Nominet have made the geographic new TLD available for UK. How will this affect SEO?

[Stewart_SEO]

Nominet have made a new TLD available, the .uk TLD. Some might argue that this is a cynical move by Nominet to get more money out of British businesses, but either way, we need to decide how we handle this. As I see it we have 4 options.

1. Do nothing - At the moment, only websites can register their .uk domain. That won't last for ever though, and eventually, if we don't register it, someone else will.
2. Register a domain but do nothing with it.
3. Register a domain and simply redirect it to the existing .co.uk domain. I suspect this is the best option.
4. Register the .uk domain and redirect the .co.uk domain to the new domain.

From a technical point of view, what is the best option? For businesses that have multi-lingual sites the 4th appears the best option but why do we need to act when we do not even know the SEO value of any of this, and where Google sit regarding the new British TLD?

[Stewart_SEO]

Hi guys

thanks for your responses. You've confirmed what I suspected, especially the implications concerning ccTLD's.

There are none. To be honest, it's more about being tidy and organised, and managing a domain's web presence in a systematic way, and not getting bogged down in other digital areas. If one gets their website techincally organised in a way that complies with the search guidelines, i.e redirects put where they should be, canonical urls correct, broekn links repaired, duplicate urls and pages removed and/or redirected, then I foresee fewer problems for SME's on the digital journey.

Cheers

[Highland]

ccTLDs are different from gTLDs (and .uk is also restricted to only UK businesses unlike .co.uk) in that they show a specific affinity for a country. Google recognizes this, as well as users.

The only SEO consideration is do you want to be seen as UK specific or more general? There's nothing from preventing you from doing either, but you do need to understand that signal is there with a ccTLD.

As far as buying yourdomain.uk and pointing it to yourdomain.co.uk there's no harm but no benefit either.

[GPainter]

let's for just a second ignore the technical point of view I know how easy it can be to get caught up and look at it from a different angle-

Which option is easier to brand and for the user? if you've got a .co.uk you can secure the .uk and as you mentioned 301 job done no worries it will also stop some competition with the same name same results go for .com really.

You don't get an real benefit from any of the TLD's they all work the same so don't panic!

I wouldn't worry about Nominet they are not some large evil cooperation trying to get money, they are trying to free up domains to create more options rather than think wow there are no more URLS left on the internet!

My advice if you are worried is get the .uk redirect it into your all ready established .co.uk then if you want to at a later date swap you can, if a customer accidentally goes to the wrong domain again it helps and as I mention it also stops any competition.

you can find more info here -

http://moz.com/ugc/an-seos-guide-to-acquiring-new-gtlds

http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain

Hope it helps & good luck.