Should I change from .ltd.uk?

[maxine]

I don't know why we originally purchased .ltd.uk but I think it was because all the others ending in .co.uk were gone at the time and I expected to see more people use .ltd.uk but we seem to be in a minority and also I didn't like .biz etc.

Reasons for changing

* people get our domain name wrong from memory and always think we are something ending in .co.uk

Reasons for not changing

* Domain is 5 years old
* Ranks ok
* Went through a verification check of some sort with hosting supplier and companies house so assume this would give some sort of quality indicator for ranking

Can anyone give us some advice on what we should consider before changing?

Should I just think about purchasing a .co.uk for a redirect? (I do have one actually but never used it)

[awebapart.com]

Is moving to a new .co.uk going to cause any confusion too? What if people mistakenly type in .com, or if it is hyphenated and people type in the non-hyphenated version.

If the new .co.uk domain is going to cut down on user confusion, then it is worth considering a move from .ltd.uk to .co.uk. The extension .ltd.uk isn't that common and I can understand why some people might get confused.

Any major change, like a domain change, can cause at least a temporary drop in google rankings while google tries to work out what is going on, so there is some risk involved. The trick is to minimise this risk as much as possible by performing the migration in a way that google understands.

You can set yourself up as google webmaster (google webmaster tools) for your old domain and tell google that you are migrating to a new domain. Also set up permanent redirects of all old pages to new pages. Sitemaps can help too, if used correctly, remembering that ideally you want google to know, in the following order, that:

1. the old page has changed and been redirected to a new page
2. before google finds out about the new page.

(you don't want google to do step 2 before step 1, otherwise it might register duplicates)

Things like site trust, history, age should pass on to the new site if done correctly.

The other alternative is to buy and permanently redirect the .co.uk to the ltd.uk

[estwig]

Why not just do the 301 redirect from the new domain to the old domain??

Get the best of both Worlds.

[Andy Walpole]

I personally wouldn't go for a ltd.uk domain simply for the reason that you stated - it's very uncommon

co.uk is very well known though

I theory if you do a 301 from your old to new domain it should bring its link profile and other positive ranking factors with it

[maxine]

Thanks everyone, great advice as usual :)

Thanks Paul for really good reply as always.. you have helped me loads in the past :)

[Zenicman]

Hi,

Could you not get the other domains and put a redirect on? Even if you still advertise the current domain and people do get it wrong they will be redirected to your site.

WIN WIN