Do i buy both .co.uk and .com????

dave1928 · Dec 13, 2008

Hi all

Im setting up a website for pet shop early next year and im trying to come up with a good website name.
Is there any advantage to buying .com?? I plan to sell mainly uk to start with but if all goes well i will sell overseas too.
Ive got some domains i like but are only available in .co.uk and others are avaiable in both.

Any help ony what advantages there are on having .com as well as .co.uk?

Thanks for any comments

Dave

stugster · Dec 13, 2008

Yes, buy them all. Buy the .net whilst you're at it too.

Having these domain names prevents others from using them. If your domain is a plural: "petshops" then make sure you buy the "petshop" ones too.

There are some dishonest bar stewards out there, that will register them once you're established to try and grab some of your hard earned work benefits.

Steve2507 · Dec 13, 2008

Always buy both if they are available.

This protects your business and reduces the chance of anyone using your branding if your business succeeds.

As an example we have a competitor who have the .co.uk of their name. A couple of years ago we started to get a lot of hastle from their customers who thought we were them (our domains are similar). We even had a visit from trading standards about it (they were very good about it and could see it wasn't us). Well I had a look and the .com wasn't registered, so what did I do? I registered the .com and pointed it at our site.

We get a fair bit of traffic from this and we've had quite a few of their customers come to us who typed in .com instead of .co.uk and brought from us.

If the other company had decent customer services and hadn't caused us so many problems I wouldn't have brought the .com, but also if they had purchased both in the first place I couldn't have got it.

stugster · Dec 13, 2008

I forgot to mention, the price of domain names makes it an easy decision as well!

Less than £50 a year for all the variations!

Peter1982 · Dec 13, 2008

I agree with all the above

Any variation that customers might type in their browser buy them all.

If you don't it won't be long before some one else does and tries to sell it to you for much more than it's worth.

Moneyman · Dec 13, 2008

absolutely have to buy both. then you dont get the dot com owned by a gay porno site which has happened with my domain name! Although they did get there first...i just didnt check...Doh

stugster · Dec 13, 2008

Moneyman said:
.i just didnt check...

Yeh right

giftoffer · Dec 13, 2008

co.uk is cheaper compare to .com. I think if you are searching only uk customers that is enough.

luckyg · Dec 13, 2008

giftoffer said:
co.uk is cheaper compare to .com. I think if you are searching only uk customers that is enough.

no chance. get them both if they are available.

for £8 a year its more than worth it.

this thread has prompted me to just go and buy my website with a dash in the middle. never can be to careful!

Steve2507 · Dec 13, 2008

giftoffer said:
co.uk is cheaper compare to .com. I think if you are searching only uk customers that is enough.

See my post about what they forced me to do to them. What I didn't mention is their site shut down about 6 months ago and still has a "coming soon" holding page on it. Does the op want the possibilty of this happening?

They know who they are and if they want me to look at buying the domain and customer base (although it will take some work to get the customers back onside) off them get in touch.

Cromulent · Dec 14, 2008

I bought all of them. I now own the domain for the following:

.com
.co.uk
.org
.net
.biz
.info
.mobi

for £50 - £60 a year it is well worth it just to protect your business name on the web.

Inna_Red · Dec 14, 2008

Speaking about seo promotion co.uk website will likely have higher positions in google.co.uk search results (or for people with british IP searching in any SE). So if your targeted market is UK the priority domain should be co.uk.

layer · Dec 16, 2008

.co.uk is enough for your current business,later you can consider to bid other one when it is time to.i think

Moneyman · Dec 16, 2008

Do not listen to anyone who says get the dot com later. one of your rivals will get it and simply point it to their site. They can probably cream off 25% of your business for £10. what a bargain (for them) It will take a team of lawyers to stop them.
Also you are halving the value of your brand without it. £5 is nothing.

KreativeJuice · Dec 16, 2008

Is there any sites that will email you automatically when a domain name becomes available?

matt.chatterley · Dec 16, 2008

stugster said:
Yes, buy them all. Buy the .net whilst you're at it too.

Having these domain names prevents others from using them. If your domain is a plural: "petshops" then make sure you buy the "petshop" ones too.

There are some dishonest bar stewards out there, that will register them once you're established to try and grab some of your hard earned work benefits.

Top tips. Nothing to add, but just wanted to bump. Buying all the domain permutations now (e.g. we also grabbed hypenated versions of ours) is going to work out cheaper than realising that you want one later and having to go through the hassle of getting someone else to sell it to you!

