my company who i work for are a small business that covers the east of england only.

however, we do own the .com and .co.uk domains and both direct you to the website. but which is the better one to own and promote with regards to marketing etc and the localised customer base? ie. letterheads, flyers etc

would it be better to the general users/customers to be seen as .com or .co.uk?

Use the .co.uk if you are marketing locally. Just make sure the .com redirects to the .co.uk in case someone types in the wrong domain.

Originally Posted by whym

Use the .co.uk if you are marketing locally. Just make sure the .com redirects to the .co.uk in case someone types in the wrong domain.

Yes whym is right well suggestion.

thanks, we do have the forwarding for the .com set up to go straight to the .co.uk domain. best to cover both angles!

my main thoughts really were if a company would come across differently or get a different reaction from a potential customer if it were a .com instead of a .co.uk in its marketing? i.e. is a person more likely to look at or ignore it if it were one or the other?

Well sorta. .co.uk's tell potential customers that the business is a UK one and for this reason it would be beneficial. .com's could be American, British or any other country. Hope this helps

always .com

Originally Posted by gavrd1

thanks, we do have the forwarding for the .com set up to go straight to the .co.uk domain. best to cover both angles!

my main thoughts really were if a company would come across differently or get a different reaction from a potential customer if it were a .com instead of a .co.uk in its marketing? i.e. is a person more likely to look at or ignore it if it were one or the other?

This is the right way to go. As you are essentially regionalising your target market let them know you are part of the region. there will always be the .com which you have captured.

Originally Posted by ara

always .com

No I don't think so. .coms are being used up a lot - regional domain names tend to rank better in regional search engines too. If you are marketing locally (like me), then a regional domain name is a must

Originally Posted by ara

always .com

I agree with Daniel. When I'm looking for a service, I tend to trust regional domains over a .com domain.

I would also recommend .co.uk, somehow most of the business sites are using that extension, and thus in the region, a preferred choice for any internet user would be name.co.uk over name.com.

On a global scale though, people tend to append .com instead of any other extension. So if your budget for promotion is local - opt for .co.uk, if your budget is for international marketing, I would suggest to promote .com.

Thanks & Regards,
Gaurav

I look after surfinglifestore.com and sometimes I regret using .com because it gets loads of American visitors who cannot order. I also run a couple of other sites which are global which need a .com extension. Therefore, I'd recommend the .co.uk.

Also beware, that if you use a .com and your hosting provider is in another country (for example oneaneone.co.uk host customer's websites in Germany) you may not get listed when customers select from the uk only in google.

I think co.uk is better. In this situation atleast

In your case .co.uk would be my choice.

.co.uk - show that your proud to be british!

.co.uk defiantly!