.co.uk ranking in serps and .com ranking on local

[juun]

Hi im not sure what the best course of action is my client has one site but it has 2 TLD the .co.uk and the .com they wanted all .co.uk redirected to the .com but the .co.uk is ranking in the serps postion 2 and the .com is ranking in local, but is way back in the serps. So i have a bit of a dilemma, by the way it is a local business based in the uk.

what should i do?

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey

The answer here is pretty simple - you need to prioritise a single domain. The one you choose does not really matter in the long run so I would tend to favour the one people know best. I like .co.uk for uk businesses personally but...

1. Make sure both sites are registered in webmaster tools & put through a change of address for the one you want to change. Make sure the other is registered and you set any URL preferences (www. etc)

2. Add a 301 redirection to prioritise the main domain - you can use one rewrite rule to handle all www, non www, co.uk & .com variations - instructions here: http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/one-301-rewrite-to-rule-them-all/

3. Add canonical URLs for the correct TLD to pick up any slack

4. Claim your local listing and update the URL to the correct one

5. Ideally update any external links if easy to do so for consistency

Ultimately, don't over think this one. If you have both domains indexed then you will only see improvements from getting this all consistent on the one TLD.

Hope that helps
Marcus

[juun]

that sounds great thanks.

Sorry I forgot to mention the client has all their printed material letterheads, business cards etc and links pointing to the .com, but google has decided to serp the .co.uk if i change everyting  to the .com should that then serp the .com to the top?

Or should i just stick to the .co.uk as I guess that doesnt matter to much as the 301 will just redirect.

Does google favour .co.uk listings in local uk results?

[juun]

i've added

`RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.yoursite.co.uk
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yoursite.co.uk/$1 [R=permanent,QSA,L]`
to my .htaccess file in the root of my domain and it seems to be working

I've gone to google webmaster tools

1 Pick your new site from the list- done

but am stuck on step 2, i'm getting the following error:

2 Confirm that 301-redirects work properly
URLs from your old site should be redirected to your new site using permanent 301-redirect directives.
We couldn't find any 301-redirect directives for your site. For more details check the Fetch as Google tool.

[MickEdwards]

A bit late but just for the record.

You have a rewrite rule in place not a redirect.  You need something like:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$  http://www.yoursite.com/$1  [L,R=301]