasured brand from any unauthorised use and it’s easy to manage in 123-reg’s user-friendly control panel.”
Over 4,000 Dot Scot names were registered within an hour of the domain becoming available, with an incredible 1,500 being scooped up in the first 60 seconds. With the lion’s share of Scots saying they would select local businesses, 123-reg fully expects the number of Dot Scots to continue to rise.
Nick Leech, Group Marketing Director at 123-reg, said: “It’s great to see that ‘brand Scotland’ in such rude health. A sense of ‘Scottishness’ has long been used by products such as whisky and tartan to connect with customers. Now regular Scottish businesses can take advantage of this strong national identity and by adding Dot Scot to their domain name, demonstrating their heritage to both local and international customers. One of our goals has been to provide an easy avenue for business owners to access the Dot Scot name and we’re pleased to see such a positive reaction.”
Explore more articles in the Business category
