I've got a bit of an issue regarding a site I setup a few years ago.....its purpose has changed from a Global xxxyyy site to UK specialised. As a result.... The Problem: The site is ranking top 10 for some key competitive search terms. Top 5 for a couple of key terms (long tail is excluded from this but it also ranks pretty well for a lot of other keywords) Anyway, I am struggling to take position 1 which is something I can normally accomplish in a faster timeframe than this for sub 10 million result keywords (12 months part time SEO on this site) The site has 20k backlinks in yahoo, PR4 etc it is hosted in the Uk on UK IP address Currently the site is xxxyyy.com (example only) I own all other domain extensions for my domain Is it worth changing to xxxyyy.co.uk > and 301 redirect the .com to the .co.uk (and change all my other redirects to point to the uk domain) I know I will lose SERP but for how long? Will it come back fast and as it is now position wise? (or better most likely) All my main competitors have .co.uk or .net extensions...... Or is it too big a risk to take and should I just leave it as it is? Im currently rewriting a far more SEO friendly site (is currently script based) so that will help but what do you think? suggestions and thoughts please folks thanks I
Before you switch domains, which would effect your current SERPs did you try the geo-targeting option inside of google webmasters central? The whole concept of it was to solve this type of issues.
Hmm. Thats a very good point ssandecki Thankyou for the suggestion. I've just been to webmaster tools and set this option. indeed, if the truth be told I didnt even know it existed in WMT?!! I will wait and see if it has any effect on my local serps
I really wouldn't bother. The co.uk seems to have an advantage in the 12 months in the uk but after a year it seems hardly noticable. I don't think the rank is due to the extension. If your site is above 2 years old \i think the reason lies somewhere else. If you have a better site in the making just host it on a different UK server, and drop it a couple of links from old site to give it a headstart maybe.
Thanks Valley If Im honest I think its because the 'core' design of the site sucks *** basically, it is an old (5 years + now) semi custom php script that I bought and ended up customising massively to make it half decent and SE friendly. however I have got the max point with it and its no longer viable to keep adding bits. Its so badly coded and has over 1000 seperate .php files its too much labour so I have instead coded a new site of my own design from the ground up to show much search engine and user friendly love hopefully this will help me get P1 however I am concerned about losing all my serps when I transition from the current site to the new one Im going to 301 all important pages where page names have to change. Apart from that I guess I will have to pray a lot!!! Any ideas>?
With so many G storms splashing about these days I am keeping all old sites, rather than do all the redirects etc. That way if the storm kills one site then I can still get ups from the other, or move the site if it "catches the G flu" That way if your new site gets penalized, or algo changes, upload to new domain and start again. Too hell with duplicate.