Why was the top level domain .co.uk used instead of .uk?

Change of domain name for pages that are well ranked in google.

• We have a legacy domain name of spectrum-technologies.co.uk which used to be the main web site domain name for our company. We now have a new one , spectrumtech.com which has been in use for two years. Both domain names point to the same I.P address of our web server, so www.spectrum-technologies.co.uk/default.htm and www.spectrumtech.com/default.htm are one and the same page. We would like to remove spectrum-technologies.co.uk, but all searches on Google return links to spectrum-technologies.co.uk. Can we transfer our search index results to the spectrumtech.com domain name and safely remove all trace of spectrum-technologies.co.uk, or would we loose our current ranking and have to start from scratch in regards to indexing pages on the Google search engine.

• Answer:

  Thanks for asking! In Webmaster Info, Google offers this advice on transitioning your website to a new URL: "I am changing my URL. We cannot manually change your listed address at the exact time you move to your new site. There are steps you can take to make sure that your transition goes smoothly, however. Google listings are based in part on our ability to find your site by following links from other web pages. To preserve your ranking, you will want to inform any sites that currently link to your pages of your change of address. As long as the links change as you move your site over to a new location, your PageRank should not be adversely affected. If your site goes unlisted for a time, this does not mean you were intentionally dropped from our index. Sometimes in these transitions, we fail to find a site at its new address. Just be sure that others are linking to you and we should pick you up on our next web crawl." You'll want to read the full information available. Google Information for Webmasters ://www.google.com/webmasters/3.html The following search terms should help you locate those who're linking the old URL so you can request that they update their link. Copy and paste the terms verbatim into the Google Search Box. "spectrum-technologies +co.uk" -site:spectrum-technologies.co.uk link: http://www.spectrum-technologies.co.uk Yahoo Search Terms: link:http://www.spectrum-technologies.co.uk If Google continues to list the old URL, the most likely reason is that other sites are still linking to the old domain, and Google robots have followed those links. You'll probably want to use a 301 Redirect, so that search engine spiders will only index the newer location. For your MS IIS servers, you'd likely to do that with ASP, or with a script. In ASP the code [to be added to individual .asp pages] is: <% Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently" Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.newdomain.com/newurl/" Response.End %> The script listed below can handle all redirects for a domain, however, it requires IIS version 5 or 6. You'll need to check with your web host to determine if the server meets script requirements. The script would be designated as the 404 handler and redirects for any number of pages would be configured inside the script. Smart 404 Handler http://evolvedcode.net/content/code_smart404/ To redirect .htm pages, you'd need to set the path to the page that handles your 404's. You can also point an .asp page (an error handling script of your own), for example 404ErrorHandling.asp. In that page, you can list the original URL(s) (.co.uk), and redirect them to the new locations (.com). The redirect portion would look like: Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently" Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.newdomain.com/newurl/" Response.end It may be possible to have your web host directly code redirects for you. Again, you'll need to read over your host's documentation or ask if this service is available. Once the 301 Redirects are in place, and you've located all your link partner and asked them to update to the new URL, your PageRank should safely migrate to the new domain extension. As a last resort, you could request removal of the old pages from the index, but this is likely not necessary. Google advises patience. I've seen the migration process take two to six months, the differences simply due to the capriciousness of individual web crawls crawling and indexing different pages on each attempt. One final method, META refresh is another redirection possibility, however, this is now considered dangerous (to your rankings) because it has been used fraudently by so many. If you choose this method, include a 10 second delay, and a transition page that explains you've moved, and includes a link to the new URL. Even with these precautions, it's a bit of a gamble. Further Resources ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 301 Redirects on a Microsoft Server http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum47/344.htm HTTP Status Codes - Redirecting in IIS and Apache http://www.seoconsultants.com/w3c/status-codes/ I hope you find this information helpful. Should you have any questions about the material or links provided, please, feel free to ask for clarification. ---larre Answer Strategy | Search Terms ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 301 redirect "iis 4" 301 redirect iis servers -apache .