How to break into the UK market for a US site

New .co.uk site? Both on one site?

[peterdaly]

I own a site which right now only targets (and sells to) people in the US. I am looking to break into the UK market, but not sure how to best go about it site wise.

Should I open up a .co.uk site in addition to the .com? Would I be at risk of google duplicate content penalties due to the very large amount of duplicate content that would result across the two sites? Would crosslinks back and forth be a problem? Would a .co.uk domain hosted on a US server even target the UK market any better than the current .com does? Putting all prices and shipping info on a single site for both regions doesn't seem very customer focused to me. People like regionalized sites, I know I react better to them.

This is a google questions, since that is where most of my traffic comes from. That's where I stand to gain or lose. Of course I don't want to do anything that may hurt the current US site (dup content/crosslinks/etc setting off a google spam filter, etc.)

I want google to include the UK version in google's UK engine, ranking ahead of (or instead of) the US site.

What's the best way to do this from a google standpoint?

Thanks,

-Pete

[glengara]

The simplest solution would be to host the .com on a server the big G recognises as being in the UK.

[Receptional]

Hosting on a UK server should work, but avoid Telco house... we have a server there that Google seems to think is in the Netherlands when it comes to .coms. addresses.

Better IMHO is to set up a .co.uk and make the effort to make it British and therefore genuinely different for Googlebot. We cope with US dollars and US phone numbers but we TRUST UK style (less "salesy") and like to see that we could go and smash your window if you don't deliver... even if it is mailboxes etc.

Dixon.

[4eyes]

Yep - Receptional has it pinned there.

I'd go ".co.uk" and host on a UK server.

[glengara]

My solution might work for strictly Google, for Y!, AOL et al, the guys are right, a seperate .co.uk.

[peterdaly]

What about duplicate content concerns?

-Pete

[JudgeJeffries]

I've got similar sites for the USA and UK and duplicate content was not much of a problem when I got down to it, as we speak very different languages ie car/auto, attorney/solicitor compensation/settlement.
I had a US friend Americanise/Americanize my text and it was very quickly, very different.