Perception of .london and co.uk

[company16]

Hi There

This is my first post to the forum, thanks in advance for any help. I'll also contribute so look forward to becoming a member.

I have registered to ask a fundamental question.

We're about to launch a new website and rebrand our company.

Our preferred choice of domain is available on the .london domain.

This fits our target area, but I wanted to ask about the perception of .london domains? Not many people seem to have jumped on the bandwagon, would the perception of our brand suffer when compared to purchasing a .co.uk domain?

We just wanted to take some advice

Many Thanks

Company16

 

[Edith@TerraNetwork]

Hi Company16 - good question, would be interested to see what others have to say on this. We've started offering .london registrations a while back and have seen zero interest. Could be influenced by our free UK domain offer, but generally domain registrations are .com and (.co).uk. Only in very few cases do we see other domain extensions being used.

 

[fisicx]

Don't get .london or any other fancy extension - Google doesn't like them very much nor do people.

It's a bit like the .me thing that never happened and even .uk is struggling to gain traction

Go for a .co.uk or a .com every time.

 

[company16]

Hi fisicx

Thank you for your reply?

Just a quick question in response, to my understanding .london and other domains do not affectively seo, either negatively or positively?

 

[fisicx]

Anything other than the 'normal' domain seems to struggle with ranking. You may have to work a bit harder to rank .london over .co.uk. A client has a .consulting domain extension and just couldn't get ranked. Switched to a .co.uk and saw almost an overnight improvement.

 

[StevePoster]

I prefer also .co.uk domain simply because Google recognized this kind of domain particularly in the target location.

 

[NuBlue]

You'd hope with Google branding themselves abc.xyz that the new tlds would take off but there's only 4 registered over 1M each, .xyz, .top, .win and .wang - https://ntldstats.com/tld. London has clocked up 64K registrations.

So far we are mainly seeing people protecting their existing domains e.g. someone in the wedding trade might look to get venue.wedding, bestplacefora.wedding, wedding.band, etc if only to stop their rivals getting them.

 

[Banksbroo]

Few of the new domain extensions have caught on (I can't think of any in fact!) Just from a customer point of view, people understand .co.uk and .com. They definately don't understand city, profession or other long extensions. Short and memorable name, simple extension still seems to win hands down every time.

 

[fisicx]

And the other issue with .london is if the business grows and you decide to open an office in Birmingham. You are now stuck with a domain that is pointless for the new venture.

 

[JMack986]

Stick with .co.uk rather than .london

 

[Dmitri Fantastic]

Contrary to what most have said, I have seen .london rank for extremely competitive and spammy niches like cleaning. Based on what I've seen, it could work, and it could have a positive effect in terms of geo area, but the kw targeting was super tight - an exact match domain. It really depends what your purpose is. In my humble opinion, sooner or later these weird new extensions will eventually jump on the wagon, maybe in a couple of years, till most of use become more familiar, but that's just my 2 cents.

 

[webgeek]

Move north and go with a .scot domain You may even get to stay in the EEA heheh.

.co.uk or .com all the way as your primary. A secondary domain is sometimes a handy thing to have for email prospecting or other activity that could bring your primary domain under scrutiny unnecessarily. That would be a good time to use the .london It would be novel enough to hopefully be memorable.

 

[Alby10]

The new styles domain such as .london, etc don't seem to perform as well as the co.uk and .com versions, as mentioned by several people. If available go with co.uk, or .com

 

[CreativeSeoCompanyBristol]

I agree with what fisicx and others said about .co.uk as the way to go because that would rank easily in google.co.uk database, just as a Canadian-based company with .ca extension would easily rank in the google.ca database

 

[Gordon McNevin]

I don't think people are ready for the .london (or similar domains) yet if they are not an industry domain. Think from your target audience point of view. They probably know .co.uk and would probably try that first if directly typing into the browser (or doing a lazy google search).

Some industries have embraced some, but not many. Tech industry like the .IO extension for example, and because they are tech they expect and know about different extensions.

Stick with .co.uk I'd say (but I don't know your industry). Better yet, do both, and redirect one to the other, you could also switch further down the line.