Dot London Domains Ltd (“Dot London”), has today announced that .LONDON will begin taking registrations on 29 April 2014, marking the formal launch of the .LONDON domain.

More than 200,000 small businesses in London say they are likely to register a new .london internet address when the domain names go on sale at the end of April.

A YouGov survey of small businesses in London found that more than one in four (26 per cent, equivalent to 218,140 companies ) were likely to register for a .london web address. Almost half (48 per cent) of those said they would do so because they are proud to be a London business , 41% cent said a .london web address would help customers find them more easily and 27% said it would help generate more sales.

The survey was conducted on behalf of London & Partners, the Mayor’s official promotional organisation for London which polled business which had between 0-49 employees.

As part of the launch programme, London based businesses and Londoners will be given an initial three-month priority period in which to pre-register domain names.

During the same period, trademark holders registered in ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse, will also be able to submit a claim for their associated address(es) for their trademark.