Just a couple of days ago, I purchased the .com suffix of North South Media, after a 3 year chase it then dawned on me – how the heck do I proceed to build the .com domain into the continued growth of the company! We have a successful .co.uk suffix running that is entirely focussed on the UK market – but is weak in the competitive international market, mostly dominated by .com suffixes.
I have limited experience of multiple domain procurement mostly within precautionary reputation management roles, but never with the intention of physically allowing the domain as a ranking tool. What to do, I had hunted this .com domain for nigh on 3 years, then finally when I have it in my grasp, I’m at a loose end as to what is the best way for the company to proceed.
There was only one solution, in my head at least, and that was to collect the collective thoughts of individuals that I hold in the most upmost respect within the SEO & Online Marketing environment, and bringing this post into a state of current communication methods, I used Twitter to interact with my respected peers on the suffix conundrum.
Below, is a collection of responses, of which I am most humble indeed, that these busy individuals took the time to answer my very NSM focused question :
Here is my original message, which I posted, and I do admit it is very hard to be specific with such a question in the 140 character format that Twitter allows :
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The replies :
It’s a big subject so I don’t know what I could get into 140 chars. and spaces.
@BWelford
Of course you can link back from co.uk to .com if .com contains unique content.
@Harith
@neoblog
@JohnCarcutt
@TheMadHat
@andrew_thomson
@neyne
@andrewburnett
Andrew then sent an email here are parts of that email :
In my experience now that you’ve got the dotcom you can and should ask yourself; “What should I do with my company?”
I think a great domain for a UK based digital agency is a UK hosted .com domain. If you’ve nothing else then you get the best of two worlds; your .com makes you look international but your hosting and WHOIS records show you’re British and so Google.co.uk rankings are no challenge to you.
The safe and “here and now” option is simply to 301 the .com domain to your .co.uk. I’d have a long think about what you might be doing in two years time; what domains strategy you might need for that and start to move your .co.uk and .com around accordingly.
@AndrewGirdwood
It must be noted that my Tweet was not very clear!
@patrickaltoft
Again, it must be stated that my Tweet was not very clear!
Hi Paul I have the .com hosted and 301 in the HT access to the .co.uk domain. My UK rankings have never been compromised.
@Hobo_Web
Brian then sent me a GMail request if I wanted to find out more info, he’d be on it…
@nowsourcing
Don’t do anything with the .com version except a 301 redirect to your .co.uk, not sure I understood the question
www.timnash.co.uk
@kevgibbo
So I sent Dave an email and he returned a 4 page document … yep, it’s true, he is an uber seo geek, here are some snapshots from Dave’s document …
Now if we’re not an international mega-brand and are considering branching out, then it would certainly make sense and I doubt the content would really need to be substantially changed as long as some of the above steps were taken. I might consider hosting it locally, but that would be dependant on the market and competitiveness therein.
Obviously the decision, as is often the case, comes down to value. Does it makes sense? Will you gain enough new business from the approach to warrant the extra resources? Is there a time frame on the ROI?
In some cases we’ve gone with the .com over the more mature .co.uk and 301’d everything (and added UK and international directories to the structure). After the initial pain process (4-8 weeks) we were able to start ranking in both markets. This though, is also dependant on the query space. Query spaces that are more localized, require tighter geo-targeting, that approach may not be the best…
@theGypsy
@swerveball
I want to take this time and thank each and every respondent in offering up their time and energy to help me figure out the best way forward with my .com issue. I also hope that the valued advice offered by the respondents helps many others in this scenario.
Very good idea for a blog post, turned into quite a resource for domain strategy. This Econsultancy post is worth a read too, makes you think twice about redirecting domains unless absolutely necessary.
That is a really interesting post Kev, it’s certainly food for thought, we’re nothing like the size of eConsultancy, but it is something else to contemplate before a decision is reached.
Good resource Paul
Cheers Shaun, tried to get as many point of views as possible … never easy, esp, with my original twitter mssg.
I think BWelford makes a good point “depends on objectives and key markets”.
Migrating domains is still unpredictable, I would only recommend so if there is a clear benefit and you weigh this up with the likelihood of losing some trust, traffic and rankings from where you currently are.
Cheers, for the comment Joe, I feel I might lean towards migrating the blog towards the .com version (kudos to Girdy for that) and then analysing the results before the main site is touched.
Of course it comes down to what markets and indexes you are targetting but I would spend more time on other brand building elements and additions to the blog (like content like this) rather than worry about being a .com rather than a .UK.
As Andrew said, it may depend where you are in two years, but I don’t consider it the area to put my efforts in at all.
I’d keep as is, with a 301 from the .com to the UK, and focus on real business generating excercises in the UK. There’s plenty of it.
I pratically don’t get any sleep as it is Shaun, and I have considered the extra marketing needed as well, yeah 2 years is a long time in Search, its taken 3 to get ourselves to here and we’re still so far away from the top companies and agencies out there …
Tell me about it
As a number of people have said above, I guess much of it is going to come down to clear objectives. Your current target market is currently UK focussed (however in the general context, your .co.uk is going to struggle to compete in the US, AU, and other non-uk markets.
As such any such decision is going to come down to long term objectives (taking any short term effects of migration from .uk to .com) , and if the plan is to provide NSMedia with a more global target market, I would suggest the .com may be a serious consideration (ie 301 the .co.uk to .com) as 1) global users associate .co.uk with UK, .com has a more global feel (albeit it with a slight US bias) 2) the geo-targeting implications.
Pete, appreciate the comment, I feel for the moment I’ll try and focus on the UK market more, at some point I’ll experiment with the blog under the .com suffix in the future.
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