Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How much difference does .co.uk vs .com for SEO make?
-
My Website has a .com domain. However I have noticed that for local businesses all of them have a .co.uk (UK business) TLD (check plumbers southampton for example). I have also noticed that on checking my serp rankings, I'm on page 1 if searched on Google.com but page 2 if searched on google.co.uk.
Now being UK based I would assume most of my customers will be redirected to google.co.uk so I'm wondering how much of an impact this actually makes? Would it be worth purchasing .co.uk domain and transferring my website to that? Or run them both at the same time and set up 301 direct on my .com to .co.uk?
Thanks
-
Update to the above. Just checked that the results also apply in Yahoo and Bing, in that I rank first page for .com but 2-3rd page for .co.uk. As I understand setting geographic target in WMT would have no bearing on this? Seems .searchengine.co.uk really prefers .co.uk over .com?
-
-
Sorry, when you say keep .com and do a 301 redirect to .co.uk. Do you mean I duplicate the website at .co.uk and redirect all pages from .com to .co.uk accordingly? Would this cause a significant SEO drop as all my past backlink work have been towards .com?
Thanks
Edit: I misread, I believe you just said do a 301 from .co.uk TO .com. Correct me if I'm wrong
Thanks again
-
If you only set WMT's to the UK today you will have to wait a while for it to update. That would be the primary cause of the issue you have raised above - so you have solved it!
I would keep your .com do a 301 re-direct on the .co.uk.
Well done.
-
I bought the .co.uk a while ago and was actually debating which one to use, .com or .co.uk. In the end we went with .com.
Would it be worth transferring the website to .co.uk now and setting up a 301 redirect at .com to .co.uk?
Yes, I only just set WMT to UK today, will that suffice?
-
Is the geo setting in WMT's set to UK? You need to tell google what is your target audience in your case the UK.
If the .co.uk is available I would buy it to stop competitors buying it, and re-directing it to there site.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Breadcrumbs on Mobile How important are they for SEO?
Due to Poor unsightly look of breadcrumbs and the space it takes up above the fold we only employ breadcrumbs on our desktop version. Breadcrumbs are hidden from view on mobile version. However as mobile first indexing is now in play what technical SEO impacts will this have? one thing that comes to mind is crawling deeper pages where breadcrumbs made them accessible in less than 3 link clicks? But i am unsure now of the impacts of not having breadcrumbs visible for mobile version of our site.
Technical SEO | | oceanstorm0 -
SEO value of InDesign pages?
Hi there, my company is exploring creating an online magazine built with Adobe's InDesign toolset. If we proceeded with this, could we make these pages "as spiderable" as normal html/css webpages? Or are we limited to them being less spiderable, or not at all spiderable?
Technical SEO | | TheaterMania1 -
.com and .co.uk duplicate content
hi mozzers I have a client that has just released a .com version of their .co.uk website. They have basically re-skinned the .co.uk version with some US amends so all the content and title tags are the same. What you do recommend? Canonical tag to the .co.uk version? rewrite titles?
Technical SEO | | KarlBantleman0 -
403s vs 404s
Hey all, Recently launched a new site on S3, and old pages that I haven't been able to redirect yet are showing up as 403s instead of 404s. Is a 403 worse than a 404? They're both just basically dead-ends, right? (I have read the status code guides, yes.)
Technical SEO | | danny.wood1 -
Div tags vs. Tables
Is there any reason NOT to code in tables (other than it being outdated) for SEO reasons?
Technical SEO | | EileenCleary0 -
Do Domain Extensions such as .com or .net affect SEO value?
In the beginning of SEO days, it was going around that .com is the best for SEO and that .net is not as good. Is there any truth to this, and what about .org or .edu? I always hear that .edu sites have high PR. Is there any rhyme or reason to this, or all they all equal? Thank you, Afshin Christian-Way.com
Technical SEO | | applesofgold0 -
UK website ranking higher in Google.com than Google.co.uk
Hi, I have a UK website which was formerly ranked 1<sup>st</sup> in Google.co.uk and .com for my keyword phrase and has recently slipped to 6<sup>th</sup> in .co.uk but is higher in position 4 in Google.com. I have conducted a little research and can’t say for certain but I wonder if it is possible that too many of my backlinks are US based and therefore Google thinks my website is also US based. Checked Google WmT and we the geo-targeted to the UK. Our server is also UK based. Does anyone have an opinion on this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | tdsnet0 -
Iframes & SEO
I've got a client that wants a site with all content in iFrames. They saw another site they liked & asked if we could do it. Of course we can technically. How big a negative hit would they take with SEO? Is there anything we can do to mitigate it, such as redirects, etc? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0
