Names.co.uk
British web service provider
Namesco Ltd (names.co.uk) is a British company providing online internet services for individuals and businesses, including domain name registration, web hosting, website building tools, email services, ecommerce solutions and a range of managed and unmanaged servers.
History
Namesco was founded by Richard and Rachel Suthering as a small Internet startup named "Names.co Internet Services Limited" originally based in North East England. In 1997 another Internet startup was founded by Kevin Savage, Jason Smith and John Sewell named Phase8.com "Webcall.com Limited" based in Worcester.
In 2002, it was rumoured that Ian Gowrie-Smith, Australian chairman of drug company SkyePharma was planning a reverse takeover of Namesco with the assistance of its chief executive and finance director, David Lees.
Trading of Namesco shares on AIM were suspended on 19 December 2003 prior to the announcement of Gowrie-Smith's action. A Vietnamese gold mining company, Larchland, was injected into the company in a £19.6million reverse takeover deal that saw the business renamed as Triple Junction PLC. Namesco was hived down into a subsidiary and sold to Womerah Limited.
As a privately owned company, Namesco then had the capital to make new acquisitions as part of their growth strategy. In July 2004, they acquired NamesWeb; a small domain and web hosting business, and on 17 September 2004, they doubled the size of their internet business by acquiring a competitor, the local and profitable Malvern based Simply.com Limited for GBP£2.15M. Simply.com Limited at the time managed 91,000 domain names and 32,000 active customers.
In March 2005, the assets of domain and hosting business Net2 Ltd were acquired followed by the acquisition of broadband business NDO Ltd in July. As NDO also sold domain names, web hosting and dialup internet access, this acquisition allowed Namesco to offer its customers ADSL services.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Names.co.uk” as british web service provider. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british web service provider. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6961667. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Names.co.uk”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Names.co.uk primary sources, Names.co.uk archive and Names research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Names.co.uk”?
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- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Names.co.uk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.