What is the best way to replace a .co.uk with a .com name

[ClaireH-184886]

Hi i would like to know about my site which is www.in2town.co.uk which i am currently revamping and i am now in the process of buying a .com name and would like to know the best way to uise it.

What i mean is, i have a lot of links going to the www.in2town.co.uk and would like to know should i do a permantent redirect to the .co.uk with the .com or is it possible to have the co.uk replaced with the .com

i am trying to work out the best way to do this at the moment as i have never done this before. now after buying the .com for my domain name i would like to know should i use it as a redirect to my main site, or should i develop a sister site and use it.

any advice would be great.

[RyanKent]

Hi Diane.

As I understand it, your site is currently focused on the UK and you have a .co.uk domain. You have acquired the .com domain and wish your site to address an international audience.

My suggestion would be to make the change as follows:

• migrate your existing site to the .com domain. Either the default domain will be UK English, or you would create a folder for the UK.Your new URLs would look like www.intown.com/uk, www.intown.com/es, www.intown.com/fr. Each of these directories would represent a targeted country for which you have localized content.

• ensure your content for each area is truly localized. First, be sure to use the right dialect of the language. For example, Spanish for Spain is not the same as Spanish for Mexico, There is a significant difference. Next, be sure to use the right monetary units and systems of measurements for the chosen country. Also use the proper meta language tag. Each of these actions is designed to clearly inform your users and Google the content is directed for a specific country.

• using Google WMT set your geographic target for each country. For example, the /es section would be for Spain. Assuming you performed the other steps correctly this step shouldn't be necessary, but I recommend it because it is easy to do and helps ensure the site is properly directed in case other steps are missed

• you can use geo-targeting but I suggest only using it on your home page. Offer images of the flags of various countries to allow visitors to select their preferred country. Place this images in a prominent position at the top of your site.

• while you are working on this migration, keep the new site blocked with robots.txt. Once the new site is up and running, you will need to make the switch. Place a 301 redirect from the old .co.uk domain to the new .com domain. Ensure the 301 is working properly and then (very important) remove the robots.txt block of the .com site.

The .com site will now be your new site. It will take about 30 days for the site URLs to be updated in Google SERPs.

As a final step, any time you migrate your site you want to ensure all links under your control, both internal and external, point to the new URL. Any signatures, social pages, etc. should all be updated. There will be a minor loss of link juice due to the move which should be easily offset by the new traffic you will receive once you target other countries. As you earn links from the new countries, be sure to obtain them on that country's page rather then the root home page. For example, links from France should ideally go to your /fr home page or one of the French internal pages.

Congratulations on obtaining the .com and good luck.

[stefanok]

I agree with both of them. Dont do it. Work on what you have and make it the best it can be.

People dont like duplicates, and Google doesnt like duplicates either

[SimonCullum]

You will likely need the assistance of your hosting company in making the change, best to run your intentions past them via a support ticket.

As you intend to go international with your website, a .com would make sense. Just changing the Top Level Domain (tld) from .co.uk to .com is a simple process and low risk. Just need to inform Google (via GWT) and the other search engines the moment the change happens.

Your content won't be affected, as the only change will be the tld. When search engine bots revisit your site, they will take a cached copy and soon after reindex your site with the .com, so long as the domain name (in2town) and the page names remain the same. Lowest risk strategy.

There are other considerations such as Language.  Will your expanded target audience all speak/read English, or will you need to have the website in multiple languages. If so, there are SEO considerations there.

Best of luck

[ClaireH-184886]

i am looking at making the site international as i want to attract spain, france, and america. can you recommend the best way of doing this as i do not want to cause problems with content that is under the co.uk and do i need to mention anything to my hosting company

[SimonCullum]

I agree with Maxwell's comments.

Also, if your website is predominantly for UK visitors, may as well stick with .co.uk rather than changing to .com  Your website is UK hosted so sticking with the .co.uk ties in nicely.

If your website is international/global then certainly consider changing to .com

If you do, ensure you use Google Webmaster Tools when making the change from .co.uk to .com to notify Google of the change.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Simon

[AmericanOutlets]

I would recommend against developing a sister site, since you will most likely have lots of duplicate content across both sites and the two sites will compete with each other for SERP rankings. Best practice is to use 301 redirects to send traffic from .co.uk to .com or vice versa