[Chris Higgins]

I'm based in Australia at the moment, but my girlfriend and I have dual citizenship in the UK and plan on moving over there within the next 18 months or so. I'd like to establish my existing web design business in the UK when we get there, but I've been unable to obtain the appropriate .co.uk domain (it's being squatted, and the guy who owns it doesn't want to sell). However I have managed to purchase the appropriate .com domain, and I'm wondering if this will show up in Google UK's local results, or does it have to be a .co.uk domain to do that?

Cheers,

Chris

[BlueDreamer]

Just host the site with a UK web host, the extension doesn't really matter it's where it's hosted that really counts

[UK Web hosting]

Chris Higgins, on 31 October 2011 - 07:24 AM, said:

I'm based in Australia at the moment, but my girlfriend and I have dual citizenship in the UK and plan on moving over there within the next 18 months or so. I'd like to establish my existing web design business in the UK when we get there, but I've been unable to obtain the appropriate .co.uk domain (it's being squatted, and the guy who owns it doesn't want to sell). However I have managed to purchase the appropriate .com domain, and I'm wondering if this will show up in Google UK's local results, or does it have to be a .co.uk domain to do that?

Cheers,

Chris

No thats not the case .com is also fine, you just need to make sure you host your site on UK server, with good contains.

[Chris Higgins]

UK Web hosting, on 01 November 2011 - 06:54 AM, said:

No thats not the case .com is also fine, you just need to make sure you host your site on UK server, with good contains.

I have no idea who to host with in the UK. Are you guys awesome?

[BlueDreamer]

Chris, there's a lot of threads about hosting on the forums, and several hosts post regularly here, I recommend reading some of the threads first before jumping in and make a shortlist of potential hosts you're interested in.

It also pays to make a note of what requirements you have, eg disk space, bandwidth, budget etc, and there's no harm in contacting a few hosts directly with some questions - you can judge their resposiveness and helpfulness with direct comms as well.

This post has been edited by BlueDreamer: 03 November 2011 - 03:42 PM

[Chris Higgins]

BlueDreamer, on 03 November 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:

Chris, there's a lot of threads about hosting on the forums, and several hosts post regularly here, I recommend reading some of the threads first before jumping in and make a shortlist of potential hosts you're interested in.

It also pays to make a note of what requirements you have, eg disk space, bandwidth, budget etc, and there's no harm in contacting a few hosts directly with some questions - you can judge their resposiveness and helpfulness with direct comms as well.

Good advice. Much appreciated.

[Phil Comforthost]

Also, one of the features of Google's Webmaster Tools allows you to specify a country to rank in, or leave blank to be more international. I'm not sure how big an impact this has on your ranking, but if it's a feature for this purpose then I pressume it should be used.