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.Com or .Co.uk?

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SEO > Articles > New York 2004 >

Should I use.com or.co.uk?

The best way to answer this is to consider it more as a branding, rather than a search engine optimisation issue.

Advantages of.co.uk:

• With the .co.uk extension, you are more likely to be seen as a UK website, and therefore have a much higher likelihood of appearing in a UK search engine index. Conversely, a .co.uk domain name could slow down your entry into the main Google.com index, especially if you are spidered via other UK sites.

So does that make .co.uk better on balance? If your products are geared at the UK market, it may generally seem logical to use the .co.uk domain.

Advantage of a.com domain name

• As well as appearing to have a global reach, .com is a term as most associated with internet companies. The use of a.com domain name might suggest a more corporate entity, rather than just being a local business. As the Internet continues to grow, negative connotations to do with the boom and rapid bust of the.com industry are fading away, giving the.com domain name a slight edge in terms of brand identity.

Convenience

The real advantage of using a.com domain name as opposed to a .co.uk comes when you are trying to spread knowledge of your domain name through the spoken word. This might be through radio advertising, but could also be through TV advertising, and most importantly through word of mouth. A .com domain name adds just two syllables, whereas a .co.uk takes up five syllables. If your audience are not all English speakers, then.com is much easier to spell out, and is widely recognised globally.

Ideally, you will be able to register both variants of your domain name, and depending on the nature and size of your business, use 301 redirects or a simple portal page to direct people to the most appropriate section.