.co.uk or com for Selling in the UK

[BigChrisUk01]

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Hi,

I have a mobile phone affiliate site that I am building www.TheMobilePhoneShack.com, which I have managed to get page ranking 7 on google.com for some search terms.

However I have no ranking on any search terms for the .co.uk domain which I also own. Both domains point to the same site, however I have been told that I should use my .co.uk domain not my .com as it will put UK people off from buying phones from my site.

The advise given is mothball the .com and just use the .co.uk?

The .co.uk has not been indexed unlike the .com.

Help any advice would be appreciated, I have not got to a point where I am selling any phones as it is early days but like I say I am getting rank 7 on a keyword search term.

Thanks

Chris.

[style for home]

Hi Chris,

Personally, if I were targeting the UK, I would use the .co.uk. I have several sites that rank pretty well in the SERPS that I target the UK for and use .co.uk domains.

I also have a uk.com site that ranks no2 for my key search term on google.com yet is 87 on .co.uk!!I bought the domain as the .co.uk was taken and switched google's webmaster geo targeting tool when the site went live and still it languishes down at a lowly 87!!!

I don't know if I am qualified enough to suggest an answer to your indexing issue and hopefully someone with more knowledge will jump in here but, you could 301 redirect your indexed pages to your new pages in .co.uk. That way google will see the change and update your site.

[Matt Seigneur]

If your hosting is based in the US that could be your problem?

How old is your .com site? as in how long has it been in google.
How many one way links have you got from bookmarks, related sites, non related sites, etc?

I'd change your title tag in your homepage to the keywords you are targetting first then your domain name, if at all. so something like "Mobile Phone Reviews | TheMobilePhoneShack.com"
Lol - just checked you have no keywords or description!?
You also have hardly any decent backlinks. Have a go with socialmarker.com remember to vary anchor text and description.
Ask for link exchanges on the forum or at uklinkexchange.co.uk..

[BigChrisUk01]

Thanks for the replies.

The site has been on Google for 3 months as you can see there is not a ton of content it has slowly built up.

To be honest I am a complete novice to this so Description and such I was not aware of. I have a SEO plugin which I have listed a description of the page and keywords but did not think to do this for the main page.

I am hosted in Germany not the UK so kind of stuffed on that front. I will look at some of the links you guys put up.

Thanks again for all your help.

Cheers

Chris.

[jamespoole]

if the .com and .co.uk is the same then theres a problem there as it will flag as dupe content

if your only targetting uk then go for .co.uk, just 301 the .com

[BigChrisUk01]

How is easy it to do this, I have read that the .htaccess file needs to be hacked?

[jamespoole]

yeh it is the htaccess that needs to be changed

you need something like

"Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/$1 [R=301,L] "

[ian-d]

A 301 redirect from your .com to your .co.uk is 100% essential in ensuring you don't get stung for duplicate content, plus passing over all the rank and seo is a must. Definatly use the .co.uk as your main site, but great to have the .com on redirect. That's exactly what I do on a retail business I own.

[Jack Russell]

You should make .co.uk domain as your main domain and set 301 redirect for the .com domain to make it point to the .co.uk domain, only if you wish to continue with your existing Germany based hosting account.

Better option is to move your hosting account on a UK based server and leave your existing setup as it is. Your .com domain will get huge boost in google.co.uk and .co.uk domain will remain as it is right now.

Content of all Parked domains is considered as duplicate content by Google, If you park one or more domains on a specific domain. Right now your .co.uk domain has been sandboxed by google as it has duplicate content on it.

[BigChrisUk01]

Hi,

I tried the re-direct various syntax and got an error. So I typed in my .co.uk address and it automatically took me to the .com (once I had removed the redirect change I had put in).

So I phoned my hosting service and asked that my primary domain be changed from the .com to the .co.uk.

They have done this now so if I type the .com address I get the .co.uk address, I take it I will still get penalised for duplicate content if I do not do a 301 re-direct.

I used the following syntax

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.themobileshack.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

The hosting company is UK based but host their servers in Germany.

Thanks for eveyones input.

Chris.

[Jack Russell]

I used the following syntax

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.themobileshack.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

Hi Chris,

Please use following code :-

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.themobileshack.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.themobileshack.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

[BigChrisUk01]

Hi,

Thanks for that I have used:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.themobilephoneshack.com[NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.themobilephoneshack.co.uk/$1[R=301,L]

I got the following error:

Redirect Loop

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

http://www.themobilephoneshack.co.uk...D%5BR=301,L%5D

[ian-d]

Try this one

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^www.themobileshack.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.themobileshack.co.uk/$1 [r=301,nc]

If it doesn't work, or you get error messages, it might be that your host provider doesn't have the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled, or you are not running on a Linux server.

[BigChrisUk01]

Thanks your a star got it working.

Anyway of testing other than the com going to the co.uk?

Is there any idea of how long before I should see my site in G .co.uk?

[Jack Russell]

Thanks your a star got it working.

Anyway of testing other than the com going to the co.uk?

Is there any idea of how long before I should see my site in G .co.uk?

you can login in google.com/webmasters/ to see when was the last time google had indexed your website. It can take 1 week for your new website to be indexed.

Please cross check if all your .com domains backlinks get forwarded to respective page on .co.uk domain. If not then you will need to add 301 redirects for those or you will loose some premium backlinks of internal pages.