'.co.uk' vs '.com' Domain Names

Many people ask if it's more advantagious having a '.com' domain name over a '.co.uk'. Many see the '.com' domain as a way of appearing as an 'international', or 'worldwide' organisation. However, you need to consider where geographically most of your services or products are provided and if it's the UK, then a '.com' could put you at a disadvantage in search engine rankings results such as Google.

It is worth noting that people in the UK tend to click on '.co.uk' website extensions more than any other website. Research carried out by Nominet showed that 77% of UK searchers are more likely to favour 'co.uk' domains rather than '.com', which actually means that if you register a '.com' website and manage to get a first page Google ranking, then you are more likely NOT to get any clicks from people searching in the UK.

If you do not have a geography-specific domain such as '.co.uk' for the UK and instead you opt for a '.org', '.net', or '.com', then Google will use the geographical location of your hosting centre as the method for determining which local index your results should be found in. So thinking about where your website is hosted is equally as important.

For example, if you were to search Google for UK results only, and your '.com' site was hosted by a UK hosting supplier, but in a German datacentre, then you would never appear in the search results. Of course, you would appear in the 'google.de' search results, but obviously not many German Google users are looking for websites and businesses in English or relevant only to a UK audience.

Careful consideration is needed in getting the right domain name. Make sure that you stick to promoting one single, consistent domain name across all your communications, such as 'http://www.oxfordwebseo.co.uk/'.

It is worth noting that Google has now changed its ranking algorithm in order to display more results from the same website, when there is strong interest in content from a particular domain. So consistent advertising of one single domain name for your organisation is even more important.