A very early look at the .uk behaviour of top UK sites...

[Edwin]

I'm finding quite a few* new real world websites that are being launched directly onto a .uk without bothering with a .co.uk at all. Wide mix of stuff, including a couple of ecommerce sites, a photographer's portfolio, blogs, shop pages, company homepages etc.

(*23 in last 48 hours of Google indexing)

None of the above are "large" businesses but they're certainly not all one-man-band sole proprietorships either. Anyway, it's interesting to see what regular folk are choosing (as opposed to what web dev, domain, hosting companies are doing)

Note: I will not be posting examples from this latter list because, by definition, the .co.uk isn't registered and I'm not going to be the one to provide the ammo for somebody to jump in and sit on them.

 

[Stephen]

How will it change?

This is another huge issue of trying to analyse change over. Its only likely to be small or spammier sites who dump their .co.uk for the .uk purely because of a penalty. Any big brands can get it fixed, or at the very least have no choice but to continue to try and take 6-12 months to fix it as they're too set on their current url.

What is going to be a great indicator is any massive brands launching new, that have access to .uk and .co.uk both unused.... we need to see which they go with. Big money brands where you're going to see their url's on tv ads, on buses, in train stations etc.... I realise the chance to see stuff like this is going to be few and far between though.

Agree.

Until it looks like old tech to have a .co.uk for big companies and the new .uk is all the rage, it will be long slog.

Also the general and business media giving some exposure to .uk would help the process.

Went to BBC.co.uk and searched on ".uk domain" to find no stories in 2014!

This would help start the process of gaining traction for .uk.

The other will be the 7,000,000 emails Nominet are going to send out in the next few weeks.

 

[Edwin]

I'm finding quite a few* new real world websites that are being launched directly onto a .uk without bothering with a .co.uk at all. Wide mix of stuff, including a couple of ecommerce sites, a photographer's portfolio, blogs, shop pages, company homepages etc.

7 more such .uk sites have gone "live" (in Google) since 9am today.

(Since I'm reliant on Google indexing for information, this is only going to be a subset of all new site launches)

 

[aulda]

Hi
I have set up my business' .uk domain as a parked domain and pointed it at my existing .co.uk site. I am worried that doing this will get me penalised in some way based on what I have read in this thread. If you type in the .uk address the site displays as normal but .uk stays in the address bar even when you visit further pages in the site. Does this mean it is effectively a duplicate site?

Thanks
Andrew

 

[Edwin]

Hi
I have set up my business' .uk domain as a parked domain and pointed it at my existing .co.uk site. I am worried that doing this will get me penalised in some way based on what I have read in this thread. If you type in the .uk address the site displays as normal but .uk stays in the address bar even when you visit further pages in the site. Does this mean it is effectively a duplicate site?

Thanks
Andrew

It sounds like you're pointing both domains at the same site. What you probably should do is decide on one or the other, then "301 redirect" the domain name that ISN'T going to be your main web address to the one that is.

That way, there's only one domain name officially pointing to the site itself - the other domain's only pointing at the official domain.

It's not quite like this, but the following analogy is probably close enough:

A) What you have now: two signs pointing to one shop
B) What you want: one sign pointing at a shop, and a second sign guiding people to find the sign that's pointing at the shop

If you 301 redirect the .uk to the .co.uk then what should happen is that you go to www.example.co.uk instantly when you type www.example.uk into the address bar, and all pages on the site will be under example.co.uk.

Reverse the above if you 301 redirect the .co.uk to the .uk.

 

[aulda]

It sounds like you're pointing both domains at the same site. What you probably should do is decide on one or the other, then "301 redirect" the domain name that ISN'T going to be your main web address to the one that is.

Thanks for the reply and sorry to be dense, but does this mean that what I am currently doing is not allowed. Or is it just bad practice?

I am teetering on the brink of switching to .uk and be damned! Bit scared though!

 

[Murray]

Hi
I have set up my business' .uk domain as a parked domain and pointed it at my existing .co.uk site.

Is it an iframe?

I am teetering on the brink of switching to .uk and be damned! Bit scared though!

Make sure everything 301 redirects correctly from the co.uk to the .uk if you do.

+ Notify google in webmasters tools.

 

[aulda]

Is it an iframe?

Urm, I don't think so. I have used the tools available in cpanel (the interface the hosting company provides) to make the .uk domain a 'parked domain' of the .co.uk domain.

Make sure everything 301 redirects correctly from the co.uk to the .uk if you do.

By this do you mean that I have to put a 301 redirection in for every page or will a site-wide 301 redirection work?

Again I am sorry if I seem to not know what I am talking about - I am a baker with a website rather than a web developer!

 

[Murray]

Urm, I don't think so. I have used the tools available in cpanel (the interface the hosting company provides) to make the .uk domain a 'parked domain' of the .co.uk domain.

Id guess an iframe still

When you look at the page source does it just have a bit of code and says <iframe> somewhere on it

By this do you mean that I have to put a 301 redirection in for every page or will a site-wide 301 redirection work?

Again I am sorry if I seem to not know what I am talking about - I am a baker with a website rather than a web developer!

If you're putting the same site on the .uk that was on the co.uk then it will be a simple 301 to do, wont have to write out all the urls individually.

 

[Murray]

Why don't you write a "how to" article on one of your sites Edwin about moving from the co.uk to the .uk?

Might be a handy resource and bring in some links and traffic

 

[aulda]

When you look at the page source does it just have a bit of code and says <iframe> somewhere on it

Can't see that anywhere. Do you mind if I PM you with the domain?

 

[Murray]

Can't see that anywhere. Do you mind if I PM you with the domain?

ok