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New Business .co.uk or .com or both?

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TheGeekestLink

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May 4, 2011
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I want to re-brand but the domain I want is only available as a .co.uk...

Do I really need the .com? I hear a lot of comments about how important the .com is, but if someone can clarify...
 
Hi there,
In a world dominated by .coms an ad agency decided to promote a financial services company as being different by highlighting the .co.uk
99 times out of 100 a .com is better than a .co.ok, but if you can get a name that costs a million for the .com and only pay a few grand for the .co.uk version and then add $998,000 of marketing to it I think the .co.uk comes out on top.
 
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if we talk about .co.uk then it is mainly focused at United kingdom, .com is in world wide thats Us , so if you are focusing your business in UK ten go for .co.uk otherwise you can go for .com also.
 
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I had the same dilemma many years ago and just went with the .co.uk version as my target market is UK only.

Google has always rated my site well whilst the American company that owns the .com site doesn't get a look in on Google UK
 
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You must have the .co.uk but it's nice if you can get .com too. Nice, but not at all necessary for a UK business.
 
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For me personally I always want to have both but if the .co.uk is exceptional I would go with it.

It's important to consider how UK focussed your business is and how likely you are to expand or trade internationally. If you do go international, now or later, then I would try and find a domain where you can use .com.

However if you are primarily UK focussed then there is strong evidence that a .co.uk will serve you better.

http://db.nominet.org.uk/page/trust-and-awareness/

Check out the preference of .uk over .com when buying on the web. It's massive!

There are also a lot of other threads on this if you want to read some additional views.
 
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Just make sure the com isnt a similar business so you dont get confused customers. Otherwise just concentrate on the co.uk
 
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TheGeekestLink said:
OOh, as opposed to .co.uk?

That sounds awesome and far more likely for people to use.

Or will it be another like .co?
Click to expand...

Don't lose sleep over this meaningless change.

If rebranding, then keep going until you find a .com and .co.uk available and buy both.
 
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If the majority if your web traffic will be coming from the UK then you should get a .co.uk domain. It will rank easier in the UK searches.
 
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the new extension won't be one to dismiss like your.mobi etc..... The question is if it goes ahead will current owners of co uk's get first dibs or TM holders or will it be a landrush.
 
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I would suggest .co.uk if you are targeting UK
If you are considering selling overseas in the future then a cheaper alternative is down the .com route otherwise you will have to have seo done on .fr/es sites separately.
 
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TheGeekestLink said:
I want to re-brand but the domain I want is only available as a .co.uk...

Do I really need the .com? I hear a lot of comments about how important the .com is, but if someone can clarify...
Click to expand...

I often chime in on this because I have direct experience as a business owner building a business on just a .co.uk (a big mistake) in a different life, but also as an established host that sees a lot of our customers making the same mistake.

The simple rule that for a brand name is you need both. You will lose traffic by not having both. All of the effort you put in to building a brand and marketing is lost the second someone attempts to visit the .com version of the domain you have. If the site offers something similar to yours or a way of finding what the visitor is looking for, they won't even consider going back to typing in the .co.uk to see if that is correct.

This is real world advice, unlike some of the opinions offered on UKBF. Been there, done that.
 
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I have both .com and .co.uk for four potential businesses.

I tried to trademark one name but it was declined as too generic, however by having both a .com and co.uk for it and close variations I hope to have created and protected a brand name. I may be naive about that but (operating on pennies) I am hoping that the domain names will create enough identity for me in the short term at least.
 
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Yes usually both and redirect. If you turn this into a big business, how easy would it be for your competitor to register the alternative domain and steal traffic?
 
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TheGeekestLink said:
So, the advice is redirect everything to the .com?

How does that affect the UK SEO?
Click to expand...

Get both. Choose either the .co.uk or .com as the main domain, it honestly won't matter that much. I'd probably choose the .co.uk then park the .com domain on top of the .co.uk (easily done through cPanel or you can forward it at your registrar).
 
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Exactly, the domain you choose won't matter from an SEO perspective (only the perception that consumers take when the see the TLD).

Personally what I think will matter is that you are on UK hotsting, if you are selling purely to the UK market. US hosting is often cheaper, but won't do you any SEO favours.
 
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I would direct to co.uk but it really depends on where you want your customers to come from.


Uk customers will assume a co.uk is a UK site trading in £ - if its a com your customers have to locate the products to see if you list in £ or $.
 
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The .com is an international domain name. You will build your SEO around that. If you also purchase the .co.uk domain and re-direct it to the .com that will actually enhance your SEO and it will not affect UK SEO negatively.
Another tip: When you purchase your domain names buy them for at least 3 - 5 years. Search engines 'like' domain names with a long expiry.
Yet another tip: Register with Google Analytics (its free) and use their webmasters tools. This will further enhance your SEO.
 
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Richierutter said:
Exactly, the domain you choose won't matter from an SEO perspective (only the perception that consumers take when the see the TLD).

Personally what I think will matter is that you are on UK hotsting, if you are selling purely to the UK market. US hosting is often cheaper, but won't do you any SEO favours.
Click to expand...

This is an interesting concept that many people (me somewhat) subscribe to. But so far, I have not been able to prove it either way. We've tried moving .co.uk's between our UK, European and US infrastructure and have seen zero impact.

