[arny660]

I live in the UK and I am looking at buying a .co.uk domain. However, my previous sites are all .coms, and I have used Hostgator to host them

My question is this: is it ok for me to use Hostgator to host my .co.uk domain, even though hostgator is located in USA?

I have a package with Hostgator that allows me to set up unlimited domains, so financially it would be good for me to do this. I don't really want to pay more money to another hosting company. However, I have heard  that it is better to host . co.uk domains in the UK.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks.

[ARVolund]

Are you planning on setting your site up in Google webmaster tools? If so then you can let Google know you are targeting the UK and it probably does not matter much if at all.

If not then I would personally go with a UK ip just to make sure I get any advantage possible.

It is not something I have tested myself but from my readings on different forums it seems that  it can make a difference.

[KevinA]

From what I have read up on and understood (based on my research when I was looking for an Australian host for a .com.au domain) - Google uses a few indicators to deliver location based search engine results. These include the domain extension, webmaster tools preferences, and hosting.

So from what I've read, if your domain is a .com.au (in your case a .co.uk), the search engine immediately recognizes you are targeting the UK, and therefore the hosting location is recognized as completely irrelevant, and holds absolutely no SEO advantage.

If anyone can point me to a reliable source that contradicts this I'd love to know too!

Cheers

[HostColor]

Hi there,

.CO is a very nice alternative to the traditional TLDs. I'd use one if I was about to launch a new project!

[Lynch]

I've seen it countless times on many different forums that people were ranking their site well in the US but there were nowhere to be found in the UK and their target market was the UK. I would advise you to get UK hosting. And also the webmaster trick is quite good as well.

[Greg Fowler]

It depends on what your goals are.  Are you targeting only the UK?  Then go with the .co.uk extention with hosting in the UK, the hosting will make a slight difference, but the domain extention is going to make the biggest difference, but if you are targeting a worldwide audience then if you have the .co.uk extention you are going to have difficulty ranking in google.com.   The extention either .com or .co.uk is going to make the main difference, this is why some companies now are have more than one domain extention, such .com .ca, for canada, .co.uk, etc.  However, you may want to take this into consideration, once the domain is set for .co.uk, ranking in google.com is going to be more difficult.  Ranking for .com's in others like .co.uk or .ca, etc is easier since the main extention .com take presendence over the other, basically subdomains of Google, even though they are not really sub-domains.  Search engine technology at the level of domain extentions, nationally and locally, is something that you have to experiment with.  Recently, a friend has a client request to rank for a keyword in google.com, but the ext was .ca where the ranking was number one in .ca, but no where to be found in .com.  It would be more cost effective for the client to register a .com domain then target the keyword to rank for.  We have studied the results for .com against or extentions, and found the othe extentions are an uphill battle, but if you get .com you can rank for most all of other extentions of Google.  We have tested the results.  Good luck.

Edited by Greg Fowler, 29 January 2012 - 04:32.