.com or .co.uk

[SeanDigitalSave]

Are there any SEO benefits to either? Business is UK based but serves Europe. Will be an e-commerice website selling branded phone accessories only.

 

[Marek Skoczylas]

Yes there are benefits. Save .co.uk for UK customers and .eu rather than .com for EU

 

[Paul Murray]

Get both/all if they're available. It stops someone else from using them, meaning all users who type yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.co.uk will still end up at your site.

 

[justinaldridge]

A .co.uk domain will help with UK searches so if that's your main market then definitely use that as your default domain. Otherwise use the .com. That's what I do.

 

[david64]

If there is any benefit to having a .co.uk domain the UK, I believe it is negligible.

I think its best to use a domain that is considered country neutral by Google, see:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

Under:

More about domain determination

If you use a generic domain, if you ever want to go international (site for cifferent countries and/or languages), that domain will work well, but if you use a .uk domain you'll probably need to get a new domain; and that is an issue. I started a site that went international: from UK & Ireland to: UK, IRE, US, CA, AU & NZ. Then late last year the site also went multi-lingual: EN, ES, FR, DE, IT, PT & SH. I started with a .co.uk domain, but I had to move to a generic domain (like .com) once the site wanted to rank in different countries. The result is I have two domains with about links from about 3,500 domains split between them. And I have refrained from 301 redirecting them, as this may affect traffic from the UK, which is 60-70% of income.

However, if you think its highly unlikely that you will be going international, I would say it matters little.

 

[eastcoastbaby]

I always try to go neutral if I can but still purchase the country specific TLD too if available. It just gives you more opportunities in the future.

 

[justinaldridge]

It's far better to have a .co.uk if the main market is UK. If later on you want to expand out of the UK you can redirect the site to a .com and start using that or set up multiple sites/sections dedicated to each language/location. HREFLANG tags enable you to do this without any duplicate content issues.

 

[Page]

My understanding is that you are moving into top level domains with .com and .eu - and others

If you have just .co.uk then you will loose out beyond the UK

But if that is your market focus then having it will also help

As always ... it all depends

And there is the immediate - the medium term - and the longer term
And they all have to balanced

 

[StevePoster]

.co.uk is still the best since the business is UK based but you will need to establish the site first to be an effective provider in the specific target location.

 

[Watson91]

Obviously .com will be more expensive but if they're both available at a reasonable price it would be foolish not to buy them. You don't want to end up asking a later owner (or domain squatter) to sell you a domain you need and they don't - they'll try and rip you off.

 

[justinaldridge]

Obviously .com will be more expensive

A .com is $3 at GoDaddy and .co.uk is about $5. Domains are very cheap these days.

 

[Gordon McNevin]

.co.uk I think is better as it 'speaks more' to UK customers. It's good for Google.co.uk search but now you can just target UK in Google Webmaster Tools so not got the benefits it once had.

But bottom line for me is: If it's UK customers/traffic, go with .co.uk.

 

[Mathew100]

Good if you want to get benefits from your domain then .co.uk is the best option.

 

[techpro]

Business based in UK then i would suggest you to go for co.uk domain as you would first like to be successful and well established in the demography your business belongs to..

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

A .com is $3 at GoDaddy and .co.uk is about $5. Domains are very cheap these days.

Godaddy is expensive on renewal so this is misleading!