For a UK company is it worth swapping from .com to .co.uk

[SEOKeith]

I currently own the domain lionseo.com and I also own the .co.uk variant some of the keywords I am targeting will have UK in them. My thoughts are that a .co.uk may help improve rankings on google.co.uk and click through + have a keyword match in the home page URL.

**Do you guys think it's worth swapping to the .co.uk domain from .com? **

Thanks in advance

Keith

[Guest]

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[SEOKeith]

I own both domains, when i say swapping I mean go through the effort of 301'ing the .com to the .co.uk

I have read up on this and I know most people will say that swapping domains won't make much difference, however it would be great to hear from some one who has actually done this.

Thanks

[BenRush]

1. Do you have much pre-existing link equity built up against pages on the .com?

2. Do you ever anticipate moving out of targeting a pure UK based client list?

3. Where does the majority of traffic come from today? i.e., is it mostly from the UK/where you want it to come from OR is it mostly from outside of the UK?

4. What would stop you from targeting the keywords now and reviewing performance in terms of traffic etc using the .com domain and then potentially utilising the .co.uk as a secondary measure if necessary?

Ben

[SEOKeith]

1. I would 301

2. Who knows, it's possible... But not right now

3. mostly UK

4. Nothing at all

I would love to hear from a person who has actually done this to find out if it's worth while from a ranking prospective.

[JamesNorquay]

To be honest I think a good strategy could be:

1. Make the .co.uk focused on - UK content, UK host, and uk specific data.

2. Keep the .com for US based clients with a US influence.

I mean if your only market is .co.uk and you only want to gather uk traffic I would look at implementing a 301 redirect from the .com to the .co.uk domain.

[coremediadesign]

I run a web development business in the UK and we have several domain variations such as .co.uk, .com, .net, .eu, but we are using .co.uk as the main one and do the 301 redirect on all the other ones so if someone types in .com variation in the url they will be redirected straight to .co.uk one.

[Hannah_Smith]

Hi Keith,

If I were you I'd stick with the .com - I've not seen any evidence to suggest that using a .co.uk makes any difference to UK rankings. I don't think you'll see any major issues with CTR either.

I'm assuming that you're not having any US v UK  issues right now E.G. - you're ranking better in the US than the UK, receiving more US than UK traffic etc. However if this is the case you could implement geo-targeting via webmaster tools, claim a Places listing (if you haven't already) etc to send some more signals about where you're located.

I hope this helps,

Hannah

[Aran_Smithson]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[SEOKeith]

Hi Hannah,

"I think" I will just leave the .com in place...

I can see a lot more .co.uk's in the SERP's for my keywords but perhaps that is just because I live in England and everyone has bought .co.uk's

I have already done the geo targeting in web master tools and claimed a places page etc.

Thanks for your help

Keith