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
-
# Tag - opacity and SEO impact
Hello,
Technical SEO | Feb 8, 2021, 6:02 AM | Tiffany_Barn
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!0 -
Does having a sub-domain on a different server affect SEO?
I'm working with a company that has a hard-coded website on the root domain, and then a WordPress blog on a subdomain on a separate server. We're planning on implementing a hub and spoke model for their content, hosting the main hubs on the root domain and the linked articles on the blog. Is having the blog on a different server going to hinder our SEO efforts?
Technical SEO | Oct 31, 2020, 12:12 AM | KaraParlin0 -
Schema for Banks and SEO
I'm researching Schema opportunities for a bank, but besides the shema markup available today (like bankorcreditunion) and developments with FIBO, I can find no answer as to the effect of tagging interest rates and such in terms of SERP/CTR performance or visibility. Does anyone have a case study to share or some insight on the matter?
Technical SEO | Jan 29, 2016, 12:23 PM | Netsociety0 -
Sitelinks Issue - Different Languages
Hey folks, We run different ccTLD's for revolveclothing.com (revolveclothing.es, revolveclothing.com.br, etc. etc.) and they all have their own WMT/Google Console with their own href lang tags etc. The problem is this. https://www.google.fr/#q=revolve+clothing When you look at the sitelinks, you'll see that one of them (sales page) happens to be in Portuguese on the French site. Can anyone investigate and see why?
Technical SEO | Oct 1, 2015, 8:56 AM | ggpaul5620 -
SEO for User Authenticated Content
Hi Everyone - I have a potential client who is seeking SEO for a site that contains about 95% of content only accessible through user authentication . Does anyone have tips for getting this indexed without having to open it up to the public? I was considering adding "snippets" into the robots.txt or creating an additional page with snippets linking to the login page. I'd appreciate any thoughts! Thanks!
Technical SEO | Apr 19, 2013, 3:05 PM | manutx0 -
How much will changing IP addresses impact SEO?
So my company is upgrading its Internet bandwidth. However, apparently the vendor has said that part of the upgrade will involve changing our IP address. I've found two links that indicate some care needs to be taken to make sure our SEO isn't harmed: http://followmattcutts.com/2011/07/21/protect-your-seo-when-changing-ip-address-and-server/ http://www.v7n.com/forums/google-forum/275513-changing-ip-affect-seo.html Assuming we don't use an IP address that has been blacklisted by Google for spamming or other black hat tactics, how problematic is it? (Note: The site hasn't really been aggressively optimized yet - I started with the company less than two weeks ago, and just barely got FTP and CMS access yesterday - so honestly I'm not too worried about really messing up the site's optimization, since there isn't a lot to really break.)
Technical SEO | Jul 18, 2014, 12:08 PM | ufmedia0 -
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 | Jan 7, 2017, 7:11 PM | applesofgold0 -
Redirecting blog.<mydomain>.com to www.<mydomain>.com\blog</mydomain></mydomain>
This is more of a technical question than pure SEO per se, but I am guessing that some folks here may have covered this and so I would appreciate any questions. I am moving from a WordPress.com-based blog (hosted on WordPress) to a WordPress installation on my own server (as suggested by folks in another thread here). As part of this I want to move from the format blog.<mydomain>.com to www.mydomain.com\blog. I have installed WordPress on my server and have imported posts from the hosted site to my own server. How should I manage the transition from first format to the second? I have a bunch of links on Facebook, etc that refer to URLs of the blog..com format so it's important that I redirect.</mydomain> I am running DotNetNuke/WordPress on my own IIS/ASP.Net servers. Thanks. Mark
Technical SEO | Sep 25, 2011, 7:56 PM | MarkWill0