Change of domain name?

[PLP]

Hello, We are currently developing a new site for an existing online clothing retailer.

The existing site is on a .co.uk domain, however we are targeting a global market and wondered whether we could/should launch the new site under a .com address and whether this would be beneficial?  Most of our back links come from Affiliate blogs and we could quite easily change these to the new URL.

Thanks

Bilal

[Chenzo]

This is something great to keep in mind moving the site over to a .com:

If my client were to propose this to me I would consider building another site with the BRANDED name and company products but use 100% brand new content - avoiding the possibility of being hurt by duped content.

Online real estate is priceless - so instead of just transferring the URL over - or just building a clone site  - use this time to build upon your own brand and WEB business in general.

Look into some other low hanging fruits within your vertical and maybe take an approach by trying to optimize the site from the ground up with a handful of keyterms/products that you have the most REVENUE built into.

But then again - I am always looking to expand and create something new versus replicating.

-Chenzo

[ontarget-media]

Hi,

I feel the days of global dominance of search results for any website are over and feel that results will have a much more geographical bias than previously.  Therefore, if the retailer has an established website that is pulling in good traffic from the UK, my suggestion would be to create another website (say, a .com) with geo-targeted sub-domains/ sub-folders, or if time and money permit, have separate country-specific domains for the main different markets you are targeting.

Hope this helps.

[TheARKlady]

I wonder about your current ranking, page rank and domain age because that will be a big component in dictating what you  might do.

Recently I began working on targeting specific geographic regions for a site. We are working on off page techniques to rank and then geo-targeting back to the site.

There are different techniques you might consider for targeting other regions outside of the UK but I'd be interested in seeing what some veterans have to say.