.com or .co.uk

Which is more recognized in the UK?

[EricGen]

Hi,

We have a bit of a debate here internally. We are launching our ecommerce site quite soon. We're in France, but the site is for now solely for UK customers. We have the .com and .co.uk extensions for our domain name. Which is the most recognized in the uk that we should promote? I favour the .co.uk especially as there is a .com domain very close to ours, but others in the team prefer .com saying it's more recognized. As far as I remember (I lived 10 years in London) .co.uk is more used in there. What do the panel think?

Thanks

[Nick_W]

Personally I'd go for the .co.uk but beware that you need to be hosted in UK also for this to be worth much SE-wise..

Nick

[wruk999]

Hi Eric,

I personally would vote your way and go with the .co.uk!

A lot of people (mainly infrequent web users) who are looking to buy online, will still only buy from .co.uk as they feel they have more "security" from buying UK. I dont mean security as in fraud, but as in more trust in the vendor.

Just my opinion anyway :)

wruk999

<added>and what Nick says about the hosting ;)</added>

[Shak]

.co.uk is what I would say.

and hosting is advised, NOT essential at this moment in time.

.co.uk domains hosted outside of the UK do very well from past experience.

if its a .com then UK hosting is essential, but still doesnt solve problems such as AOL and Yahoo only showing .uk extensions when users select "pages from the UK"

Good luck...

Shak

[TravelSite]

.com for me - sounds more professional and 'big'. Of course the ideal situation is to use both the .com and .co.uk, as some users will always enter the oppossite extension :)

[aek]

.co.uk definitely. If i'm searching for a product I'll automatically go to a .co.uk site as I know I'll be able to buy from there.

[Perplexed]

I have mixed feelings about this. .com is more expensive and so has always struck me as more professional. .co.uk has always felt like a second level site, or even a bit cheapskate.

On the other hand I was recently looking for a childs swimming pool for the grandchildren and I ended up only looking at the co.uk sites to save wasting time reading about stuff that would have to be shipped in from the states.

I guess it depends what you are selling or doing.

[Nick_W]

>professional

I agree partly. A little of your criteria for decision should be the type of product/service I guess...

Nick

[georgeek]

There are arguments for and against using either. Before determining which would be better it is necessary to know what product or service you are offering and who your competitors are. For example if you are providing downloadable software at a discount, French cheeses, or exercise bikes it could make a difference in my opinion.

[EricGen]

Thanks all. I think I have some stuff to argue my case then. Incidently we are hosted in the UK, much better service and cheaper than in France. I cannot stress that enough. We sell our local wines and only to the UK so I think we're better off using .co.uk.

[TimmyMagic]

I was forced to go with .co.uk for mine as the .com had already been registered, and I liked the domain so much. The only down side is that US buyers pay prefer to buy from .com. However, if your market is the UK mainly, then .co.uk is obviously the best.

Why don't you register both .com and .co.uk? (presuming they are both available).

[johno]

Remember a lot of people select the uk only option in Yahoo

[vincevincevince]

if you're targetting the uk audience, then use .co.uk

[trillianjedi]

I would concentrate on the .co.uk.

Promote the .com when you have run out of means of promoting the .co.uk (assuming you'll 301 it rather than build a seperate site).

Out of interest, we also have a .co.uk hosted outside the UK and it does great - no ill-effects.

TJ

[pjamescowie]

Personally, as a UK resident, I don't think it would matter - people will visit anyway, providing your content / services are right.

Just to be safe though, go for both options if you can: both .com and .co.uk....

[SuzziJ]

.com - get a .co.uk anyway but concentrate on .com. I dont know anybody that first goes to a .co.uk. But hey ho everybody is different, maybe there is no answer?

Its a bit like, shall I get a red car or a blue car? mmmm

[saoi_jp]

I agree with earlier posters who advised you get both. I would recommend promoting yourself as ".co.uk", since you're branding yourself as UK-friendly, and thus also more likely to ship internationally to Europe and beyond if necessary. Owning the ".com" and pointing it to your site is the best option -- people who remember your name may forget the .co.uk part.

[BravoTwoZero]

I will go for co.uk. As you mentioned earlier mostly aiming for UK cutomers. You have a simple solution to this. Write an asp page for .com domain to redirect URL to co.uk. Any body type www.yourcompany.com, automectically transfer to co.uk. This way you get to keep your co.uk and anybody typing .com comes here as well.

Bravo

[trillianjedi]

I agree with earlier posters who advised you get both.

As I understand the original post they already have both, the question is which one to promote.

As the audience is UK, the only way to go is to promote the .co.uk.

A lot of UK customers are put off by .com.

301 redirect the .com to catch the mis-type-ins.

You can always use the .com later for a more worldwide flavour if that's what you end up wanting to do.

TJ

[cornwall]

>>if its a .com then UK hosting is essential

Is correct

In the fullness of time the difference in serps between the two is very small, but you are more like to hit the ground running with the dot UK.

Sometimes dot com has simplicity value, if you have a hyphenated URL, or alliterative, if it begins with C.

If you have an e commerce site, then consider how you will come up in serps with punters wanting to cut out US or other foreign sites. If I want to buy say a digital camera, I often add "uk" to the keyword search to cut out getting a number of US sites, that can mean a UK dot com, which is listed on the SE, gets cut from such a search (unless you have fully covered it in other coding)

[SuzziJ]

just as a note to trillianjedi, i have to disagree that most users are tuned off by .co.uk addresses in GB. Research I have seen says most UK'ers see .com as the standard, and not .co.uk. But again its individual preference, at the end of the day it dont really matter..you will have UK content.