Changing from .com to .co.uk

[betterlanguages]

Hi
Thanks for the advice. Just one quick query. Why must the server be in the Uk? Is it because google will think a .com address based on a foreign server to be not british?

Thanks

Matt

Hi Matt

Interesting subject. Like most of the other posters, I wouldn't recommend losing the .com. We also own .com and .co.uk domains, and I'm currently looking at using both (we're currently on .com), I'm nervous about losing page rank when we start the co.uk domain, but in our case we have problems with the US market because of UK spellings etc, so we're going to localise the content. The reason for in-country hosting is that the spiders can tell where a site is hosted, and its likely to rank better if a co.uk domain is hosted in the UK, providing you use a decent hosting company.

Hope this helps

Mike

www.betterlanguages.com

 

[RayB]

From my experience .co.uk has always done better than .com in the G UK

When you say from experience - could you elaborate?

I see tons of .coms in 1st place on Google.co.uk ??

 

[Codefixer]

Hi betterlanguages

If you want to appear in the '[SIZE=-1]

pages from the UK' then you'll either need to

a. host in the UK
b. get a .co.uk domain
c. set the Geograhpic region in Google Webmaster Console

I have .com's that are hosted in the US and come up No1 on Google.com and Google.co.uk but they don't show up when the 'pages from the UK' radio button is selected.


​

[/SIZE]

 

[betterlanguages]

Hi betterlanguages


If you want to appear in the '[SIZE=-1]

pages from the UK' then you'll either need to​

[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]a. host in the UK[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]b. get a .co.uk domain[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]c. set the Geograhpic region in Google Webmaster Console[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]I have .com's that are hosted in the US and come up No1 on Google.com and Google.co.uk but they don't show up when the 'pages from the UK' radio button is selected.[/SIZE]​

Hi Codefixer,

Curiously, we come up on UK only searches for the .com, not sure how. In terms of your recommendations, that's exactly what we're working on. We've got a UK version of the site almost ready, with UK hosting. Most of the work at the moment is to update the .com to be relevant for the US, and to make sure we have sufficient differences to not be seen as having duplicate content by the spiders.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Grace Liu]

The net adress is just can mark the country which you are. can we change it free and easy?

 

[betterlanguages]

hi Grace

What we're taliking about, is if you own more than one extension, moving your website from one to the other. For example we own both; www.betterlanguages.com and www.betterlanguages.co.uk At the moment our hosting is on the .com domain. We want to set up separate hosting, and a new site for the co.uk domain. Hope this explains.

Many countries allow non residents to buy a domain, e.g. residents of many countries own .com domains. Some are more restrictive, e.g. its very difficult to buy a French domain (.fr) if you don't have a business registered in France.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Mike

 

[ehih]

Hi Ray,

Think I will use .com as my main Web address, and going from what you have said, there should be no problem as long as I use a UK host with servers in the UK.

I presume there shouldn't be any problem doing that from Ireland? (will be moving to the UK in the new year, but a friend of mine is building it here in Ireland)

 

[betterlanguages]

Hi Ray,

Think I will use .com as my main Web address, and going from what you have said, there should be no problem as long as I use a UK host with servers in the UK.

I presume there shouldn't be any problem doing that from Ireland? (will be moving to the UK in the new year, but a friend of mine is building it here in Ireland)

Hi Eoin

Shouldn't be a problem, you can buy hosting anywhere, e.g. we're UK based, but have our German site www.betterlanguages.de hosted in Germany. Remember its not only about SEO, the site needs to be practical for users. e.g. if you're focusing on the UK you probably need a UK address and phone number as contact points. We don't yet offer this on our international sites, and I know it affects our results.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Mike

 

[RayB]

Yes - I would say that approach is spot on - and yes - get UK host, no problem doing that from Ireland at all

Hi Ray,

Think I will use .com as my main Web address, and going from what you have said, there should be no problem as long as I use a UK host with servers in the UK.

I presume there shouldn't be any problem doing that from Ireland? (will be moving to the UK in the new year, but a friend of mine is building it here in Ireland)

 

[ehih]

the site needs to be practical for users. e.g. if you're focusing on the UK you probably need a UK address and phone number as contact points.

Hi Mike,
When you say "UK address" do you mean postal address?
if so I will be ok for that, making the big move over there in the new year!

 

[betterlanguages]

the site needs to be practical for users. e.g. if you're focusing on the UK you probably need a UK address and phone number as contact points.

Hi Mike,
When you say "UK address" do you mean postal address?
if so I will be ok for that, making the big move over there in the new year!

