Newbie question on SEO: using .com or .co.uk

[Lightwind]

Hi all

I've just joined EUKHOST from Hostmonster, and I've got a question regarding the use of .com or .co.uk now that I'm physically hosting my site in the UK instead of the US. For info, I am a UK based business, and my domain name is about 6 years old.

My business has registered the .com and .co.uk domains. However, I have only ever used the .com address for my website and for contact details on my business cards etc.

My question is this...

From a Search Engine Optimization point of view, now that my site is physically hosted in the UK instead of the US, and the fact that I'm a UK based business, how should I now make use of the .co.uk address?

Would it be better for me from Google's point of view to now make use of the .co.uk address as I'm in the UK, or just leave things as they are? I'm not very confident in understanding things like redirects etc, but is there something I should do which allows me to still use the .com address, but which has this .com address pointing to the .co.uk address from an Search Engine Optimization standpoint?

If I should make a change, how do I do this please?

I hope this makes sense, and I may well have completely misunderstood what I've been told. Any help and advice on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Sorry, perhaps I should have posted this in the SEO section! Could the Mods please move the post if necessary.

[Catherine]

Hello and to EUKhost community. We hope that you have a good time here.

.com is still the most preferred domain TLD on the internet and as your domain is old, it's a good benefit for you. Even if your website is physically hosted on a UK based server and you are targeting UK for business, having a .com domain is an advantage for you and I would suggest you to keep this domain as the primary domain name for your business. There is no negative effect on the rankings of the website even if the domain is a .com domain and you are targeting UK for business.

I would suggest you to use the .com domain for your website and keep it as a primary domain name for your business. When it comes to the .co.uk domain, you can simply setup a redirect on the .co.uk domain or you can develop it individually and keep it as an alternative or subsidiary of the main website.

[Lightwind]

Thanks very much, that really is helpful, so I'll leave things as they are using the .com address.

I'm very impressed with EUKHOST so far and feel I've definitely made the right decision in joining. I've already contacted Support a few times to get advice and help with the transfer of my site from Hostmonster, and they have all been brilliant .

Thanks again for your advice.

[Caboodle]

I really don't like using a site that is not .com. I like Catherine's suggestion to set up a redirect. That way people won't even realize that they are on a co.uk site.

[Hoston]

I agree with the others, .com is still the most popular and widely used extension. I always consider it the 'main' domain extension. You have made the right decision by leaving things as they are using the old domain.

[WeRollin]

My suggestion for you is to use .com for the whole thing. Why setup a redirect, it's just going to cost you more to buy that .com domain anyway. Can someone clarify this idea?

[BritishFlag]

Generally, the .com is preferred by internet users because it's the most well-known and people tend to add the .com extension at the end of domains in the address bar.

However, if a website has good SEO, it will be indexed by search engines regardless of the extension. I've come across several .co.uk websites that appeared on the first page of Google and Yahoo!, while their .com/.net alternatives (on the same niche) were on the fourth page.

[sarah25]

Re: Newbie question on SEO: using .com or .co.uk

Hello all, I am Sarah and I am new here. I have recently join this community to get in touch with the latest information and make discussion on issues related to different topics. You surely have taken the right decision and hope your experience with them makes your website really successful over the web.

[Ben Stones]

Re: Newbie question on SEO: using .com or .co.uk

The location of your website, rather than the domain extension, plays an important role in search engine optimisation because websites hosted in the UK may have higher relevance if a user is searching about UK law or a news topic specific to the UK, just to give a few examples - which is why Google factors location into account.

If you haven't heard about the news, the new TLDs expansion programme which started in 2011 is nearing the Sunrise and Landrush phases nearing towards General Availability. We hope to be offering some of these domain extensions once they become available for geneal registration. We think extensions like .blog, .shop, .cafe, .news, etc. make perfect sense and we look forward to offering these kinds of extensions to our customers when they become available.