Google Google Confusion?

[buyselldoms]

So yesterday I was about to purchase either a .gb.com or a .uk.com (yes neither that good but for registration fee, not too bad for my intended use). Not sure if .uk.com was specifically United Kingdom as marketed or Ukraine.

I was a little surprised when searching Google, Google appears to see .uk.com as subdomains of uk.com and groups them appropriately. So sitelinks included Avon, CSCS, and "Suck UK" websites in addition to "About", "Press", and "Registrar" within the uk.com domain.

Obviously a .uk.com is by an Independent Domain Registry. Its also not as good as a .com or even .co.uk.

The question is Has it an SEO benefit? None of the domains AFAIK are actually even linked from the uk.com domain. Avon for instance ranks really well in Google - but you can expect it, not really a surprise. Even hotels.uk.com ranks well for "hotels uk" - a site I have never heard of - I am sure its a different story for the more used "uk hotels" search term. Bear in mind Google placing less relevance on keywords in domain names.

Does a .uk.com perform marginally better than a .com assuming identical on-page and off-page SEO? Or is solely cosmetic as to the way Google treats the third level for uk.com?

(I noticed no posts in this forum, hope its okay to post in here!)

 

[enlytend]

Google appears to see .uk.com as subdomains of uk.com and groups them appropriately

Well, they ARE subdomains of uk.com.

You're seeing the sitelinks because those are linked in their showcase (and some on the press page.) You normally would not see (nor WANT to see) sitelinks to your site on a different site.

It has no SEO benefit. IF Google treats it like a cctld (I don't think they do but they might) then it would get a SLIGHT preference for UK locale.

There are essentially three cases where a domain / extension matter for SEO:
1) Cctld's are given some preference in their own country and a little less elsewhere.
2) EMD's and partial-match domains still have some power, though it has been deprecated in recent years.
3) If you use what I like to call a ".wtf" extension (one people are unfamiliar with) it can negatively affect your click-through rate, which can degrade your ranking.

The BEST way to see if they have an effect? Do your own test!

 

[addaminsane]

This really is a confusing piece of subject matter because geo-targeting and the location of your hosting servers play a role too. I certainly do not miss racking my brain over these kinds of details like i did when i was trying to rank sites globally.