,co.uk vs. .com in SE results in the US

[jacal1]

I have three developed domains in .co.uk that are pure one-word generics of niche products. Each is hosted in the US. The sites have all original content and are updated frequently. They are all only a year old or so.

Each one is on one of the first if not the first page on Google.co.uk, but they are all buried in Google.com.

Therein lies my questions:

1. Am I being specifically devalued by G.com for my choice in TLD in places outside the UK, or is it a level playing field but more about the fact that there is a ton more competition for SE ranking when all other geographies are mixed in?

2. Would I do better globally (or not) with a .com that adds a related keyword and makes them imperfect and less authoritative to the visitor?

I am leaning toward assuming that the latter part of question 1 is actually what is true, and therefore changing nothing and hoping I will move up globally.

Thanks!

 

[Blossom]

I've never seen anyone have huge success with .co.uks globally - unless they have a few hundred thousand backlinks. Even then they don't rank particularly well for anything but the long tail. (This is just what I've seen, there are probably odd exceptions as there are with anything else).

This one of the reasons why .com, .net and .org (especially .com) are hugely important as they will rank well in both national and international search engines everywhere. With country-specific ones, you have more of a chance in that particular country, and practically no chance anywhere else.

You might move up a bit, but you will hit a glass ceiling. If you want to rank globally, go for the .com you mentioned.

 

[ScottJ]

The main UK domains I see doing well in G.com have x,xxx unique backlinks, some do very well but they are authority sites that are extremely well established, if you want global serps with one website you would probably be better served with a .org or .com

 

[jacal1]

Thanks - I think I'll make the change.

A follow-up then - if I do a 301 from the original, I'll preserve the SEO "power" of my backlinks to the original site, correct?