Looking to rank a .co.uk domain in the USA

[net66]

Hello Mozzers,

One of my clients sites is "domain.co.uk" and they are looking to rank in the USA with the same domain.

They are looking to change host (for unrelated reasons) and I think it may be beneficial for them to get hosting in the USA.

Essentially the business is moving to the USA but they want to retain their domain name as they cannot get their hands on a domain with their company name in that is .com / .net / .org etc. . .

I know that the .co.uk domain will adversely affect click through rates in the states, but there seems to be no way around this if they want their retain the company name as their domain name.

Would American based hosting help them rank better for searches from the USA or is the benefit of this negligible?

Net66

[net66]

Thanks for the replies guys! Some really good answers.

I know that it will be harder, but I'm going to give it a go!

As they are already getting a company.com domain and will retain the company.co.uk page the only reason for the CLIENT-NAME.co.uk page is as a personal landing page / portfolio page.

It is worth seeing if I can rank their name in the USA. The domain is set up to rank for this already and is already ranking close to page one.

I have seen other name based domains rank in both countries. I think it is worth the risk as I doubt my clients UK rankings (for their name) will be altered. They have scores of links and the content is well targeted.

Once more, thanks for the advice!

Net66

[net66]

Hey guys,

It currently ranks number 17 in the USA, so it is not too far away from the first page.

I think it is doable, but not advisable. It is always worth having a go, and failing that getting a new domain.

Thanks for all the help!

Net66

[Hannah_Smith]

Hi Neil,

Ranking for a person's name in the US with a 'name.co.uk' is possible - for example I think if you do a search for 'Jane Copland' in the US you'll see janecopland.co.uk ranking 1st.

Do you know how well or otherwise the site is ranking in the US right now?

Essentially the ability to rank will likely be impacted by how common or otherwise the person's name is and how strong their site is.

In terms of actions from you I wouldn't be inclined to change hosting as that's unlikely to have an impact on it's own - however if as you say you're looking to change the hosting in any case then moving it the US probably wouldn't hurt. I'd also encourage you to build links to this domain to strengthen the site.

I guess I'm saying it's not necessarily impossible, but in an ideal world you'd get some sort of generic domain (.com / .net etc).

I hope this helps,

Hannah

[Catalyste]

I think that it's harder, you will need a lot of US links so it's a lot of work. The best would be to use a .com and to create a US version of your site.

USA users won't really be attracted to .co.uk and also the vocabulary you use on the site could be a real turn off for US users.

But if you absolutely want to do it, I would host a sub-domain of .co.uk on a server located in USA. But as I said, it's a lot of work that users may not appreciate to much.

[matbennett]

My experience is that the .uk extension is a strong indicator for a local site and it creates extra work. US hosting, contact details and predominantly US links would help, however personally I would still be thinking about a separate non .uk name.

[net66]

Hi Istavan,

Thanks for the quick reply!

Maybe I wasn't too clear.

The company would have a separate site a company-name.com. This would be US based and have the company address, and details on there.

The other site that (.co.uk) has no real income in terms of sales.

It is a photographer and this site is a personal profile site that will have links to his business site.

The idea of this site is to rank for his name, and his name alone as it gets a lot of searches. His UK rank for this does not matter as he will not be returning.

His domain is perfectly set up to rank for his name. His domain is "his-name.co.uk" and has some good content.

My question is really just related to ranking for the clients name. It is a very, very common name but ranks first in the UK.

Would it be possible to gain this ranking in the USA?

I have never tried to rank a .co.uk domain name in the USA, but I know that Google is trying to return local results. (Thus my conclusion that a .co.uk name would not be beneficial).

While I know this is not the best situation my client really wants to retain his current domain.

He is only looking to rank for his name, which is his domain name. Is this going to be a possibility?

Has anyone ranked a .co.uk domain in the USA successfully?

Finally, would US based hosting help at all?

Net66

[Keszi]

Hi Net66,

As I read through your question my first impression was... No Waaaaay!

I wouldn't advice to mix things up. Just simple create a new brand for the US market. The reasons are the following:

1. When re-targeting an established website you can hurt your rankings in both UK and US results.

2. a .co.uk is a ccTLD which wont be very useful for a US targeting

3. for a better on-site optimization you will have to rewrite content to better fit the US English readers level (and there are major differences between US and UK English) - What happens to their established visitors?

4. if you reach to retarget somehow the .co.uk website, they will see a fall in the sales (because they will probably loose some ranks in the .co.uk and gain some new ones in the .com)

Ok. Now if you buy a new brand name for the US market:

1. You can develop from first stage an optimized website (information architecture, content, links, etc.)

2. You can have a brand name that is more catchy for US market.

3. They can run two different websites in the same time effectively. Until the US website comes up, they will have enough sales from UK markets.

I hope that helped,

Istvan