We acutally moved WebHostingBuzz.co.uk from our Amsterdam infrastructure to our UK infrastructure and haven't seen any impact, despite being thorough in our monitoring and evaluation.

I think this is somewhat obsolete these days given Google knows many people host out of their locale, on Amazon's cloud, etc. I see far greater impact in setting the locale in GWT.

The pricing disparity between the US and the UK isn't huge. Servers here are around 25% more expensive and power is ridiculously more expensive, but most hosts, us included, set aggressive prices in both. Just FYI a 230V A costs us around £60/month from Tier III / IV infrastructure versus $12 an amp in, say, Atlanta. Thanks government and power cos :eek:
 
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As a simple case study, a local customer (selling a service to the local area) recently moved from US hosting to UK based, as part of a larger SEO project. The results have been encouraging, although proportionality of variance (as with all algorithm diagnostics) would be difficult to attribute.

Unfortunately I haven't got multi site data to empirically prove this statistically. If possible, I would be interested in checking yours?
 
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Richierutter said:
As a simple case study, a local customer (selling a service to the local area) recently moved from US hosting to UK based, as part of a larger SEO project. The results have been encouraging, although proportionality of variance (as with all algorithm diagnostics) would be difficult to attribute.

Unfortunately I haven't got multi site data to empirically prove this statistically. If possible, I would be interested in checking yours?
Click to expand...

I highlighted what I took as the key point there. The hosting switch wasn't the only change made and probably one of the minor ones...

For a true case study with real world data, everything else would have to remain equal but just the hosting switched. I did try this but only over a 3 month period and saw no difference - just the usual fluctuations. I acknowledge a longer period of data gathering would have been preferable but we had to push forward with site development.

PM me if you want to discuss/share feedback more :)

Matt
 
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as a frequent internet customer,

I always prefer .co.uk

.com I always think they are usa/china based......flawed thinking, possibility but the internet is a big dangerous place and I always prefer purchasing from local websites/companies
 
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wanttolearn said:
as a frequent internet customer,

I always prefer .co.uk

.com I always think they are usa/china based......flawed thinking, possibility but the internet is a big dangerous place and I always prefer purchasing from local websites/companies
Click to expand...

Are you for real ?

.com may well have started out life as a USA based idea but that was left behind a long time ago. Today's representation is akin to it being short for "company" which could imply anywhere.

.co.uk is UK centric for sure but many trade through uk.yourname.com and not having the .com would be a fairly daft move.

Put it this way, if you had the .com already, would you give it up ? If not, then you should really make sure you have it to begin with !
 
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Are you for real ?

.com may well have started out life as a USA based idea but that was left behind a long time ago. Today's representation is akin to it being short for "company" which could imply anywhere.
Click to expand...
Actually .com is for a global company, and .co.uk is for a UK Company. There are actually rules applying to most TLD's (although I will admit they are scarcely administered), it is silly to think that .co.uk is not a valid choice for a business.
.co.uk is UK centric for sure but many trade through uk.yourname.com and not having the .com would be a fairly daft move.
Click to expand...
Again this is based in the land of pink-fluff! (Do you have any case-studies or FACT to base this upon?) .com tld's simply cost more. Here is an article based upon research by McAfee knowthenet org uk /articles/dot-coms-are-most-dangerous-sites (a nominet owned website, unfortunately I cannot p[ost the url, but a google of the above should get you the link)
Put it this way, if you had the .com already, would you give it up ? If not, then you should really make sure you have it to begin with !
Click to expand...
I used to have this elitist TLD image until I sat down with another Entrepreneur in my family who has very clearly "made it!". He told me I was being an idiot, if it is the difference between £6.99 for two years and £15.99 for two years, with no functional difference (which there is not), I have followed his sage advice and have saved my pennies year on year.

Lastly my American customers love the .co.uk, and everything about my business being based in England, so I call bumpf on that as well.
 
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Hi,

.com and .net are the two international biggies when it comes to domain names ... and having a co.uk is a must for a UK based business.

Any new domain configurations come at more expensive prices (eg
wolfphotography.uk.com £30 plus VAT per annum.


If you can't find the specific name you're seeking, do a play on words.

Eg I wanted wolfphotography.com but one of my competitors in the USA has it. So I went for wolf-photography. Hyphens are allowed and some may allow full stops in between words too. You can then setup 'forwarders' to point them all to your .co.uk domain name.

Regards

Wolf
 
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Wolf_photo said:
Eg I wanted wolfphotography.com but one of my competitors in the USA has it. So I went for wolf-photography. Hyphens are allowed and some may allow full stops in between words too. You can then setup 'forwarders' to point them all to your .co.uk domain name.

Regards

Wolf
Click to expand...

You will lose a lot of brand traffic due to seepage - visitors going directly to the .com or the .co.uk which is obviously not beneficial to your website.

I would advise unless you can get all of the domains (.co.uk, .com) for a brand term, build a different brand.
 
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Well if you have a .com domain, it reveals that that you are targeting the world means you are not targeting any specific country, but when you have a domain .co.uk then it means you are targeting the local audience of UK.

So that's up to you now, what you are targeting, both .co.uk and .com are good but the reasons behind having these domains are different. :)
 
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