Web forwarding and SEO

[MortimerJazz]

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Ok, if I have two similar domain names - one with a .com extension (aimed at an American market) and one with a .co.uk (aimed at a British Market).

I'm thinking about forwarding the .co.uk address on to the .com address, as it will be easier just to update one site.

However, I'm not quite sure how that will affect SEO? Will search engines still treat the two sites separately and therefore rank them separately? Will the .co.uk address suffer at all seeing as it's effectively just forwarding people elsewhere?

Any thoughts would be really welcome ...

[gadget]

If you forward the co.uk to the .com then the bots will ignore it. The only benefit is to move the traffic on, if any. Much better to have both sites indexed and if required, link from one to the other.

[DioBach]

If you forward the co.uk to the .com then the bots will ignore it. The only benefit is to move the traffic on, if any. Much better to have both sites indexed and if required, link from one to the other.

I'd argue that's not the case, if they're both the same site, you're going to have dupe content issues. And you can IP funnel as well if need be...

[gadget]

I agree. I was assuming there'd be unique content on both.

[tbp]

If you use a permanent redirect from the .co.uk to the .com it will be fine.