The .com vs .co.uk battle

[Wardy]

Tweet

I know this topic has probably been discussed a number of times but anyway, I'm starting it up again

Lets say you are making a site targetting UK visitors yet you want to rank well in google.com and not just when the UK filter is added or "UK" added to the search terms.
I know there are so many factors and everthing that need to be taken into consideration obviously for SEO but I'm finding out about ".com Vs .co.uk"

If you had 2 sites both hosted on UK servers and had the same content, backlinks etc yet one was .com and one was .co.uk would it make a drastic difference to rankings or not or if all factors of the site would be the same? (for this example please don't anyone come back and say about duplicate content because I obviously don't really mean to have 2 identical sites running).

Cheers
Wardy

[monk-i]

I have to say that of late ive been moving more and more to .co.uk as I find my sites are ranking better using it. Might just be a personal thing but I do a permanent redirect using HTACCESS for the .com to the .co.uk as well.

Its certainly a very good topic to discuss.

[thetafferboy]

monk-i is 100% correct. buy both, use htaccess redirects.

[Wardy]

monk-i is 100% correct. buy both, use htaccess redirects.

Yes I know to get them both but I'm just on about finding out what everyone thinks is the best to build the site with.

Monk-I I usually go for .co.uk domains for my UK sites but am now wondering if using .com for some may help.

Cheers
Wardy

[monk-i]

What is your main market? If its UK there is no other choice in my mind than .co.uk. Your SERPs will be stronger for it without having to plaster UK UK UK throughout the whole of your site Its far more 'natural' to use the UK.

I can understand using .com if its international your looking for but by doing so your competing against alot more than the UK market only so obviously your SERPs would be weaker and take alot more work to make them strong.

However if you have seperate niches for each country then just use the domain related to that country much like what a4u have done in the top right of late for each country. There are all seperate sites with differing content due to the countries being different but linking power would be good.

[thetafferboy]

use .com if you have to use one or the other.

[Wardy]

Well 2 different suggestions from 2 different posters

Cheers
Wardy

[stevey]

I think it depends on the site and subject area. I find .coms at the moment easier to get to the top of the serps. So for one of my sites I forward the .co.uk to the .com

[OLBG]

My advice would be get both and decide which to use as the main domain based on your users not the SEs