Websites for Jersey businesses: .je or .co.uk?

By Kai M, Deliberate Design.

The short answer: a .je says Jersey at a glance and is worth having if your customers are on the island. A .co.uk is cheaper and fine if you sell to the UK too. Many Jersey businesses hold both and point one at the other. Neither helps or hurts you on Google by itself; what matters is the words on the page and your Google listing.

What they cost

Ending	Yearly, roughly
.je	£40 to £50
.co.uk	£6 to £10

A .je is registered through registrars that support the Channel Islands registry; not every registrar does. We register them at cost for clients.

How Google treats them

Google does not rank a .je higher in Jersey or a .co.uk higher in the UK. It looks at what the page says, where the business is on its Google listing, and who links to it. Say "St Helier" and "Jersey" on the page and set the Business Profile to the island.

Island differences worth knowing

• Payments. Stripe does not take businesses based in Jersey. SumUp and PayPal do. SumUp is what we use and recommend; a shop on our template checks out through PayPal
• Data protection. Jersey has its own law and its own registration with the JOIC, separate from the UK ICO. See our post on it
• GST. Jersey's 5 percent GST, not UK VAT, with its own threshold. Prices on the site should say which applies
• Hosting. Where the server is does not matter for a Jersey site; speed does. Ours sit in Europe and load in well under a second from the island

Our Jersey work

Charlie is based on the island. Abandon Ship Jersey is on our setup. The templates come with Jersey legal starters for the privacy and terms pages, and a .je is available on any plan.