UK Domains

Hi,

I want to buy a domain for a new site I am building for a UK business (a bar) and .co.uk is not available, .com is also taken.

The owner of the business has purchased a .biz domain. Now I have heard that a .uk is better for Google optimisation since the business is operating in the UK.

Therefore, I originally recommended a .org.uk domain since this is available and I thought would perform better in Google (of course in combination with other SEO).

I am now having second thoughts, should a .org.uk only be used for an organisation and not a bar? Any thoughts?

Availble domains are .org.uk, .me.uk, .uk.com, .uk.net, .eu, .net, .org, .info, .biz
Are any of these better?

Many thanks,

Adrian

Remember one thing, three factors are there that work for country specific ranking

1. TLD or country specific domain extension

2. Hosting in that particular country

3. Back Links from sites, hosted in that country.

In my opinion the 3rd factor most important one then the 2nd and then the 1st one.

If you search with the term "sports equipments" in Google.co.uk, in the top 10 sites only one is .co.uk.

In my opinion TLD is not that much important for country specific ranking.

Although TLD is not a very important factor, but from user point of view I think it is not good enough. They might have some problem to relate a Bar related site with .org.uk domain.


.net is not bad, I feel.

The .co.uk is only good for UK targetting as by default Google sets the Gepgraphical Location of that domain to the UK.

You can do this for your .biz domain by going to Google Webmaster Tools, selecting the Tools option and going to Set Geographical Location.

You can set this to the UK and even your specific nbusiness address if local search targetting is appropriate.

This goes some way to offsetting the difference between a .biz and a .co.uk domain.

The domain name is not of huge importance but links are.

You are fine with your .biz domain for targetting a UK market, just set the location.

There are some other specific Geographical Targetting things that you can do, read up here on that and you will do well with a UK market.

From my personal choice, I take those with "uk", when someone search that needs UK specific results, such as (for example): "SEO UK". The domain extension with uk gets bolded in the SERPs.

Then to make your domain planning better, host it in the UK based server. And get links and link out to UK based sites for best results.

Many thanks for all the replies. Very helpful and much appreciated.

Adrian

is .org.uk avalible if it is get it.

Google.co.uk favors .uk domains a lot

a keyword co.uk or org.uk domain is very easy to get listed on googe.co.uk

if your in the uk google.com will redirect to google.co.uk

In Canada it's BN - Business Number
In United States it's EIN - Employer Identification Number
What is it in the UK?

If domain is not important how come my savegas.net site list in the top 30 with just a few links 63 and a single page of content for save gas. keyword .com .net .org domains have a lot of weight

here the domain name has more weight then the 63 links

I am currenly #25 #27
has 2164 link
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.advanceautoparts.com%2Fe nglish%2Frtsg%2Fdefault.asp&bwm=i&bwmf=u&bwms=p&fr=yfp-t-501&fr2=seo-rd-se
so domain savegas.net has about 2000 links worth of weight

Proof of something isn't based on the absence of proof... and basing your assumption on "a single" and "your domain" is full of bias...

savegas.net can rank with what it has based purely on the lack of keyword value... no one else is really targeting it so "you win"... but ranks on your domain doesn't mean the tld extension has anything to do with it... and your assumption that it does isn't proof.

Lack of key word value LOL no one searches for it? then way are there so many adsense adds on the right when you search for save gas????

just search on google for save gas go to the bottom right and click more sponsered links

http://www.google.com/sponsoredlinks?q=save+gas&num=100&hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS284US285&pwst=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8

759 adsense ads for it I guess they are not trying why don't you look up the cost per click? or <snip>

So you believe that your ranks for 'save gas' are primarily the result of a dot.net extension as oppose to links, titles, content and 'save gas' in the domain...

why doesn't savegas.com or savegas.org rank immediately above or below you... if tld are so beneficial?

Exactly!

Search for Insurance on Google.co.uk
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=insurance&spell=1

Only 1 of the top 10 has insurance in the TLD and it does not rank top.

The statement Domain name is very important is not true.

If you thought about it for a second you would realise domain names can not possibly hold much weight to the search engines, as they are a very poor measurement of relevance.

Just because someone registers dogs.com doesn't automatically mean there site is any more relevant then their competitor, it's just a name an empty shell.

Whereas links, content are a VERY good measure of relevance, and surprise surprise these are things Google place most weight on, funny that don't you think?

If domain names were very important, then they would all be at the top, and people would have stopped using Google long ago. As they would not be getting the info they wanted, just a list of domain names that match their search, but not the content to back it up.

There is some truth in being relevant in the extension... dot.uk is quite relevant to uk specific queries dot.ca same, and so on and the impact of a dot.uk host helps in the uk moreso then a dot.com host in the uk, etc. ... this is why people some start believing that their dot.whatever is a unilateral thing...

That said, just because you get a benefit from something doesn't mean that benefit can achieve an end-run-around over other variables... it's kinda like playing poker and having the benefits of a pair of aces... best pair you can have "NO QUESTION"... but it's also "NO QUESTION" that it isn't the best hand... there are more betting hands that can beat it than it can beat.