Hi Eoin

Yes I do mean postal address. The theory of the internet is you can be anywhere, the reality is that people like the feeling that you're "down the road".

Cheers

Mike

 

[ehih]

Curiously, we come up on UK only searches for the .com, not sure how. In terms of your recommendations, that's exactly what we're working on. We've got a UK version of the site almost ready, with UK hosting. Most of the work at the moment is to update the .com to be relevant for the US, and to make sure we have sufficient differences to not be seen as having duplicate content by the spiders.

Cheers

Mike[/quote]


Hi Mike that sounds interesting, but I don't fully understand.
If I want to use my Website (.com) in the UK and have my UK postal address, contact numbers ect on it;

can I not just use the exact same site for people from Ireland looking at my site BUT with the postal address, contact numbers ect changed to the Irish versions ??:|

Cheer
Eoin

 

[betterlanguages]

Curiously, we come up on UK only searches for the .com, not sure how. In terms of your recommendations, that's exactly what we're working on. We've got a UK version of the site almost ready, with UK hosting. Most of the work at the moment is to update the .com to be relevant for the US, and to make sure we have sufficient differences to not be seen as having duplicate content by the spiders.

Cheers

Mike

Hi Mike that sounds interesting, but I don't fully understand.
If I want to use my Website (.com) in the UK and have my UK postal address, contact numbers ect on it;

can I not just use the exact same site for people from Ireland looking at my site BUT with the postal address, contact numbers ect changed to the Irish versions ??:|

Cheer
Eoin[/quote]

Not sure how you can add localised content. I know some sites have specific content which changes depending on where the site is viewed, but thats in the realm of the IT experts. The simple way is either to have one contact page with both sets of details, or sites for each country.

Hope this helps

Mike

 

[Picto]

Not sure how you can add localised content. I know some sites have specific content which changes depending on where the site is viewed, but thats in the realm of the IT experts. The simple way is either to have one contact page with both sets of details, or sites for each country.

Hope this helps

Mike

We have different content for different countries but I know this system cost A LOT of money to set up so starting off it is probably much more cost effective to simply build two sites as Mike suggests

 

[betterlanguages]

Interesting theme this one. We also own both .com and .co.uk, it was really annoying when we didn't come up in UK search results (we're hosted in the US). We've got there now though. Eventually we want to have two sites targeted at the US and UK respectively, the only issue we're worried about here is duplicate content.

Cheers

Mike
www.betterlanguages.com

 

[ken_uk]

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has used the Google geo-location tool. I've got a .com site hosted on a UK server that does far better on a .com search than a .co.uk one. I've been tempted to set the location using this tool even though it's already UK based to see if it makes a difference, but like others, I don't want to rock the boat.

Used it on a US hosted .com, that was previously not showing up at all in the .co.uk only results.

It took a few month, but now its ranking great in the .co.uk only results (and still the same in google.com results)

 

[acknowledged74]

I would'nt change either, just promote the redirected domain, and get those incoming links in.

 

[coultog]

I wouldn't consider copying the same content from the .com to the .co.uk or vice versa. Google isn't overly impressed with duplicate content.

I agree with Ray, I'd keep with the .com

 

[Into The Blue]

Hi

I hope all you experts out there can help me with a query. I am planning to move to a new hosting company very soon and they have suggested I change from a .com address to a co.uk address as it will help with google rankings. I own both domains and the co.uk one is set up to redirect to the .com one. The questions I have are:

• I have a lot of links using .com and now have a page rank of 2 (v.proud of this as I have done it all myself and I'm no techno wizard). So will I have to change all those links to co.uk or risk google thinking my site is less important?
• Will switching to co.uk help my google rankings in the Uk as this is where most of my customers are?

Hope you can help.

Regards

Matt Smith

Is it the Etical Party Bags site?

If so I'd stick with the .com and then make your contact page more spiderable (you only have a link at the end of your page) and then make sure you bump your address further up on the contact page and include UK in the address.

 

[betterlanguages]

I wouldn't consider copying the same content from the .com to the .co.uk or vice versa. Google isn't overly impressed with duplicate content.

I agree with Ray, I'd keep with the .com

In general I agree re duplicate content, but my question is, will Google recognise content which is localised for different markets. E.g. will it recognise the difference between a .com (with American spelling etc), with US hosting, and a co.uk with seperate UK hosting and UK English spellings, but otherwise similar content?

I've seen another translation industry website that appeared to do this effectively, but I'm not sure how they did it!

Cheers

Mike
www.betterlanguages.com