What is the best way to replace a .co.uk with a .com name
-
Hi i would like to know about my site which is www.in2town.co.uk which i am currently revamping and i am now in the process of buying a .com name and would like to know the best way to uise it.
What i mean is, i have a lot of links going to the www.in2town.co.uk and would like to know should i do a permantent redirect to the .co.uk with the .com or is it possible to have the co.uk replaced with the .com
i am trying to work out the best way to do this at the moment as i have never done this before. now after buying the .com for my domain name i would like to know should i use it as a redirect to my main site, or should i develop a sister site and use it.
any advice would be great.
-
Hi Diane.
As I understand it, your site is currently focused on the UK and you have a .co.uk domain. You have acquired the .com domain and wish your site to address an international audience.
My suggestion would be to make the change as follows:
-
migrate your existing site to the .com domain. Either the default domain will be UK English, or you would create a folder for the UK.Your new URLs would look like www.intown.com/uk, www.intown.com/es, www.intown.com/fr. Each of these directories would represent a targeted country for which you have localized content.
-
ensure your content for each area is truly localized. First, be sure to use the right dialect of the language. For example, Spanish for Spain is not the same as Spanish for Mexico, There is a significant difference. Next, be sure to use the right monetary units and systems of measurements for the chosen country. Also use the proper meta language tag. Each of these actions is designed to clearly inform your users and Google the content is directed for a specific country.
-
using Google WMT set your geographic target for each country. For example, the /es section would be for Spain. Assuming you performed the other steps correctly this step shouldn't be necessary, but I recommend it because it is easy to do and helps ensure the site is properly directed in case other steps are missed
-
you can use geo-targeting but I suggest only using it on your home page. Offer images of the flags of various countries to allow visitors to select their preferred country. Place this images in a prominent position at the top of your site.
-
while you are working on this migration, keep the new site blocked with robots.txt. Once the new site is up and running, you will need to make the switch. Place a 301 redirect from the old .co.uk domain to the new .com domain. Ensure the 301 is working properly and then (very important) remove the robots.txt block of the .com site.
The .com site will now be your new site. It will take about 30 days for the site URLs to be updated in Google SERPs.
As a final step, any time you migrate your site you want to ensure all links under your control, both internal and external, point to the new URL. Any signatures, social pages, etc. should all be updated. There will be a minor loss of link juice due to the move which should be easily offset by the new traffic you will receive once you target other countries. As you earn links from the new countries, be sure to obtain them on that country's page rather then the root home page. For example, links from France should ideally go to your /fr home page or one of the French internal pages.
Congratulations on obtaining the .com and good luck.
-
-
I agree with both of them. Dont do it. Work on what you have and make it the best it can be.
People dont like duplicates, and Google doesnt like duplicates either
-
You will likely need the assistance of your hosting company in making the change, best to run your intentions past them via a support ticket.
As you intend to go international with your website, a .com would make sense. Just changing the Top Level Domain (tld) from .co.uk to .com is a simple process and low risk. Just need to inform Google (via GWT) and the other search engines the moment the change happens.
Your content won't be affected, as the only change will be the tld. When search engine bots revisit your site, they will take a cached copy and soon after reindex your site with the .com, so long as the domain name (in2town) and the page names remain the same. Lowest risk strategy.
There are other considerations such as Language. Will your expanded target audience all speak/read English, or will you need to have the website in multiple languages. If so, there are SEO considerations there.
Best of luck
-
i am looking at making the site international as i want to attract spain, france, and america. can you recommend the best way of doing this as i do not want to cause problems with content that is under the co.uk and do i need to mention anything to my hosting company
-
I agree with Maxwell's comments.
Also, if your website is predominantly for UK visitors, may as well stick with .co.uk rather than changing to .com Your website is UK hosted so sticking with the .co.uk ties in nicely.
If your website is international/global then certainly consider changing to .com
If you do, ensure you use Google Webmaster Tools when making the change from .co.uk to .com to notify Google of the change.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Simon
-
I would recommend against developing a sister site, since you will most likely have lots of duplicate content across both sites and the two sites will compete with each other for SERP rankings. Best practice is to use 301 redirects to send traffic from .co.uk to .com or vice versa
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
-
Google Not Recognizing Domain Name Change
It has been over a month since we have switch https://www.iwdextensions.com
Technical SEO | | lsujoe
to
https://www.iwdagency.com/extensions/ Yet Google is still ranking the old domain name in their search results. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iwd extensions Are we doing something wrong or does it take Google more than a month to update their results for this type of change? We have 301 redirected the old url to the new one and submitted a domain name change in GWT. Let me know your thoughts!0 -
What is the best way to deal with https?
