A new YouGov survey has revealed that the .gov.uk suffix creates the greatest trust amongst the British public.

And while only Government institutions are able to use that particular domain style, the findings make for interesting reading elsewhere.

The YouGov Omnibus asked the British public how far they trusted 12 common website domains. The results reveal that the majority of Brits tend to trust websites that end in .gov.uk (80%), .co.uk (68%), .org.uk (65%), and .com (60%).

By contrast, very few trust websites ending in .tv (10%), .biz (4%), .io (4%) and .mobi (2%). In fact, between 32% and 44% of Brits actively distrust websites with these domains. There are more than three million websites using one of these domain names, and the results suggest they could all be in danger of putting off potential visitors.

Surprisingly, only 42% of Brits trust .ac.uk websites, which are primarily used by British universities. However this is likely due to a lack of familiarity, with only 58% of people saying they’ve ever come across such an .ac.uk website, compared to the more than 90% who have ever visited each of the more trusted domains.

Indeed, .ac.uk websites are much more trusted than .net websites (32%), even though people are more likely to found themselves on a .net website at some point (81%).