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.co.uk or .com?

by Val Wilson
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

I'm searching for a domain for a particular niche I'm looking at. For the top searched keyword, the exact match .com domain is already taken, but the .co.uk one is available. My question is will it be more difficult to get to the top of google.com for this search term with a .co.uk domain, even if it is exact match? The main market would be the US.

I also have the option of a .com domain for the main search term + one other word.

So for example instead of mainsearchterm.co.uk, I could have mainsearchtermreview.com. What is the best option in terms of SEO on google.com?

Sorry if I've complicated a very simple question!
#.co.uk #.com #couk #google ranking
  • Profile picture of the author lovboa
    Banned
    This is for sure .com. Unless youre specifically trying to target the uk, stick to .com.
    .net and .org are good as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Wilson
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author bcruan
      Originally Posted by Daniel Wilson View Post

      How much of the time do you see .co.uk at #1 in SERPs and how much .com? There is your answer.
      That is not your answer as .com and .co.uk are pretty evenly matched whe targeting the Uk. However if you are targeting USA then you you would have very little chance of getting it ranked high
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      • Profile picture of the author cctvinstallers
        As people have already said it depends on your market, also try and keep the domain as short as possible, may be worth searching flippa for an existing site with some backlinks and history ?
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        http://localsearchspecialist.co.uklocalsearchspecialist.co.uk
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        • Profile picture of the author Val Wilson
          Thanks for all the replies - .com it is then.

          Originally Posted by cctvinstallers View Post

          As people have already said it depends on your market, also try and keep the domain as short as possible, may be worth searching flippa for an existing site with some backlinks and history ?
          Pity I didn't think of this before - I just missed a sale of a perfect site already on Page 1 of Google with the exact main keyword in the domain - and it went for $110! :-(

          Just as a follow up question, is main-search-term.com as good in terms of SEO as mainsearchterm.com?
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  • Profile picture of the author TheFBGuy
    Originally Posted by Val Wilson View Post

    mainsearchtermreview.com
    Just use that. But leave out "review" in your title and description.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Williamson
    Why not get the .net .org .biz .co .info etc?
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    • Profile picture of the author tocktik
      It depends on you. NAd how you want go. .com is best coming to me
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  • Profile picture of the author harro1
    just get .co.uk and set country to target as "u.s.a" in webmaster tools, that should work i guess,
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  • Profile picture of the author developerbeauty
    undoubtedly .com
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  • Profile picture of the author brwgw
    You may get .co.uk or .co domain, I shure you can get easily .co domain.
    Google will easily indexd.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOtraveler
    i lean towards com but I'd also think if adding that extra word ("review") changes user search intent. i mean if your keyword is mainsearchterm, think: is adding review changing things:

    eg
    1. "seo software"
    2. "seo software review" and
    3. "buy seo software" are all very very different:

    in the first case user is probably just looking around, not too certain about which tools to get,

    in the second instance the user is pretty serious about downloading software but wants to do some quality shopping around and get user feedback,

    in the third instance the user is not interested in free SEO tools, he/she is interested in buying commercial software

    You get the point - so assess your "review" word before jumping on that com domain. Otherwise you may risk getting lots of traffic... which doesn't convert at all...
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  • Profile picture of the author Guru SEO
    You cannot set the country to target the "u.s.a" in webmaster tools for a country domain , it will be set to UK for a .co.uk and you cannot change it.

    Country domains are "usually" stronger than .com domain for that specific country (it all depends on the other 1 billion factors), If you target the US , just get a .com with suffix or prefix.(I usually add a letter like s,x,z at the end) If your SEO is strong it will not make a big difference.
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