.com or .co.uk

what is the best way to go with multiple domain names

[jamsy]

After the recent debacle with Google, having 5 sites dropped through IMHO, mirrored versions of the site. It led me to change the majority of my clients sites to just one primary domain and the others pointing to it. Such as Domain.com with domain.co.uk just pointing to domain.com

When checking the sites out, I came across a really funny thing. I have a hobby site of my own to which I do no work on and haven't done for many a many months (forgot i had it to be honest) and the .com version is number one for its primary keyword in every engine i looked at - MSN, AOL, Google, Alta, Lycos, DMOZ, Yahoo and Alltheweb.

When running a search for the same keyword in copernic (asking for uk sites) it doesnt appear. But the .co.uk mirror version doesnt either.

Can people tell me how they market clients sites with the .com and the .co.uk please, ie what domain do you run with?

BTW i am number one in all the engines without even trying. What a funny old game this is. Why can't it be a customers site....LOL

Thanks :)

[IanTurner]

When you have hobbies like mongoose pickling its not hard to get No.1 :)

More seriously my choice is dependent on the market that I am addressing. If I am looking at a UK market as my prime target then a .co.uk is preferred - if I am looking at world market as prime target then I go for .com

All the best
Ian

[jamsy]

LOL Mongoose pickling... how did you guess.

But seriously its not, its a professional business with people charging big money for it.

Thanks for your info Ian. I have stickied you the url

[ciml]

I prefer to use a 301 redirect from the .com to the .co.uk

This gets the .co.uk the greatest reach (if I'm using our US box then I can't get a .com into google's UK search :() and prevents duplicate spidering.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mydomain.co.uk(:80)?$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) [mydomain.co.uk...] [L,R=301]

Calum

[jamsy]

Calum

>>301 redirect

not being that well up on scripts - apart from the java refresh one ;)

do you mean on the server?

and if so how do i go about this with a raq 4?

thanks in advance

[brotherhood of LAN]

Im no expert either but

Could you perhaps just use include pages on your .co.uk sites that include the .com site?

I dont think it could make that much of a difference, maybe someone else could comment

[ciml]

jamsy, yes that's on the server. I should have mentioned that the code was for Apache 1.3+ (maybe 1.2?)Should be fine on a RaQ4.

It goes into httpd.conf or .htaccess (depending on what, if anything, you're allowed to do in .htaccess according to httpd.conf).

It may invalidate your warranty to tweak httpd.conf by hand (most useful things invalidate Cobalt warranties).

brotherhood_of_LAN, you certainly can use real pages on the other domains, just make them significantly different from each other.

Calum