Have i made a mistake choosing a .co.uk domain?

13 years ago

I am not sure if .co.uk will NOT get ranked at all in U.S search results but if you are selling a U.S based product then you are better off going for a .com

On the flipside quite a few of my sites are .co.uk and I just target UK with them.

Chris

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ezlegion 13 years ago

Hi asc,
I agree with Chri5123, I'm not entirely sure, if budget allows get a .com version of your .co.uk domain.

You never know when that .co.uk might come in handy again but you could always put it in the godaddy auctions though
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Alexa Smith

Banned 13 years ago

Hi Alan,

According to Google's Matt Cutts, it'll be slightly easier to rank that domain on searches made from google.co.uk but slightly harder to rank it on google.com.

(I think that some other threads in which this subject's discussed actually include a link to a video in which he explains this, but I can't immediately find one of them now. Unfortunately, many people don't use helpful, descriptive thread-titles as you did, which sometimes makes it a bit hard "finding stuff").

For myself, I use .co.uk domains, on UK-hosting, for my "UK only niche", but I wouldn't touch one for "general international consumption" and my own belief is that it will be both a ranking and potentially a credibility handicap for the US market.

Originally Posted by asc

i am thinking i may have made a mistake as the actual topic is not something that needs to be local - so i may have missed out on a lot of traffic due to my domain choice.

Yes, I'm afraid so ... perhaps especially with such a competitive niche as this.

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g36

13 years ago

This is the theory:

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

According to Google's Matt Cutts, it'll be slightly easier to rank that domain on searches made from google.co.uk but slightly harder to rank it on google.com.

But in reality, it depends on how you optimise your site. Take a look bbc.co.uk for example, it can rank well on google.com, even on other googles like google.es / google.it / google.de

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Alexa Smith Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by g36

Take a look bbc.co.uk for example, it can rank well on google.com, even on other googles like google.es / google.it / google.de

Ooh, well, true enough, I dare say. But you're looking there at one of the world's highest-traffic websites, I think? And perhaps something of a "special case"? People going to the BBC's main website aren't generally looking in Google and finding it there anyway, maybe?

For internet marketers, in general, it's good to have had it confirmed openly by Google that national extension and local hosting provide an SEO benefit to national/local searches, anyway.

This isn't the video-clip I was looking for earlier (which I still haven't found ), on the same subject, but it kind of overlaps with it ...

What impact does server location have on...
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asc

13 years ago

Yes this site is an anxiety site, with a .co.uk ending - thought it might be nice to just aim at uk users, but now i am thinking i may have made a mistake as the actual topic is not something that needs to be local - so i may have missed out on a lot of traffic due to my domain choice.

Thanks for reply!

Alan

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adbash

13 years ago

Don't risk, just buy standard .com domain and your problem is fixed.

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asc

13 years ago

Confirming my beliefs here yes, thanks for the input.

Alan

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Duncan Munene

13 years ago

Each and every post has proven to be helpful to me, now I know just to stay on .com for my website to reach and rank on search engines world wide.

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Alexa Smith

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Duncan Munene

now I know just to stay on .com for my website to reach and rank on search engines world wide.

On a .com or on any other non-country-specific top level domain, Duncan: a .org, .net, .info and so on are the same as a .com "for ranking purposes". Among non-country-specific top level domains, the extension has no relevance at all to SEO.

There may, of course be other reasons for preferring a .com, but SEO certainly isn't one of them.

To clarify - the lesson in this thread isn't about comparing a country-specific extension with "a .com": it's just about comparing a country-specific extension with "a non-country-specific top level domain".

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asc

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

On a .com or on any other non-country-specific top level domain, Duncan: a .org, .net, .info and so on are the same as a .com "for ranking purposes". Among non-country-specific top level domains, the extension has no relevance at all to SEO.

There may, of course be other reasons for preferring a .com, but SEO certainly isn't one of them.

To clarify - the lesson in this thread isn't about comparing a country-specific extension with "a .com": it's just about comparing a country-specific extension with "a non-country-specific top level domain".

Interesting. So would you recommend in general (unless there was a specific reason for targeting a given country) that it would even be more preferable to consider .info or .org, if you are aiming for global? Sometimes they are the cheaper domain to purchase too so that would be good.

Alan

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Alexa Smith

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by asc

So would you recommend in general (unless there was a specific reason for targeting a given country) that it would even be more preferable to consider .info or .org, if you are aiming for global? Sometimes they are the cheaper domain to purchase too so that would be good.

Not really, Alan.

There are other (non-SEO) reasons for .com having some advantages.

I do use mostly .info domains, myself, but only because my customers and potential customers prefer it. I did a "consultation exercise" and asked them (in half of my niches) last year. Many said that they prefer to see ".info" which suggests to them an "informative"/"informational" sort of site (that does describe mine), whereas they think of ".com" as "just someone trying to sell something". So I learned that with customers, overall, .info actually has more credibility than .com. A lot more, in many cases, it seems.