KidsBeeHappy · Dec 16, 2008

The answer has to be,

would you be upset if someone else bought the .com/net/org and started doing exactly the same type of business off it as you do?

stugster · Dec 16, 2008

layer said:
.co.uk is enough for you current business,later you can consider to bid other one when it is time to.i think

That's a stupid response to a serious question.

Justify your answer. Why the hell is it enough?

I get the feeling your post is purely to get your post-count higher so you can start spamming the forums. I hope I'm wrong though.

edmondscommerce · Dec 16, 2008

one important point here though -

make sure you only offer one site - don't have a separate version of your site for each tld (eg .com)

choose your primary one (.co.uk if you want to target UK visitors, otherwise .com)

and then set up redirects from the other tlds to your primary one.

i think this would need to be a 301 redirect.

matt.chatterley · Dec 16, 2008

edmondscommerce said:
one important point here though -

make sure you only offer one site - don't have a separate version of your site for each tld (eg .com)

choose your primary one (.co.uk if you want to target UK visitors, otherwise .com)

and then set up redirects from the other tlds to your primary one.

i think this would need to be a 301 redirect.

Yep - definitely a 301 (permanent) redirect, so that your single site (on your main domain) gets the full benefit of any inbound links to the other domains - just incase you acquire them!

Can also prevent search engine confusion and potential duplicate content detection, etc.

Steve2507 · Dec 16, 2008

edmondscommerce said:
one important point here though -

make sure you only offer one site - don't have a separate version of your site for each tld (eg .com)

choose your primary one (.co.uk if you want to target UK visitors, otherwise .com)

and then set up redirects from the other tlds to your primary one.

i think this would need to be a 301 redirect.

Disagree with this.

Have two sites!

The main site is the one you market and want people to visit.

The second site you use for testing new functionality on the site. So if you want to test a new layout or bring in a new applicatin you can put it on here first without jeopardising your main site.

matt.chatterley · Dec 16, 2008

Steve2507 said:
Disagree with this.

Have two sites!

The main site is the one you market and want people to visit.

The second site you use for testing new functionality on the site. So if you want to test a new layout or bring in a new applicatin you can put it on here first without jeopardising your main site.

While I agree with the sentiment, I'd do this differently!

Have a private one set up on a subdomain for your own "User Acceptance Testing" - e.g. set up uat.yourcompany.com, and restrict access to it via .htaccess or similar, so that only you and those you let in can get there.

If you want to try something out on the public you can either make sure your application is set up to facilitate split testing OR go down the "new.yourcompany.com" route (a bit like Facebook did, not so long ago).

I'd prefer to keep all the "alias" domains pointing to one place, personally - but this is one area where opinion starts to come into it.

georgeou · Dec 16, 2008

Hey David,
I will buy com if i was u.
Yes u will pay more money if u do,But that's no promble!
You not only need the UK market but also the Oversea,i think!
You the better research it again when u decide finial!
B.RGDS
Mr George

dave1928 said:
Hi all

Im setting up a website for pet shop early next year and im trying to come up with a good website name.
Is there any advantage to buying .com?? I plan to sell mainly uk to start with but if all goes well i will sell overseas too.
Ive got some domains i like but are only available in .co.uk and others are avaiable in both.

Any help ony what advantages there are on having .com as well as .co.uk?

Thanks for any comments

Dave

alex-m · Dec 16, 2008

If both are available then yeah, get both. But if the .com is taken and not being used in competition with your type of site/niche then I'd still just go with the .co.uk only. One good domain is better than two average domains - especially when the UK is your target audience.

edmondscommerce · Dec 16, 2008

Steve2507 said:
Disagree with this.

Have two sites!

The main site is the one you market and want people to visit.

The second site you use for testing new functionality on the site. So if you want to test a new layout or bring in a new applicatin you can put it on here first without jeopardising your main site.

Would you want this to be publicly accessible? Would you want it to be spidered by the search engines and giving you duplicate content issues?

For development work that you want to keep private, one way you can set this up without purchasing a domain name is to set up a virtual host on your server for development -

eg mydomain-development.net

but don't actually register the domain name.

Then edit your hosts file on your desktop PC so that

mydomain-development.net points to 80.123.123.123 (server ip address)

this way you can have your own development server that will never be accessed by anyone else ever.

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Do i buy both .co.uk and .com????

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layer

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Steve2507

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