Moving .co.uk to .com?

[sasquatch]

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Hello

I have a forum on xxx.co.uk and have just got xxx.com

I want to appeal to the wider market so I want to have the forum on xxx.com

Concerned about issues with loosing the current indexing and back links I have and also moving might create duplicate content issues.

Anyone any ideas on what I should do?

[moredial]

Easy.

Host the forum on .com

On the .co.uk - host on all pages a link which tells visitors that the forum has moved to the .com site. This will help anyone with bookmarks find the link rather than a 404 error. Also, on each page, use the robots meta with content="noindex" so that the old content will be removed from the search engines plus they will find the new content at the new site via the link on the page.

You will do better with a wider audience if you host outside the UK, nearer your target market. However, this is of much less importance than getting international links to the site, wherever it is hosted.

[ash]

Well the best way to transfer any site from one domain to another would be to use 301 redirects. That way the transition of pages and inbound links will be as seamless as possible.

If it were me i'd want to think about where to host my server and who my target audience ought to be. If you want UK traffic and use a .com you want a UK based server, if you use a .com and host outside of the UK you may lose all / most of your existing UK traffic / rankings.

[sasquatch]

Thanks guys, I've gone for the 301 redirect option..

[zaggernaut]

Ya 301 permanent redirection is THE only SEO friendly option for moving domains.

While you could have a IP address specific redirection where someone in US would see US-specific URL and in UK it'll be .co.uk. But i m not sure how effective and SEO friendly it is.

Hersh

[jezaff]

if only you actually had xxx.com

you could just sell it and retire!

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