Currently, the site I am working on is using HTTPS throughout the website. The non-HTTPS pages are redirected through a 301 redirect to the HTTPS- this happens for all pages. Is this the best strategy going forward? if not, what changes would you suggest?
Technical SEO | | adarsh880 -
Best Way to Break Down Paginated Content?
(Sorry for my english) I have lots of user reviews on my website and in some cases, there are more than a thousand reviews for a single product/service. I am looking for the best way to break down these reviews in several sub-pages. Here are the options I thought of: 1. Break down reviews into multiple pages / URL http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page1
Technical SEO | | sbrault74
http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page2
etc... In this case, each page would be indexed by search engines. Pros: all the reviews are getting indexed Cons: It will be harder to rank for "blue widget review" as their will be many similar pages 2. Break down reviews into multiple pages / URL with noindex + canonical tag http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page1
http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page2
etc... In this case, each page would be set to noindex and the canonical tag would point to the first review page. Pros: only one URL can potentially rank for "blue widget review" Cons: Subpages are not indexed 3. Load all the reviews into one page and handle pagination using Javascript reviews, reviews, reviews
more reviews, more reviews, more reviews
etc... Each page would be loaded in a different which would be shown or hidden using Javascript when browsing through the pages. Could that be considered as cloaking?!? Pros: all the reviews are getting indexed Cons: large page size (kb) - maybe too large for search engines? 4. Load only the first page and load sub-pages dynamically using AJAX Display only the first review page on initial load. I would use AJAX to load additional reviews into the . It would be similar to some blog commenting systems where you have to click on "Load more comments" to see all the comments. Pros: Fast initial loading time + faster loading time for subpages = better user experience Cons: Only the first review page is indexed by search engines ========================================================= My main competitor who's achieving great rankings (no black hat of course) is using technique #3. What's your opinion?0 -
Repetition of Product Names considered Spamming?
We have long lists of products are displayed on individual web pages ... with the only variations being in product dimensions and prices. Could the Search Engines consider these lengthy lists of products for sale to be attempted spamming efforts? (Example: http://www.just-insulation.com/overview_of_celotex_product_buy_cheapest.html) Thank you.
Technical SEO | | Collie0 -
Safe way to auto geo redirect
Hi, looking for a second opinion on this please.... I own a couple of web stores, one targets UK and the other USA (they are both the same store more or less just different products targeted at different location). The uk runs on a .co.uk domain and the US on a .us domain. Is there a safe way that I could auto redirect search engine traffic to the right location? Let's say the toys page of the .co.uk is ranking well in google uk and appears high in google us too, obviously I would want the USA users to visit the toys page for the US store rather than the UK one. Ideally I would employ a geo redirect script so if a USA user clicks on the UK domain they are redirected to the USA site but would Google frown on that? Hope that makes sense? Thanks
Technical SEO | | GrumpyCarl0 -
Selecting a new domain name
If a two word domain is already taken (e.g. onetwo.com), which of the following is a better alternative? 1. one-two.com 2. onetwo.org Best,
Technical SEO | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
As an agency, what is the best way to handle being the webmaster and hosting provider for several sites (some of which are in the same industry and have natural links to each other)?
We are an agency that builds and hosts websites for several companies (some of which happen to be in the same industry - and therefore naturally link to each other - we do not dictate). In regards to handling their domain registrations, webmaster tools account, google analytics account, and servers, what is the best practice to avoid Google thinking that these companies are affilliated? Even though they aren't affiliated, we are afraid that us being the "webmaster" of these sites and having shared servers for them that we may be affecting them.
Technical SEO | | grayloon0 -
Issue with .uk.com domain
hi i have rockshore.uk.com which is not indexing properly. the internal pages do not show up for the text they have on them, or the title tags. the site is on aekmps shops platform. I understand that a .uk.com is not a proper TLD but i think i have a subdomain of .uk.com Can anyone help? thanks
Technical SEO | | Turkey0