I just noticed an important change in Google's pronouncements on domain name types. I was working in Google Sitemaps and looked at the "Settings" section for one of my .co.uk domains.
Now, there has been the opportunity for some time to set a "geographical target" for a domain in this section which works a bit like the option in Adwords to limit the ads to a specified location or a n-mile radius of a location but I don't often make use of this in sitemaps because, quite honestly, I don't think it's very accurate. Although I am based in the middle of Herefordshire Google sees me as being in Telford because that's where my ISP's point of presence is. But I digress ...
For this domain I spotted the message "Your site's domain is currently associated with the target: United Kingdom" which surprised me as it's a business that primarily sells in UK but is also relevant to overseas prospects. So I clicked on a link which I thought would allow me to remove this preference. I wasn't able to and instead found the following statement:
"If your site targets users in a particular location, you can provide us with information that will help determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results, and also improve our search results for geographic queries. You can only use this feature for sites with a neutral top-level domain, such as .com or .org. Country-specific domains, such as .ie or .fr, are already associated with a country or region.
Your site's domain is currently associated with the target: United Kingdom"
This tells me 2 interesting things. Firstly if you want to achieve any visibility outside of the UK you have to get a .com, .org, or .net domain. Secondly if you want to sell in the UK you might be better using a .co.uk domain or at least setting a preference in Google Sitemaps for the UK market.
So what to do if you want to achieve both? Certainly you can't just have the same website with two domains. That will invoke "duplicate content" issues and at best make one of the two sites ineffective. You need to be cleverer than that, probably with having two distinctly separate sites as the optimal solution.
If you have one type of the domain and could do with the other contact our Support Team, Aimee, Micki or Sandy, on 01386 792972 to check what's available or just go to our
domain name checker.
Equally if you'd like some ideas on how best to combine the two types of name
send me a message and I'll advise as best I can.