Until I asked them, I'd made the mistake of looking at it only from a marketer's perspective and imagining that ".info" domains are "cheap and 'therefore' not as credible-looking". Silly, I know ... but I did originally think that.

And at one point I even imagined that .info might be worse for SEO than .com. Senseless and totally mistaken though it is, it's quite a widespread urban myth of internet marketing. Well, nobody's born knowing all this stuff.

:rolleyes:

It's not a money-saver for me, at all, though, because I do buy the matching .com domains "protectively" (i.e. to make sure nobody else does!) and in each case I simply redirect the .com domain I'm not using to the .info one I am using.

I wouldn't really want - from choice - to build (part of) my business on a domain-name of which the .com variant already belongs to someone else. (I've done it in one case, when I really wanted the name because it was such a tremendous "hot keyword find", and I could register only the .net and the .info and I was really pleased and surprised to be able to register any extensions at all).

However you look at it, if you don't own the .com, then at some point you're going to lose some traffic (even if it's only a bit of type-in traffic) to the owner of the .com.

And for future resale, if that's a consideration to you at all, you're unquestionably better off with a .com just because many marketers prefer them, and they're going to be the customers, if/when you're selling.

So the only time I'd advise you to use the .info (which is the cheap one - the rest all typically cost about the same) instead of the .com is when you also own the .com.

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David Louis Monk 13 years ago

My small amount of experience on this subject is that I had a property site that I started off with a .com extension and it did not do particularly well so I changed to a .co.uk Although the property is in the UK, when I got a .co.uk domain it did much better. However, I still put this down to better SEO having the main keywords in the domain as well as on the website.

Not so many people are likely to look up the keywords in the US unless they are planning a holiday in the UK. However, if anyone in the US types in the relevant keywords the site ranks equally good on the first page of Google.
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mcclinks3

13 years ago

with .co.uk you have limited your site whereas in .com you can have global visibility.

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Nino Rostomashvili

13 years ago

Of course .co .uk domains are indexed by Google, but in any case .com domains are better than those ones. When you have .com domain you can aim at English population and if you wish make the site local on England

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ColinChia

13 years ago

Hey Alan,

You've been getting some excellent responses from other the other warrior's who stress that you'll be losing traffic from the larger U.S market.

So either get a new domain and have the .co.uk redirected to your .com or just use a .com / .net or .org domain. Redirecting to the .com doesn't necessarily effect your rankings worldwide, while redirecting to the .co.uk most likely will.

However, if don't fancy the above, then you could always create two separate sites - problem solved

Hope this helps,

Colin

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Jonathan 2.0

Banned 13 years ago

When you specialize in the UK a .co.uk would be good. Globally, I would go with a .com

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Sophix

13 years ago

If you can pick up the .com, that way you have a fall back just case.

Soph.

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BarryOnline

13 years ago

All my sites are co.uk or me.uk or org.uk & are hosted on UK IP address. Some of my sites rank #1 in both Google.co.uk & Google.com with solid SEO, these are also fairly competitive keywords.

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Lloyd Buchinski

13 years ago

whitedovebooks.co.uk ranks very highly in the self development area. Will Edwards (his user name here) has been working on it for awhile., and the .co.uk extension doesn't seem to be a handicap.

sxc.hu might be another example of highly ranked with a country domain.

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SEOExpert999

13 years ago

You will have higher rankings in the uk then you would in the US because it is a UK Site. You need a .com preferably or .net. Not that it can not work with the UK domains but you make your work a little harder listing your website fast in the US search engines

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cs.marketer

13 years ago

I normally only use .co.uk domains for UK based sites I don't think I've ever seen a .co.uk within Google.com first page search results....that's not to say there isn't any

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BarryOnline

13 years ago

Originally Posted by cs.marketer

I normally only use .co.uk domains for UK based sites I don't think I've ever seen a .co.uk within Google.com first page search results....that's not to say there isn't any

You'll see plenty of mine

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Tor86

13 years ago

From what I understand, google likes sites that load faster. So if you where to target UK citizens with a co.uk domain, and your site hosted on a server based in the UK, it surely would benefit you.

Edit: I've seen co.uk when searching with google.com, but it's rare (Except for a few giant merchant websites).

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Tor86

13 years ago

Originally Posted by asc

In doing this, have I just isolated myself from ranking well in say US search engines? Or is it just as manageable to rank well AND gain sales with a .co.uk domain?

Any thoughts?

Alan

To answer your question:

Yes, you royally screwed yourself. =)

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asc

13 years ago

Yep think i did! And ive done it with most of my domains. I even switched to uk servers to aim at the UK, so for the domains i have now i guess i will focus on uk and for new purchases i will take all this advice on board.

Thanks warriors!

Alan

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Will Edwards

13 years ago

I have many page #1 rankings in Google for my .co.uk domain so I can tell you from experience that is is possible. What others have said above is also true i.e. you will rank easier in the .co.uk version of Google, but sure you can rank in the US.

Most of my traffic, for example, comes from the US.

Hope that encourages you a bit.

Will

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Have i made a mistake choosing a .co.uk domain?

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