Hi Guys, I hope this is going to be painless! Anyway, I started off using a .co.uk site address having also bought the .com equivalent. Yes, I was naive, but expected most of my business to come from the UK, whereas in fact the business has become truly international. I have thus kind of got numerous incoming links that use either one, and I am convinced that, say, using a .co.uk address puts me at an immediate disadvantage re, say, Irish customers. Moreover, as my business is about France, it seems a bit strange to go to the UK to learn about France, if you see what i mean. However, I don't do business with the French and the site's in English only, so .fr is a non starter. So, how do I change over completely from .co.uk to .com and ensure I do not loose all my links, Google history, etc? Note that my hosting company hosts many companies on their server, not just my own. Thanks, Belenenses
You need to set up the site on the .com, and 301 redirect all your old pages to the new domain. So anyone (human or search engine spider) going to domain.co.uk/page.html will be redirected to domain.com/page.html You should avoid making any other drastic changes around this time, so don't move all your content or sections around, change your url structure, or change your host.
If the number of links is not high - it could be a good idea to create absolutely new content for the .com website... and heavily link it from co.uk website.
Vick, Thanks for your reply and ideas. However, on Google webmaster tools, I've already got warnings saying there are too many 301 redirects - presumably from .com to .co.uk! Any concerns Google has must be mine as well? Cheers, B.