Our media company has a 10 year old domain (PR5) on a .net extension. Last year the site was redesigned using a CMS that does not give full control of pages on the site. We want to start a blog, but given the restrictions on the .net site. We are thinking of using the .co.uk for the same domain, which has been registered but never used. Would it cause future problems in the search engine rankings to be using the two domain name extensions alongside each other?
not sure what kind of restriction you are talking about .net site that .co.uk site will not have. domain extention doesn't have anything to do with your hosting or hosted options. CMS you can use with co.uk domain can also be used with .net domain. its your hosting account that allows you the options, not the domain
Sorry my note was a bit garbled, I think. Ideally we would have started a blog on the existing .net domain but because of inherited issues with access to the CMS that's not possible. So I just want to consider whether a .net and a .co.uk with the same domain prefix but different content will cause confusion in the search engines' view.
They won't cause confusion as long as they have different content. However, if you have a .co.uk you will have problems making the new blog perform well outside the UK. If still available, register a .org or .com and put the new blog on that.
Thanks, that is helpful - we are planning different content for the blog and primarily they are seeking UK traffic.