Hi, Something that has bugged me for ages is that our site doesn't show up in the SERPs when you search for UK results only. This is quite a big issue as I only want to target users the UK! For example, on google.co.uk we show up 8th for a key phrase if you select "the web", but if you search for the same key phrase and select "pages from the UK" we are no where to be seen! We currently have a hosting company based in USA, so is that simply the reason? I'm already making plans to transfer to a UK server, but will that alone be enough? Our site is registered under both ".com" and ".co.uk" names, which presumably is a good thing!? Currently the ".co.uk" site re-directs straight to the ".com" site. Is this the best set up to keep, or should I create seperate content on the .co.uk site and link to the .com rather than re-directing? I have been warned against simply copying the content of the ".com" site accross to the ".co.uk" site, in case it is classed as "duplicate content" by the search engines. Also, all our inbound links point to the .com site which has built up a google PR of 4 and all of our branding is focused around the .com address. If any one can shed any more light on this topic and suggest the best way to keep the .com address but show up in Google's UK results I would be very grateful! Many thanks in advance! Adam
Ok, so I'll move it to a UK server and check the ip ranges are in the UK... Does anyone know about the best redirect setup to use? (please read the 2nd half of my post above) Many thanks, Adam
Hi, I think hosting on a UK server will help. Google uses IP when giving country specific results. I am not sure what effect "moving" will have on your current com listings . Anybody here can suggest if redirects from UK servers will help ? Regards Jeet
Will do - thanks! I'm thinking now that the best thing to do is to move the .com site to a UK server in the hope that it will start to show up in "UK only" SERPs. As for the .co.uk site: 1. Should I just keep the redirect to the .com site, or make a new site? 2. If I make a new site, how should I link to the .com site? 3. Can I host the new site on the same UK server as the .com site? 4. Will google penalise me for having a "portal" site if I link to the .com site a lot from the new .co.uk site? Looking forward to more great advice! Many thanks, Adam. p.s. Your article submit service sounds good - are they UK based sites you would be submitting the articles to?
Listing in a Google regional search requires: a regional domain (in this case co.uk) with hosting wherever you like; OR hosting in the region i.e., either 1 or 2 or both will work. It may also help to have other information on the site linking it to a UK-based business. If you move your .com site to a host in the UK, you don't need to worry about redirection. All that needs to be done is the nameservers change. To human visitors and spiders, there will be no indication that anything has changed. It would not be a good idea to have the .co.uk site mirroring the .com site (duplicate content). However, you can create a small .co.uk site with new regional content and link to and from the .com site. You won't be penalized as a "portal" or doorway as long as it's a standalone site with some region-specific content. You can host both on the same server - just make sure the server is in the UK.
A lot of the big sites will set up the .co.uk version to redirect to domain.com/uk or something. That way you can target a section of the site for UK clients and not worry about creating 2 duplicate sites. PS pm being sent with details of article sites
That's brilliant - thanks very much for clearing that up! I will start on the new .co.uk site right away - joy! Another thing you might be able to help with... Can you give me any tips on where to place internal links? At the moment I have my main pages linked to in the footer of every page of the site, using anchor text relevant to the destination page. Will it help my main pages to have more internal links anywhere else on every page of the site (.e.g at the top of the page), or do internal anchor text links not help SEO? Thanks, Adam
For SEO, yes internal links will help and it normally doesn't matter where those links are (unless it's a huge page with > 100kb of text which is a bad idea for a number of reasons). For your human visitors, making the links more prominent in your navigation scheme would be better. I don't think that will help the .com site rank any better in the regional Google, though, and the .co.uk site won't rank well anywhere if it's merely a forwarded domain.
Now you mention it, I've seen that a lot. Well I'm just trying to target the UK market with both sites. As I understand it, the 'easy' solution (moving the .com site to the .co.uk address) would mean that I would render all my inbound links to the .com site useless. Also it would involve re-branding our business to the .co.uk name, something I'd really rather not do! So I think I'll stick with the .com and the .co.uk and build a new smaller content-based site for the .co.uk address. Keep the helpful tips streaming in! Very much appreciated. Adam.