Hello fellow DP'ers, Firstly a brief history. My site started out as .com, but I had terrible terrible problems with my host, moved to another host & had terrible problems with them too. Basically my visitors couldn't see the site & the host wouldn't help me. At 39 weeks pregnant I was desperate & a friend offered to help me get a .com.au domain name (you have to be a business to get .com.au). So, the move was quickly made before my baby came along. Anyway, the site was always intended for an international audience, and it does have many visitors from overseas but I can't help wondering if the .com.au is hurting me. I still own .com & have full control of it, but just have a fairly basic homepage up (without AS ads). I guess in my usual long winded way, would it be beneficial to move the site back to the .com? I rank fairly well with Google, how would moving from .com.au to .com hurt this? Would it take a long time to recover?
Julia - if you are ranking well in Google, why would you think of reverting back? With good SEO international domains aren't disadvantaged in the US search engines.
I wondered if the .com.au domain may put international visitors off. It's not hurting me at all, but I'm wondering if reverting back to .com would actually bring in more international visitors? ETA: It's not so much search engines, more visitors. Is it putting them off? I've checked my ranking with say G.co.uk & I still rank well...but maybe I'd do even better with just .com?
I'm of the belief you shouldn't fix what's already a good thing I also have a popular .com.au site with many international visitors, I dont feel there put off in anyway. It's the sites content which is of most importance, and the small benefit you may have with a .com is such as small factor it's not worth worrying about.
Thanks, that's reassuring to hear. The site does well already! Where in Sydney are you? You don't have to be specific We're in the southern suburbs.
Ooh, Inner West...I lived in Camperdown & Stanmore for 10 years, regularly go to Leichhardt for pizza & garlic prawns. What do you mean develop .com to promote .com.au? I have a basic homepage on .com without the adsense, and all links on the homepage on .com point to .com.au pages.
Well there's two spots you could occupy on the first page of the SERPs with one website. If you develop another .com on the same topic (with different content) it gives you a chance to gain more search engine traffic, and would provide some nice linkage to your .com.au as well. It sounds like you already have a headstart on that...