Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. How much difference does .co.uk vs .com for SEO make?

    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?

    Technical SEO
    2
    7
    1809
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Marvellous
      Marvellous last edited by

      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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Marvellous
        Marvellous last edited by

        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?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ClaytonJ
          ClaytonJ last edited by

          yes correct - the major change you have already done on WMT's.  If you think people are typing in co.uk instead of .com then re-direct co.uk to .com.

          From an SEO perspective it will make no difference.

          Clear as mud!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Marvellous
            Marvellous @ClaytonJ last edited by

            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

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ClaytonJ
              ClaytonJ last edited by

              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.

              Marvellous 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Marvellous
                Marvellous @ClaytonJ last edited by

                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?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ClaytonJ
                  ClaytonJ last edited by

                  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.

                  Marvellous 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Tiffany_Barn

                    # Tag - opacity and SEO impact

                    Hello,
                    I have a query animation 'fade-in-up' on my website: tiffanybarnard.com which moves the H1 tag slightly and fades it in from zero opacity to 1. Will this affect the SEO value of the H1 tag?
                    Thank you!

                    Technical SEO | | Tiffany_Barn
                    0
                  • oceanstorm

                    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 | | oceanstorm
                    0
                  • tgwebmaster

                    Getting high priority issue for our xxx.com and xxx.com/home as duplicate pages and duplicate page titles can't seem to find anything that needs to be corrected, what might I be missing?

                    I am getting high priority issue for our xxx.com and xxx.com/home as reporting both duplicate pages and duplicate page titles on crawl results, I can't seem to find anything that needs to be corrected, what am I be missing?  Has anyone else had a similar issue, how was it corrected?

                    Technical SEO | | tgwebmaster
                    0
                  • KarlBantleman

                    .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 | | KarlBantleman
                    0
                  • Morris77

                    International Seo - Canada

                    Our organization is currently only operating in the USA but will soon be entering the Canadian market. We did a lot of research and decided that for our needs it would be best to use  a subfolder for Canada. Initially we will be targeting the english speaking community but eventually we will want to expand to the french speaking Canadians as well. The question is - is there a preferred version in setting up the subfolders: www.website.org/ca/ -- default will be english www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french www.website.org/en-ca/ - english www.website.org/fr-ca/ - french www.website.org/ca/en/ -english www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french Thanks

                    Technical SEO | | Morris77
                    0
                  • twilightofidols

                    Rel=Canonical, WWW vs non WWW and SEO

                    Okay so I'm a bit of a loss here.  For what ever reason just about every single Wordpress site I has will turn www.mysite.com into mysite.com in the browser bar.  I assume this is the rel=canonical tag at work, there are no 301s on my site. When I use the Open Site Explorer and type in www.mysite.com it shows a domain authority of around 40 and a few hundred backlinks... and then I get the message. Oh Hey! It looks like that URL redirects to XXXXXX. Would you like to see data for <a class="clickable redirects">that URL instead</a>? So if I click to see this data instead I have less than half of that domain authority and about 2 backlinks. *** Does this make a difference SEO wise?  Should my non WWW be redirecting to my WWW instead because that's where the domain authority and backlinks are? Why am I getting two different domain authority and backlink counts if they are essentially the same?  Or am I wrong and all that link juice and authority passes just the same?

                    Technical SEO | | twilightofidols
                    0
                  • RefundFX

                    Ranking on google.com.au but not google.com

                    Hi there, we (www.refundfx.com.au)  rank on google.com.au for some keywords that we target, but we do not rank at all on google.com, is that because we only use a .com.au domain and not a .com domain? We are an Australian company but our customers come from all over the world so we don't want to miss out on the google.com searches. Any help in this regard is appreciated. Thanks.

                    Technical SEO | | RefundFX
                    0
                  • Chammy

                    How much impact does bad html coding really have on SEO?

                    My client has a site that we are trying to optimise. However the code is really pretty bad. There are 205 errors showing when W3C validating. The >title>, , <keywords> tags are appearing twice. There is truly excessive javascript. And everything has been put in tables.</keywords> How much do you think this is really impacting the opportunity to rank? There has been quite a bit of discussion recently along the lines of is on-page SEO impacting anymore. I just want to be sure before I recommend a whole heap of code changes that could cost her a lot - especially if the impact/return could be miniscule. Should it all be cleaned up? Many thanks

                    Technical SEO | | Chammy
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.