.com, .org or .org.uk??

[nicsonian]

Hi,

I own the .com, the .org and the .org.uk for the same domain name. Which one is the best to use and how should I use the others? Most of my visitors that will find the site useful will be UK based.

Also, I have used a Canadian based hosting company for the last 6 years, for a number of different sites. I'm now considering using a UK based hosting company for this new site due to the advice I've received regarding Google favouring UK sites being host on a UK IP?? However, I have an excellent relationship with my current hosts and have to wonder whether its worth changing, I've tried using some UK hosting companies in the past and always found myself going back to the Canadians.

Any advice will be much appreciated!

 

[bargainmania]

Depends on type of site really, but over those tld's i would go with the .com.
As for hosting, it will be better to go with a decent UK host for difference in page loading speeds alone. Why have you always went with canadian?

Alistair

 

[Faevilangel]

Personally I would use the .com as it's more widely recognised than the others and is likely to be added to your name e.g. someone searching for blue widgets might type bluewidgets.com first.

Hosting wise, I would be more inclined to go to a UK host for the latency and any benefit to the SEO can only be a positive.

 

[cjd]

Shame you haven't got .co.uk. If you're a UK company trading mostly in and with the UK, that's the one to divert the others to. Otherwise use .com

 

[nicsonian]

Depends on type of site really, but over those tld's i would go with the .com.
As for hosting, it will be better to go with a decent UK host for difference in page loading speeds alone. Why have you always went with canadian?

Thanks Alistair - I signed up with Netpivotal back in 2005 for the first site that I owned and I didn't realise that they were Canadian based at the time. Since then, they've always been incredibly easy to communicate with when I've had issues or technical questions, they've often gone beyond their remit to help me and I've found that the servers my sites have been hosted on are pretty reliable. As opposed to some of the UK hosts that I've used who have been opposite to the above.

 

[nicsonian]

Personally I would use the .com as it's more widely recognised than the others and is likely to be added to your name e.g. someone searching for blue widgets might type bluewidgets.com first.

Hosting wise, I would be more inclined to go to a UK host for the latency and any benefit to the SEO can only be a positive.

Thanks for the helpful comment - you've confirmed my thoughts towards using the .com.

Would you recommend any particular UK hosting companies??

 

[nicsonian]

Shame you haven't got .co.uk. If you're a UK company trading mostly in and with the UK, that's the one to divert the others to. Otherwise use .com

Yes, I agree. However, the company that owns the .co.uk isn't currently using it and when I go direct it is just a page that says click this link to find out about buying this domain. Do I go for it? Or wait till I'm a little further down the line with development of my new site??

 

[cjd]

Yes, I agree. However, the company that owns the .co.uk isn't currently using it and when I go direct it is just a page that says click this link to find out about buying this domain. Do I go for it? Or wait till I'm a little further down the line with development of my new site??

Buy it now - do it anonymously through one of the websites that do it for you. The longer you wait the more it will cost you in the end.

 

[Faevilangel]

Thanks for the helpful comment - you've confirmed my thoughts towards using the .com.

Would you recommend any particular UK hosting companies??

See my signature - I recommend a UK webhost called Vidahost who are also UKBF members. Support is top notch and the servers are excellent. Only had one downtime since I been using them and that was because of a fire at the data centre.

 

[KmkPro]

I would go with the .com or buy co.uk if possible.

Have you tried uk2.net and fasthosts ?
I was considering to use one of them for some projects and
could use extra opinion if you tried em already.

 

[Faevilangel]

I would go with the .com or buy co.uk if possible.

Have you tried uk2.net and fasthosts ?
I was considering to use one of them for some projects and
could use extra opinion if you tried em already.

I have no feedback for UK2 but Never go near Fasthosts, you will want to pull your teeth out after wards.

 

[DesignerNick]

Uk2 dont have the best feedback either

 

[ccsleedsltd]

Use a very long stick to poke fasthosts and give Dom and boys a call at Vidahost, you won't regret it (and this is a recommendation from me, who could just be saying come to us, come to us!)

Cheers

 

[Dominic Taylor]

Thanks Faevilangel though just to be clear it wasn't a fire in the end, just a UPS issue and a couple of confused initial reports.

Almost all our new virtual/dedicated and, soon, shared hosting goes in a 2N + 1 datacentre (far above the N + 1 used by almost all our competitors) meaning power issues should be a thing of the past.

In fact should the new facility we use go down, let's just say that given their other clients, nobody would be able to call us or get online

Use a very long stick to poke fasthosts and give Dom and boys a call at Vidahost, you won't regret it (and this is a recommendation from me, who could just be saying come to us, come to us!)

Cheers

Thanks Pete

(If you need broadband or any form of ISP service, give CCS a call, we have a few lines with them now )

 

[GravexWebServices]

We use Blacknight for our hosting. They have been brilliant. We've had one issue with e-mails in nearly 12 months, and that was caused by their email server breaking down.

I remember asking the question about whether it made a difference to a .co.uk site if it was hosted on an Irish server (Blacknight are based in Ireland). It doesn't make a difference really. Google prefers page speed and actual website content to give it a good ranking.

 

[Dominic Taylor]

One on topic reply because I submitted my post too soon, in our database .com and .co.uk are the leaders with .org and .org.uk both near the top. My order of preference is probably .co.uk, .com, org.uk.

But then what do I know - I chose vidahost.com back in the day

(And forgot to register variations so now there's vodahost (who actually reg'd just before us), and a spanish company called vidahosting offhand - so we get some rather confusing calls every now and then!)

 

[nicsonian]

Buy it now - do it anonymously through one of the websites that do it for you. The longer you wait the more it will cost you in the end.

Thanks for the advice - Do you mean buy the domain via GoDaddy or someone similar??

 

[nicsonian]

Have you tried uk2.net and fasthosts ?
I was considering to use one of them for some projects and
could use extra opinion if you tried em already.

I've tried both over the years and found that both of them are rubbish for support - uk2 would sometimes take days to answer a support issue. I wouldn't recommend either.

 

[cjd]

Thanks for the advice - Do you mean buy the domain via GoDaddy or someone similar??

We've used Sedo a couple of times successfully (you can try almost any top level domain extension of Voipfone and get us

http://www.sedo.co.uk

 

[webhostuk]

If you dont have co.uk, you can get the main site on .com, will surely recommend to go with UK hosting provider.

 

[bargainmania]

That really does depend, if you have the cash for it, Some people are asking crazy money for not so good domains. There is ways of getting the price down
if you want to pm me i can help you out with this and NO i dont want to know the domain name in question

Alistair

Yes, I agree. However, the company that owns the .co.uk isn't currently using it and when I go direct it is just a page that says click this link to find out about buying this domain. Do I go for it? Or wait till I'm a little further down the line with development of my new site??

 

[ships-cat]

strictly speaking:

.com = US-based commercial endeavour
.org = US-based not-for-profit endeavour
.org.uk = UK based not-for-profit endeavour.

I have no idea wether google takes this into account.

meow purr

 

[KmkPro]

​

strictly speaking:

.com = US-based commercial endeavor
.org = US-based not-for-profit endeavor
.org.uk = UK based not-for-profit endeavor.

I have no idea whether Google takes this into account.

meow purr

Well, not so strictly speaking:

Only .gov and .mil TLDs are US oriented,
.com - international, general purpose,
.org - international, organization

 

[KF_Researcher]

I had a friend that used Blacknight as well and reviewed it positively

 

[cgdhosting]

I suggest purchasing a .com and a .co.uk and having your main site as .co.uk and a permanent redirect from .com to .co.uk