Ok, so I have a .com domain and I want it to rank well in google uk. I'm not really in the best position to move hosts to a UK server so I was thinking of buying the UK extension aswell. However, even if I do buy the .co.uk extension how am I going to use it? All my backlinks are pointing to .com and I really can't see myself gathering another couple thousand backlinks. Is it possible for google uk to show the .co.uk extension and google world to show the .com version? I really need some help on this, thanks!
Candy, you can still achieve by simply getting more links from .co.uk or org.uk or ac.uk domains. Link juice coming from specific country level domains will automatically improve your ranking for those countries. Secondly if your target market is UK, then go to webmaster tool-Geo Targetting-Change Geo targetting to United Kingtom. You will notice definate improvements in google.co.uk within 1 week. However remember you might loose traffic from other domains since google will now define your site as UK based. hope that helps. Good luck. Reps appreciated
Man you're a saint! That's great advice - I've changed my geo target to uk and if things don't turn out great I'll just switch back. +rep, thanks very much!
1: webmaster central switch to uk 2: get uk ip links In my experience, I changed the geo target as soon as google came out with it for most of my sites, it has not been effective for some sites and effective in others....to be honest I dont know why but for some sites my international and other regional rank did not drop....
Keep in mind that lately google's UK results are pretty much messed up with some weird Serps. There is a very long thread on webmasterworld about UK's results craziness.