Another domain buying dilemma

[snooze]

What do you do when face with a name where you can by both .com and .co.uk, well this is what I did and regretted it.

I bought the .co.uk domain of a name which I thought had potential and within a month someone bought the .com. It was purely for affiliate purposes and not doing bad today, but every time I do a search on the term 6/10 the .com is listed rather than the .co.uk :-x I am kicking myself. I am working hard and SEO which is driving me up the wall because for two days it will be on pg1 of G and then disappear for another week.

My only reprieve is that the person is in the States and sells in $ so I am not losing out to them. I have read that when buying for affiliate in the uk then .co.uk is the best, but I think it can come back and haunt you - as in this case.

I am not suggesting buying all extension but when face with all the worms what do you do?

 

[accelerator]

I just focus on providing excellent content, answering the questions people are searching for, and build links into the site. Ultimately, if you build a good site, you should rank well.

Rgds

 

[doodlebug]

I personally find that .com and .co.uk both get ranked just as easy, all this talk about .co.uk for the UK market is just people being obsessed with UK domains.

If you can get both then why not, in hinesight both might have lost you money so think of it as a balance, you didn't get both which means you could have them both ranking for their terms but you do have one and it's working for you whereas if it went wrong you would have wasted more money.

Be happy with one and keep upto date with the content

 

[accelerator]

Also, according to Google's Matt Cutts, the extension is not that important.

Rgds

 

[snooze]

I just focus on providing excellent content, answering the questions people are searching for, and build links into the site. Ultimately, if you build a good site, you should rank well.

Rgds

I have been thinking hard about this and will give it a go. At the moment it only has six good pages (product review) and with no promotion it is earning okay money, so I will build it out and see what happen.

 

[MASSEY]

Also, according to Google's Matt Cutts, the extension is not that important.

Rgds

It does make a big difference. If you want your site to rank high in the uk buy a .co.uk

 

[namealot]

Google looks at the location setting on webmaster tools when deciding which version of Google your site ranks in. Well thats what matt says...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_duGzEl94&feature=player_embedded#!

 

[MASSEY]

Google looks at the location setting on webmaster tools when deciding which version of Google your site ranks in. Well thats what matt says...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_duGzEl94&feature=player_embedded#!

Thats more for telling them which google country you want your .com site to appear in.

If you told google in webmaster tools you wanted a .co.uk to rank in america you would struggle to rank effectively .

 

[namealot]

Thats more for telling them which google country you want your .com site to appear in.

If you told google in webmaster tools you wanted a .co.uk to rank in america you would struggle to rank effectively .

Which would mean the .com owner of the name could make it go high in the uk taking away from the .co.uk traffic...If your buying domains for affiliate etc or setting up any sort of business around the name then you should buy .com and co.uk.. Not forgetting people in the uk are used to buying from .com sites but the usa there not so used to buying from a .co.uk..... So if your budget was limited the .com would be a better one to purchase as they traditionally have a higher sale value and allow for more expansion than the .co.uk would..? (allowing for spelling, meaning, laungage, product,etc adjustments)

 

[RSK3000]

Well I have just started building out my domains and find some of my .co.uk seem to rank reasonably easily in google.co.uk. My tlds dont, but do better on google.com.

There is a high level of trust for .co.uk in this country. For example, if I'm looking for shoes online, and Google displayed results for shoes// .co.uk and shoes.//com I'm more likely to click on shoes.//co/uk.

My strategy is to buy both the .com, and .co.uk. I then develop the .co.uk, and redirect the .com to it.

 

[tiptop]

Good points here everyone.

So, if the .co.uk is taken and but the .com is available, is a .com better than say a .org.uk? Btw, this is not for a product/affiliate site.

If/when I do buy .coms to target the UK SEs, I think having UK spelling/grammar, UK hosting, and determining your target country in G's Webmaster tools is all going to help.

Does this sound solid?

 

[storebuilder]

Sounds good to me. .com's give you the benefit of future branding, who knows how many people type in the .com version when you tell them it's .co.uk anyway

It's not so common that the .com is available where the .co.uk is taken anyway, it's usually the other way around in my experience.

How are you tiptop - weren't you around when this forum first started up? I'm sure you were - what you been upto?

 

[diablo]

Factors that affect how search engines determine whether to include you in local searches (eg google.co.uk):

tld extension
location of server
whois information
information provided by the likes of Google Analytics

The first two seem to carry far more weight in practice.

 

[storebuilder]

Provide some examples of why that might be?

If the first two "seem to carry more weight in practice" Can you let us know what they are?

What is the weight?

How much does it carry?

Without wishing to be rude...

I'd like you to provide more readership to your readers.

 

[diablo]

Provide some examples of why that might be?

If the first two "seem to carry more weight in practice" Can you let us know what they are?

What is the weight?

How much does it carry?

Without wishing to be rude...

I'd like you to provide more readership to your readers.

Not sure the point you are trying to make with more "readership to your readers", but what I said in my post is no secret.

If you want to rank in a local search engine first consider the tld. If you buy a .co.uk it will be assumed to be aimed at the UK market unless you tell the search engines otherwise.

If you want to use a different tld, hosting it in the UK also gives signals that it is aimed at the UK market.

Why do the whois info and Analytics carry less weight? Simply because whois information is often incomplete, wrong or hidden and so doesn't always give off the correct signals. And only a small proportion of webmasters use Google Analytics.

The search engines want to provide the best information possible to users. They want to include the right sites in the right local searches. Sometimes they need your help in doing so. If you use a .com, host it in the USA, hide your whois info and don't use Google Analytics, it will by default show in google.com results. If you want it to show in the UK results instead, I've given three ways to make that happen.

 

[storebuilder]

Yes of course - I agree with you totally and I'm not trying to be obtuse.

All these points are well covered though and pretty much well known by everybody.

How about a FAQ for Newbies?

 

[tiptop]

@storebuilder - How's it going Tony, long time no speak/type to! lol How have you been?

Been a while since I've been here.

I see what you guys are saying and I think I'll be fine with the .com. I am hosting in the UK, I did specify in Google Webmaster tools that my site is aimed at the United Kingdom, I'm adding "UK" in my text, etc. I do sometimes hide my whois but that's just a habit (bad or not). I'll not do that when I register future domains.

Often times, as many of you know, domains are taken with a crappy sedo page so domain speculators have taken many of the good .co.uk's. This is good news for me as I don't have the .co.uk to contend with when ranking.

My gut is telling me a .com is second best choice assuming I use the factors above. I know .org.uk can rank just as well but no one seemed to reply as to whether or not a .com is better than a .org.uk given all other criteria are met.

There are lots of authority sites here in the UK that use .coms and I don't think they were too worried about the fact it's not a .co.uk.

Finally, using the SEO tools rank checker in firefox seems to show that one of my .coms (targetting the UK) is ranking #17 on google.com and #19 on google.co.uk. That's good enough for me because eventually it'll be on pg 1 for both and whilst I don't care about google.com traffic per se, as long as there isn't a huge disparity then I think .com is fine. Obviously, it depends on the competition.

Oh, before I forget, I think (though I've never done this for any of my sites) adding a Google Map might also be a factor to help determine your target country. Is this a fair assumption?

Thanks for your responses guys

Scott