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Will changing my top level domain from .co.uk to .com harm SEO

by premiumhunter
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

My website currently runs from hxxp://www.premiumhunter.co.uk which is about two years old. I also own the .com which is nearly 10 years old.

Being a total novice, I opted to have the .co.uk as my tld. Now having learnt more about SEO and PR rank etc I think I made a mistake.

My question is, should I change the top level domain to hxxp://www.premiumhunter.com or leave it as .co.uk?

I've worked hard and got page 2 on Google for my main keyword over the last couple of weeks (something many on here and elsewhere told me no chance unless I paid for SEO) and I really I don't want to jeopardize that progression. But at the same time my PR rank is only 1 and for a major affiliate I need to have PR of at least 2 and have been told my .com will help as it's 10 years old.

Thoughts & help appreciated

Many thanks
#changing #couk #domain #harm #level #seo #top
  • Profile picture of the author MrFade
    it seems you selected .co.uk domain for a reason. May be you want your visitors from UK only. This clearly makes a difference when you prefer a country specific domain over a TLD.

    Ask yourself first do you want your visitors from UK only or all over around the world. If the answer is UK then I would suggest you to have .co.uk domain.

    Also it depends what site you're running with. Is is an eCommerce or is it only an info or what?
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  • Profile picture of the author MrFade
    Sorry your web is not opening at my side, will see it in a while.

    Although you can set your targeted country as UK with .com domain but again my question if you want traffic from UK, I would suggest for .co.uk.
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    • Profile picture of the author darlanne
      The weight in google's algorithm for an aged domain is not really factored much now except to indicate to google that an aged domain typically does not indicate a spammy site. The higher factors weighting SEO are backlinks, social signals and bounce rate. Page rank does not impact your SERP as much as it helps your content indexing.

      Here is one assessment of SEO ranking factors which might be of interest:

      SEO Ranking Factors - Rank Correlation 2013 for Google USA 2013

      Edited to add: You can always redirect your .com to your .co.uk if you'd like...
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      • Profile picture of the author TurkishDelight
        If two domain names were the same, but one .co.uk, the other .com, both same age, does google rank them differently?

        Also are you at a disadvantage having a .org or .net website it googles eyes?

        Might seem silly questionsm, i'm new to all this.
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        • Profile picture of the author MrFade
          Originally Posted by TurkishDelight View Post

          If two domain names were the same, but one .co.uk, the other .com, both same age, does google rank them differently?
          Yes Google ll treat both differently as far
          as the Google ranking is concerned. You need to see difference between Country code top-level domain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Top-level domain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You surely will get your answer.

          Originally Posted by TurkishDelight View Post

          Also are you at a disadvantage having a .org or .net website it googles eyes?
          Well you can't say a disadvantage but a preference could be. ".com" is always sounds most common and easy to remember or type. So always try to go for ".com". There is no any disadvantage but a secondary preference.

          A .net or .org would always perform better than a non-active .com website. Google watches the effort being made by you.
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          • Profile picture of the author TurkishDelight
            Thanks MrFade, that helps. I personally think .com sounds better too.

            I've also learnt that you shouldn't try to get your domain name to match your main keyword as this looks suspect, would you agree?
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            • Profile picture of the author MrFade
              Originally Posted by TurkishDelight View Post

              I've also learnt that you shouldn't try to get your domain name to match your main keyword as this looks suspect, would you agree?
              Well honestly speaking not in my case, I run many EMD websites and I never got caught by Google. Although changes in Google Algo in 2011 de-rank some EMD websites but this case was not for all so I conclude in short the better performance wins always.

              But a brand-able domain gives you more juice than EMDs. In my observation EMD websites don't stay on top for a long time. Few reasons:

              1. These are based on micro niche websites having few pages only.
              2. Content not updating.
              3. Depends on trend of that niche (can disturb your rankings)

              While a brand-able in that case is always better and for a long term too with lots of pages (YES Google likes as much pages as you can have) plus updating content is always eye-catching for Google.

              Choice is yours.
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              • Profile picture of the author TurkishDelight
                So as long as you keep your website looking natural with regular content that is relevant, an EMD will do you no harm?
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                • Profile picture of the author MrFade
                  Originally Posted by TurkishDelight View Post

                  So as long as you keep your website looking natural with regular content that is relevant, an EMD will do you no harm?
                  Despite of this you can't ignore the trend. Some products give you sale in first 6 months.
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  • Profile picture of the author premiumhunter
    Thanks for your help folks :-)
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