4 replies to this topic

[logos1234]

Hi Everyone,

I have a .ltd.uk domain name and wondered if this domain name is going to prevent good rankings in the search engines. Should I buy another domain name? Problem is the site is quite established, so I don't really want to start again. Should I be able to rank highly for the UK market?


Many thanks in advance for any help.

[torka]

Why would the domain extension prevent good rankings? Is there something generally nefarious about .ltd.uk domains?

I have never experienced a domain extension having the slightest effect on rankings.

Poor optimization will prevent good rankings. The domain extension has nothing to do with it AFAIK.

--Torka

[MakeMeTop]

A .ltd.uk is exactly the same as a .co.uk - there is no disadvantage to using it and as a .uk domain it should assist you in getting a boost in UK rankings on Google UK (for example) provided it is reasonably optimised.

Far better than a .uk.com or .gb.com web address which are sub-domains and were (at one stage) severely penalised by the search engines because elegant spammers (like me) used them extensively to overcome Google's "sandbox" for really competitve terms with new domains (probably after the previous ones had been banned). After it was pointed out that they had also penalised a lot of totally innocent sites using these domains - this blanket penalty was removed and they now have no adverse effects - but still (IMO) as sub-domains, are not as good as the one you have.

If anything, a .ltd.uk should be viewed with some trust by search engines as they are only available to a LTD company with the same registered name - not the general public (as far as I know). However, I have no idea if this is the case - but it would make sense. Someone is very unlikely to use their own company name to spam a search engine!

[piskie]

IMO, the performance and credibility of a .ltd.uk should be equal to a .co.uk and I have no hesitation in telling my clients just that and whatever anybody says in this thread, MakeMeTop hit the nail on the head with:

If anything, a .ltd.uk should be viewed with some trust by search engines as they are only available to a LTD company with the same registered name - not the general public (as far as I know). However, I have no idea if this is the case - but it would make sense. Someone is very unlikely to use their own company name to spam a search engine!

[MaKa]

The only downside of an ltd.uk is that users may be less familiar with .ltd.uk than .co.uk. If they read it somewhere and try to remember it later, they may automatically try the yourdomain.co.uk rather than the yourdomain.ltd.uk.

Having lived in the UK for a couple of years, I never really noticed any ltd.uk domains until they came up in the post here.

I agree with the posts above that there won't be any SEO downsides to the ltd.uk domains.