Are 'ltd.uk' and uk.com's recognised by SEs...

[markd]

Are 'ltd.uk' and uk.com's 'recognised by SE's at all as being valid domains?

[jmccormac]

ltd.uk moreso than uk.com. Though it really depends on how the search engine creates its search index. If it crawls (like Google) then both will be included. However it is more the user's perception that matters. A website with ltd.uk is the site of a UK limited company. A .uk.com website could be just about anything.

Regards...jmcc

[Chris_R]

It looks to me like google will crawl anything. If me.at.your.mommas.house works in a browser - I am pretty sure google will index it.

Not so sure about the other search engines.

They also don't "recognize" - all .tlds in giving you options for more info if you type it in the box, but you can still do it manually by adding "link:" or whatever, but this shouldn't effect how the pages are indexed.

[ritch_b]

There shouldn't be any difference in how well .ltd.uk & .uk.com domains are spidered. Remember though that .uk.com isn't a domain extension in its own right.

You may find some UK regional search engines will not display the .uk.com domain in their results - primarily those who filter simply by domain extension, rather than by IP.

Personally, I'd rather deal with a .ltd.uk domain as I know the registration process is stricter and that gives me a little more confidence in the company concerned. What Joe Public thinks however, is an entirely different matter.

R.

[markd]

Ritch

'uk.com isn't a domain extension in its own right.'

Could you explain a bit more about this please - sorry for my ignorance!

Mark

[ritch_b]

AFAIK - and anyone who knows otherwise is free to correct me - .uk.com domains are actually subdomains of the domain www.uk.com, which is owned by a company called CentralNIC.

CentralNIC also own related domains such as www.uk.net, www.us.com, etc.

So - in theory - if you were to purchase widget.uk.com, all you're actually getting is a subdomain of www.uk.com. In essence, it's the same as you buying the domain www.loadsofcashfor me.com and selling subdomains to people such as widget.loadsofcashforme.com.

Hope it all makes sense so far! Demon Internet (apologies for namedropping) and others offer similar domains with their hosting, ie. widget.demon.co.uk - just a subdomain, nothing more.

In terms of cash, CentralNIC will probably pay £20 at most for the domain www.uk.com per year, but charge £65 for each subdomain it sells - that's a nice little earner & one I deeply regret not having thought of first!

R.

[4eyes]

Watch out for geo filtering that doesn't pick up uk.com as a UK domain.

I have not tested it recently, but the Inktomi results at msn.co.uk were pushing .uk.com to the bottom of the SERPs

[Bosh123]

Hi everyone,

I own a .uk.com domain. One problem i have is although all search engines recognise them Inktomi don't. I have paid to be included on their index, they took the money and indexed my site.
When you search for something you have to always include .uk.com to get any results. You can check by searching for anything on Hotbot without .uk.com and no site will be listed with the .uk.com extension.