A recent comment asked whether or not a dot com with the region included in the domain name would outrank a regional domain name. It is an interesting question, however, if you look a little closer at the situation the answer is far more complex.

Let’s use widgets as an example. Would WidgetUK.com outrank Widget.co.uk. Widget of course is the primary keyword. In this example I assume the writer is looking to target the UK for traffic and perhaps sales.

If a searcher used in search terms such as widgets in the UK, or UK widgets, the search engine will most likely rank the .co.uk site higher than the dot com variation. This has more to do with the .co.uk extension than the domain name itself.

However, other issues to come into play. If the .co.uk domain is hosted in the US or elsewhere in the world while the dot com is hosted in the UK, it could level the playing field. There is always the possibility that the dot com site has been well optimized for the search engines whilst the .co.uk has not.

There are a lot of variables to be considered that certainly go well beyond the domain name and its extension. However, all things being equal, I would expect the .co.uk domain name to outrank a dot com domain name for searches done within the UK region. Outside of that region, the dot com could well outrank the .co.uk. Having said that, if you wanted to rank well outside the UK then you probably don’t need the UK added to widgets in the domain name (widgetsUK.com) anyway some the argument becomes moot.

It is an interesting question and under normal circumstances, I would expect a region domain name to outrank a dot com – but only for regional searches.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 4:27 am and is filed under Domain Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.