Will changing my domain name from a .co.uk to a .com affect my SEO?

[starydynamo]

Hi all,

The .com for my domain name has become available (I am currently a .co.uk) so I am looking to move over my website to this but first would like double check if this would have any affect on my SEO at all?

As a company we mainly target the middle east (Although based in the UK) but at the time of registering years ago the .com was not available.

Do I have a 'history' logged with the current .co.uk domain or is my website solely dominated by the content?

Also, if I do transfer what would be the easiest way of doing this just changing the DNS to a different location (will there be a duplicate content issue on both domain names?).

Thanks in advance!!

[starydynamo]

Hi Gyi,

That is very useful and informative (wow found some answers to questions I didn't even think about).

However, it doesn't specifically pick on the point that if I move the .co.uk to .com whether there would be a direct influence on my SEO? (I don't think I will be using subdomains with a gTLD for some time).

[Gyi]

Might moving domains have an impact on your organic search positions? In a word, yes.

Before you do any moving, spend some time searching around the Moz blog. There are a lot of great posts on the subject.  Here are a couple:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-international-versions-of-websites

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/international-seo-part-2