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.uk or .co.uk ?

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silvermusic

I'm about to try out a small sideline business for which I've bought a domain name in all it's important variants. .co.uk, .com, . net, and the new .uk, My original plan was to just use the normal .co.uk for the site and just have the others parked. However, as this is a totally new venture I'm tempted to use the new plain .uk domain instead. I just wondered if there's any reason I shouldn't use the .uk domain as the main one from an SEO or Google point of view?
 
It should not affect Google or SEO. I think you might as well go with the .uk as I predict this will take prominence in a few years time. You might as well save yourself any hassle of changing to it later.

One factor that does count is the country location of your host servers. So, if you want to rank well for UK searches, it's slightly better to have UK based hosting. This is only one of a large number of factors however, see 200 Ranking Factors at:

http://www.webref.eu/search-engine-optimisation.php

Rgds
 
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As mentioned in my OP, I have all the variants of the domain .co.uk, .uk, .com, .net so that's not a problem.

I must admit in this day and age I'm a little surprised about anyone caring where the server is physically located. For this project I was planning on using Shopify, not 100% perfect but near enough for my needs on this one. I'm assuming their servers are in the USA?
 
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I think the Server issue is more about hosting speed and also the extension. If you have a .com and you host it in the usa you may be affected trying to rank in the UK.

If you host in the usa but have a .co.uk you will rank in the UK but your hosting speed may be a bit slower than a UK one.

I would imagine google treat .uk the same as .co.uk already, i have yet to reg one yet though so i can't be sure but it would be retarded if they didn't.
 
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silvermusic said:
wondered if there's any reason I shouldn't use the .uk domain as the main one from an SEO or Google point of view?
Click to expand...

Unsure about Google or SEO perspective, however, if your content is what a searcher is looking for a .uk or .co.uk I wouldn't think that it makes a difference:)

I have a .uk domain name hosted on a USA shared server and only restriction so far is the annoyance of being unable to use WhoIsGuard (protection against harvesting spammers) on it. My host says Nominet won't allow it's use owing to registry restrictions.
 
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When you say "parked", do you mean redirected? There will always be some customers who will think your URL ends in .co.uk and will only type that in...
 
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Steve Alphabet said:
When you say "parked", do you mean redirected? There will always be some customers who will think your URL ends in .co.uk and will only type that in...
Click to expand...

Just paid for and parked without any hosting so no one else can buy it.
 
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silvermusic said:
Just paid for and parked without any hosting so no one else can buy it.
Click to expand...

Might be worth redirecting the .co.uk one, just so anyone typing .co.uk goes to your site instead of getting a "page not found". There will always be some who hear/see .uk and think it means .co.uk.
 
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I would recommend you to go for .co.uk because google uk is also using the same extension so for me it would be helpful if both extensions are same to get better rankings.
 
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Using .uk or .co.uk are all the same when it comes to SEO and Google but the most important part on this is to give the website the most easiest way to remember its domain because people or targeted audience are more into short as possible domain to remember. But be sure to provide them interesting and engaging content that will benefit the users and not the search engine.
 
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Go with .co.uk and leave it like that, most will think why is the .co bit missing. If your redirecting the .uk site over to the .co.uk then that should be fine aswell. Your domain extension is not a big deal tbh. Settle on .co.uk
 
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From actual tests, (not guess work) .uk sites struggle to hold their place amongst Google, they are still new when you think of it as a whole compared to .co.uk sites.

So yeah if you can get .co.uk go for it
 
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Definitely .co.uk as that is standard and as mentioned by somebody else I bet those less internet savvy folk will think they've missed out the co from the name.
 
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For a new project with a long term plan I'd go with the .uk and be sure to setup a 301 redirect on all of the other domains you own. Granted .uk is still relatively unrecognised in the UK, for now, but the shorter .uk domain follows what is becoming an international trend in addressing. I can't see any reason why Google would differentiate between .co.uk and .uk, but make sure your site is truly mobile and tablet friendly. I have some active .uk sites and they seem to be treated the same as any of my .co.uk ones, by both Google and Bing. If you are targeting other EU audiences most of them are already used to the non .co format of domain names.

If you find yourself having to migrate the site in a few years time onto the .uk that will be disruptive, for a while a least. On the other hand if .uk doesn't become the norm... Your call, but for me .uk will win in the end.

Ashley Wright - I'd be interested to know what tests you conducted that allow you to conclude that there are problems relating to the use of a .uk domain currently.
 
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I'd go for '.co.uk' as it's tried and tested, will definitely have every chance of performing well in the SERPS, and is what most people already know. No need to re-invent the wheel IMHO...
 
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Forget the SEO, any online marketing expert will recommend you to go for .com as long as it is available. As most people are familiar with .com than .co.uk or .UK, yet for if your target is purely local you can opt for .uk and co.uk.

Either way there will be no difference as far as SEO results as concern.
 
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Definitely opt for .co.uk, there are still people in the public domain that may think that they've written it down wrong or that the link is incorrect and change it to .co.uk. It's a widely known domain extension in the public domain and historically proven to rank well on Google.
 
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.co.uk has always been my preference if available - .com if you think you will want to reach a global market. I have used various other top level domains over the years thought and have never had any major issues.
 
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Absolutely no difference as for SEO and ranking. If you are going to use your website name as a LOGO on your posters, products etc, then I would go for .uk, but if possible I would stay oldschool with .co.uk version, as people are used to that :)
 
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.co.uk. It's still the better and more well known of the two. But buy both and redirect from one to the other. For new domains .uk is getting some traction but it's still lagging.
 
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I stick with my previous comments and would opt for the .uk for a long term UK focused project. That's assuming I also held the .co.uk version and that it had not accrued significant history.

Whilst .uk remains unknown to many, as the .uk rights deadline of June 2019 approaches I'm expecting the .uk domains to become more newsworthy at that point and their visibility to increase.

That said, with Google supposedly now handling 301's such that they pass ranking better, then changing at a later date might not be so disruptive as it seems to be currently.
 
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I personally always use .co.uk for all of my UK targeted websites. It's the most well known domain extension in the UK and I know for sure that it works well for rankings in Google.co.uk...see even Google uses that extension ;)
 
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aZooZa said:
Sorry to open this up again, but what's the consensus after over a year has past? Would you primarily develop on .co.uk or .uk for the UK market?
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We've had a few clients go through the 'rebrand' to use their .UK rather than the .CO.UK they used before - I advised them a while ago on reply-to settings for their mail clients so it'd sift over to the new email address formats

For "links" under their control (facebook ad targets, navigation within the site etc) the .uk is being used, but for type-ins most people are still putting the .co. in there - either because they think just .uk is a mistake (something I hear a lot) or because they remembered it from before the rebrand so it's habit

The bulk of their emails still come in to the @.co.uk addresses, despite having set reply-to and so on to use the newer variant, as end-users havent updated address books, or reply to old emails, or again, simply type it in including the .co. part

Based on what I see of "take up" of .uk rights (under 2% of registrants so far) it's going to be many years before it gets close to parity of use of ever.

So my advice is obtain both if it's new business/brand, use as primary the one you prefer, but make sure both work and are synonomous for end-users :)
 
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