You pretty much figure out how best to go about it actually, the only think I will suggest is that you use 301 redirect to forward your .com to your new .co.uk so that all the credibility you have built up with search engine on the .com will be passed on to the .co.uk

I run a .com domain in the UK. I don't appear to be penalised to heavily in the Google UK SERPs. However, the server is in the UK (well, Isle of Man) and I am backlinked from UK based sites. I also use a GB character set and try and get the word 'UK' into my content here and there.

If the co.uk domain is available I would definately buy it though. Temi's suggestion of a permanent redirect is an important one.

Thank you both for your comments. They are very helpful.

Simon

Always, always, always register the .co.uk version of your .com domain name because if you don't someone else will.

I know from personally experience that someone will sneak and grab the domain and will either park it with ads on it, use it to attack you or will use it to trade on your name.

I've got a 2 word .com with and without the hyphen and (annoyingly) with the hyphen in the .co.uk. I don't have the .co.uk without a hyphen and someone snuck in, registered it and set up a site very similar to mine on it.

Offering to buy the domain failed and now we have overlapping users, confusion in the market place etc.

All for the sake of £3 a year . . . . .

You can use SEO power to put the guy who registered a variant of your domain to shame

Originally Posted by Pidea

Always, always, always register the .co.uk version of your .com domain name because if you don't someone else will.

I know from personally experience that someone will sneak and grab the domain and will either park it with ads on it, use it to attack you or will use it to trade on your name.

I've got a 2 word .com with and without the hyphen and (annoyingly) with the hyphen in the .co.uk. I don't have the .co.uk without a hyphen and someone snuck in, registered it and set up a site very similar to mine on it.

Offering to buy the domain failed and now we have overlapping users, confusion in the market place etc.

All for the sake of £3 a year . . . . .

i have no personal domain but i need to know that what are the tips and tricks that help to choose a good and cheaper domain

Decide on the keywords you are targeting and try and get the words in the domain name. words separated with '-' is good apparently. Choose an appropriate TLD for the geographic region you are targeting.

Sorry if this will be a bit contrasting to what others have said above, but choosing a domain name should first of all be done only after doing a bit of keyword research.

Secondly, no hyphens or anything that includes words like "best", "sale" etc. The reason for this is because there are many scam sites with these type of names and people lose trust in them. As for the hyphen, don't use it - a domain name should be one word and something people will remember.

Always go for a .com first - quite simply because it's the default TLD. The majority of people will try a .com domain name first if they aren't sure about the TLD, and who knows, maybe your competitor has the .com if you don't.

301 redirects - use them if you have a .com and a .co.uk domain.


Leo

well, temi has given a good suggestion, but i don't think that .com domain with content relevant to uk can hurt your site in any ways. Actually, if your .com domain is hosted on UK servers, you will still get good benefit of it, as your ip will be of uk so in google search your more results will appear for UK traffic.