Google search - .com or .co.uk

[Bill Deakin]

Which do you use...

Do you use both for different purposes?
Do you have either set as your homepage?
Do you have a toolbar installed that default searches on either?

I tend to use .com if I'm doing research or looking up information, and .co.uk if I'm shopping. I have mainly concentrated on SEO for .com but wondering how many of my potential visitors would be using .co.uk

Bill

[TWD-Tony]

It's a good question, I generally use .co.uk for most things - finding information. shopping etc I find that a .com search throws out WAY to many results

Another thing to consider - and you will probably already know this but some people may not...
The location of your hosting can have a great effect on your country specific search rankings... I will try and explain but it gets a little complicated!

If you own a country specific domain name extension - .co.uk for example then Google knows that your website is UK based, or at least targeted at a UK audience so it lists it in UK ONLY searches from Google.co.uk


If on the other hand you own a GENERIC domain name extension - .com or .net for example then Google has no way of knowing your target audience so it uses something called geo-ip location which basically means it looks up the IP address of the server that your website is hosted on and uses the servers location to determine the "target" country. so if you have a .com on a USA hosting account then you are in trouble in regards to UK only searches


BUT...


Having said all that there ARE a few .com's listed in UK only searches that are located OUTSIDE the UK - I'm not 100% sure how or why but I am guessing it has something to do with the % of inbound UK links?????


Also there is evidence to suggest that if you take 2 identical website's (content, PR, inbound / outbound links etc) and host them in different physical locations then the one on the UK server will outrank the non UK hosted one in a UK only search.

[Bill Deakin]

Hi Tony

I was aware of that, but unsure how much it affects ranking. Is there anything else that can be done to influence rankings specifically for UK results?

Bill

[TWD-Tony]

My advice to anyone who is specifically targeting UK ONLY results in the SERPS is to use the .co.uk domain extension AND a UK based hosting provider - one that has servers in the UK (some don't).
I'm not an SEO guru - I'm a webhost so I only know the basic's:

• Design your website for humans - don't try and use "blackhat" SEO tactics or code your website for the search engines.
• Write good quality & unique content.
• Get good natural inbound links, recprical links are very much devalued these days so link exchanges are not worth the effort.
• The more inbound links from "trusted" high PR website's the better - PR isn't a direct indication of a good ranking but it is a good indicator of how Google treats a website in terms of trust and quality.

I am sure that someone with more SEO experiance than myself will be able to advise you more...

[fisicx]

Tony hit the nail on the head - write pages for people not search engines.

If the information is relevant to the search parameters, then provided that the SE knows about you and has indexed the pages, all that is peventing you from being found is everybody else who ranks higher than you. The skill is knowing how to be found by people. That's the magic of SEO - not ranking number 1 for a highly competitive phrase, but getting enough long tail searches to make number 1 slot irrelevant.

So it matters not one jot which version of google they use.

[Birmingham]

i used to use only .com - and for global subjects i still tend to use it, but i'm swaying much more in the way of using .co.uk for searches to anything relevant to the uk these days, including things indirectly relevant to my own marketing campaigns.

i couldn't vote - i'm 50/50 - very tricky decision, and i would probably have .co.uk as my homepage rather than .com

[Bill Deakin]

I quite agree, and I do write for humans...

However, I have a .com hosted on a US server. The majority of users I'm targetting are UK based so I'm interested to see how many of them are searching on .co.uk

Can a US hosted .com compete effectively against a similar .co.uk domain hosted in the UK?

We are currently on page one of google.com for several terms and typically 10 - 15 places behind on google.co.uk, would switching to a UK server even that out at all?

Bill

[Birmingham]

Originally Posted by Bill Deakin

I have a .com hosted on a US server. The majority of users I'm targetting are UK based so I'm interested to see how many of them are searching on .co.uk

Can a US hosted .com compete effectively against a similar .co.uk domain hosted in the UK?

We are currently on page one of google.com for several terms and typically 10 - 15 places behind on google.co.uk, would switching to a UK server even that out at all?

Bill

i have a .org and i'm not able to compete in google.co.uk or other uk search engines anywhere near as effectively as i can in google.com and other international engines.

it is such a pain! if only there was a way to tell the search engines that my website is primarily targeting the UK! should eric schmidt (however it's spelt) be reading this - i'll accept rewards for the idea via paypal (daniel.land@gmail.com)

[peterjhale]

Daniel

Getting it hosted in the UK is really going to help you.

[fisicx]

I've got a .com hosted in the UK but 75% of my visitors are from the US and site does equally well around the rest of world so for me the location is not an issue.

If you want to target UK only why not buy a .co.uk domain? It has been pointed out in this forum (as well as the rest of the SEO world) that domain name relevance can really boost your ranking.

Local and personalised search is going to make huge differences to the way people use the web. Google and Yahoo are already making big inroads and MS won't be far behind. If you read the articles you will know that they intend to make your desktop a local place - seaching for a pizza will deliver results closest to home. Which may mean that bognorpizza.co.uk could do better than a national chain for somebody loking for pizza in bognor. Not because of SEO but because of relevance.