.com OR .co.uk ?

darthed1981

As others have said, .co.uk if you are focussed on the UK, .com if international.

It is nowhere near as important as it used to be, as even when knowing the address people will often type your company name into Google.  Therefore a bit of basic SEO on your site is wise.

In terms of making a website, try wix.com - very powerful tools and templates to whack a website together quickly.

sinbaadi

Our business rebranded after a takeover, and went from a very short name.com URL to a longer-whatwedo.com.  I think that shows how much importance is placed on a .com but I wish they'd stumped up for the name.com url, which looks like it's just held by a place marker.  (It's a weird name).

I don't love telling people my email address my.name@name dash whatwedo.com.

Octafish

Surely the most desirable is a Cook Islands domain giving you co.ck

midlifecrisis

ive been with 1and1 since 2001, always been a great service with english speaking phone support that you can get through to more or less straight away. But over the last 2 years their prices have really shot up.

Fretwired

goldtop said:

If your site will be uniquely and always UK-oriented (local trade or service), then a .co.uk is fine. If you have any intention of being international, then it MUST be .com.

This is not strictly true. Google has a range of ranking factors including the age and authority of the domain, extension (.co.uk) language and the country where the web server is based (the big hosting companies offer a solution to this problem). If you are building a website just for the UK then a .co.uk or .uk is the best option. If you aim to sell in the EU then .eu is worth a punt as well.

If you have a particular service then it is possible to get an extension for that as well .. for example .accountant .. Google makes money from adverts and will pretty well know the location of most people searching for a service so unless you are a major brand (Apple, BMW, Gibson guitars etc) or a company paying to advertise nationally via Adwords the service/product you are searching for will be local to you, making the .co.uk or .uk the most sensible option.

My company has clients who sell abroad and the multi-domain strategy works well. In the US the .us extension ranks much higher than the .com these days for new sites - authority (age of the domain, content, high quality links to the site etc) will always boost a site's ranking regardless of the extension.

goldtop

I was being quick, rather than detailed.

For sure, your average American will see a .co.uk and wonder if it's worth clicking. It's just the nature of the American market (and it's why alibaba/etc and the Chinese sites that sell direct to the USA are all .com). That moment of doubt is bad. For some niche and well-educated markets, especially those with quite specific search keywords, a .co.uk might work internationally. The OP isn't saying whether US customers/visitors are important to his/her plans.

Didn't know that .us domains rank so high. But I still hold that if you want to establish a significant presence and the .com is already taken by another entity, then choosing the same domain with a different extension is a bad idea. You might be lucky and fly under the radar. Same goes for all of those new-fangled extensions. They were a way for domain registrars to get a huge amount of 'new' business, but creating a significant web presence with one that encroaches on the name of an existing .com would be a recipe for letters from Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

FWIW, sitting here in the UK, I've never seen a .us domain pop up in any of my searches. What are the top .us domains for which the owner doesn't also have the .com with more traffic?

Fretwired

goldtop said:

I was being quick, rather than detailed.

Didn't know that .us domains rank so high. But I still hold that if you want to establish a significant presence and the .com is already taken by another entity, then choosing the same domain with a different extension is a bad idea. You

It's not UNLESS you are a global brand, but even then big brands, like Amazon, go for local domains over the .com. Why? Trust and ranking.

Google UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk

Google US - https://www.google.com

And -

BMW UK - https://www.bmw.co.uk

Audi UK - https://www.audi.co.uk

And the days of Joe Public thinking .com is more important have gone - it shows our age. Younger consumers in the UK will look for local domains. And Google Machine Learning has revolutionised search - you'll notice that as you search your fuzzy queries get more accurate as Google gets to know you and your location. A simple example - if you hang out on guitar sites and you enter a query 'Boss reseller' you'll get a list of guitar shops. If you browse clothing websites and enter 'Boss reseller' Google will take you to suit resellers. And Google takes your location into account as well and is more likely, if you''re UK-based, to return a company with a relevant domain. Voice search will revolutionise the web and supercharge local search.

What extension you buy totally depends on your business and your target market. Personally if I'm running a UK-only business I'd get .co.uk .. if I intend to sell globally then .com is worth considering.

spark240

As much as I would like to go global...I think its a little beyond reach at the moment ;-)

.co.uk it is so I can get moving forward.