Domains - .com vs .co.uk

[Cheerios246]

Hi everyone

Just in a bit of a dilemma. I’m in the process of working on something new and just wanted some feedback from you e-commerce guys!

So my brands domain isn’t available in .com but it is available in .co.uk. Now I don’t want to be closing my doors to the rest of the world and want to target USA etc alongside the UK.

The domains available are the following for example (not the actual name):

www.hampton.co.uk
www.hamptonsports.com

Now although the first one looks a lot more cleaner the problem is that it’s .co.uk hence this will be limiting me to the international market although I really do want to go for the first one as it’s only 7 letters (easier to remember for customers etc)

What do you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance!

[extraT]

As it costs pennies to register both per year (?) Register both and redirect one to the other?

[DSLiverpool]

It’s not as big a deal as people think. We are .co.uk only and it’s never been an issue when marketing in the USA

My new venture is .UK as the other domains are in use with very different business types, if they were similar I might think twice.

[Ham_and_Jam]

Cheerios246 said:

Hi everyone

Just in a bit of a dilemma. I’m in the process of working on something new and just wanted some feedback from you e-commerce guys!

So my brands domain isn’t available in .com but it is available in .co.uk. Now I don’t want to be closing my doors to the rest of the world and want to target USA etc alongside the UK.

The domains available are the following for example (not the actual name):

www.hampton.co.uk
www.hamptonsports.com

Now although the first one looks a lot more cleaner the problem is that it’s .co.uk hence this will be limiting me to the international market although I really do want to go for the first one as it’s only 7 letters (easier to remember for customers etc)

What do you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance!

Personally I think hamptonsports.com is better for a smaller business. I know exactly the type of business it is.

Unless you have an instantly recognisable brand, having a URL with some brief description is good. Obviously, don’t go to the extreme. I have seen things like hampton-sporting-goods-liverpool-store.co.uk

I would go with hamptonsports.com and concentrate on SEO and getting your site ranked higher on Google, as this will be the key to you getting noticed

[king arthur]

extraT said:

As it costs pennies to register both per year (?) Register both and redirect one to the other?

This.

[anonymous-user]

is it worth just checking that the owner of the .com hasn't got any UK IP that you might need to deal with?

very unlikely, but only takes a couple of minutes to check on the ipo.gov.uk website

[vdn]

Is the .com a live website? - is it a similar field? ... if not; .co.uk should be fine. However; don't be afraid of a longer URL that is representative. In other words; either route is fine. A .com can help for overseas stuff when people may feel a barrier / delay on delivery if ordering from.co.uk.

[dazmanultra]

I would register both, but probably favour the .com. I think a slightly more descriptive term is helpful for people's memories as well as for search engine results (although Google has pared back the benefit of 'exact match' domain search terms, it's still important).

[skwdenyer]

dazmanultra said:

I would register both, but probably favour the .com. I think a slightly more descriptive term is helpful for people's memories as well as for search engine results (although Google has pared back the benefit of 'exact match' domain search terms, it's still important).

The only counter to this is that a .com domain puts your site to an extent into US regulatory control. This may not be ideal depending upon what you’re doing!

Consider other TLDs: .co, .net, .io etc are quite reasonable for a startup.

[Cheerios246]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I've also seen a few companies that have started using .cc for example Rapha, a well known clothing brand for cycling use .cc (rapha.cc)

Has anyone used .cc with good response?

[cherie171]

If your preferred choice is already in use in a .com site, then consider that there may be some confusion of two unrelated sites with the same address barring the suffix. I would put more consideration into a unique address that's easy to remember, won't get confused with something else, and ensure that searches on google can find your listing quickly.

For example, there's a specialist Audi/VW garage in Brackley called APS, but if you just search for APS, they don't come up on the search results. You have search for APS Brackley (or similar) to differentiate. Their websites are autops.co.uk and apsspecialistvehicles.co.uk, neither of which I could remember until I searched. Luckily a lot of their business comes by word of mouth, or forum recommendations.

[Simpo Two]

Cheerios246 said:

I've also seen a few companies that have started using .cc for example Rapha, a well known clothing brand for cycling use .cc (rapha.cc)

Has anyone used .cc with good response?

Wouldn't even consider it. Because nobody's heard of .cc. You'll spend the rest of your life dictating it and explaining to to people.

[mickytruelove]

its just a few years away thats all.

until coca-cola or nike use a new tld then it will not catch on.

We have all angles covered but the .com is 99% of visits.

[FactoryBacked]

I think the Rapha example works due to them spending a lot of money / time / effort building a community around their own cycling club with clubhouses etc.

If it was www.birminghamvwspecialists.cc it wouldn't be quite so memorable.

But TLDs like .io seem to be the go to for a lot of SaaS businesses so it does depend on the industry to an extent.

Edited by FactoryBacked on Saturday 30th May 00:03

[Simpo Two]

FactoryBacked said:

I think the Rapha example works due to them spending a lot of money / time / effort building a community around their own cycling club with clubhouses etc.

If it was www.birminghamvwspecialists.cc it wouldn't be quite so memorable..

And because in their instance 'cc' could stand for 'cycling club'. That's the only logic I can think of.

[Cheerios246]

I think Rapha.com and .co.uk is already being used by another company hence they went down the .cc route