The Top ‘non-profit’ Domains in UK Search – EEAT and Visibility to Learn From

From:

Steve Paine

Published: 04.01.2023

Modified: 06.08.2025

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Updated July 2025: the latest data and analyses have been used in this fully updated report.

One of the core tasks of a charity is to be visible and accessible. In search, that means being available for people searching. The aim must always be the first page of results, for their focus topic, for all types of user intent. Trust is absolutely critical too so that makes non-profit websites a very interesting category to look at, especially when they are dealing with sensitive topics.

In brief, looking at the org.uk space shows us that

There are 26 domains with a VI of over 10, 262 domains that have a VI of over 1. 1905 org.uk domains have a Visibility Index of over 0.1. There are 9,595 domains that have a Visibility Index of over 0.01.

Here’s the list of the Top 100 domains, and then we’ll look at some case studies and content projects from within them.

The first thing to note is that none of these domains are huge in comparison to some of the commercial websites out there where all the top 100 UK domains have a Visibility Index of over 73. That’s no surprise though, because all of these sites focus on a single topic, and their remit may include being available for some topics that, thankfully, have very few searches per month.

org.uk Segment growth

There’s a very, very clear picture of growth across these domains. One must be careful not to make wild assumptions but what we can say is that the top 100 domains have nearly all gained over the period.

Correlation is not causation though and one must consider how, and why these organisations are present online.

• Topic focus
• Stated aims
• Unique funding model

See the section on EEAT, below, for more information.

Domain types

Putting domains into sectors can be interesting, but misleading. While the domains all offer information, many are focused on raising money and getting support. There are shops, forums and contact forms too, across a huge range of topics; some sensitive, some not. Here are some of the common topics.

• History
• Art
• Animals
• Health
• Finance
• Education
• Science
• Nature
• Mental health
• Medical
• Housing
• Dogs
• Conservation
  

Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust (EEAT)

The org.uk domain no longer guarantees authority or expertise (since 2019 the registry has been open to anyone) and there are clear examples of commercial domains in this list. One should not expect Google to treat domains in this in-country TLD differently to any other domains so all the same rules apply.

With rising visibility there are obviously signals here that Google is rewarding. A look across the headers footers of these websites gives some early clues as to how the domains are creating the right signals.

Interesting features of org.uk websites

Here’s a list of some of the page types seen across the top 100. None of them are classic content pages, and there’s no evidence that they’re written for Google.

• Extensive about us / who-we-are pages
• (Real) mission statements
• Careers pages
• Contact numbers and addresses
• Membership pages
• Strategy statements
• Accessibility statements
• Legal information
• HONcode and other regulator links
• Modern slavery statements
• Privacy policies
• Press enquiries pages
• Salary statements
• Corporate responsibility statements
• Complaints processes
• Annual reports
• Gender reports
• In many cases, a registered charity number.

If you’re creating an informative content website, think about some of these types of pages and how they could apply to your site.

Types of content

At least 50% of the domains in the top 100 relate to the important Your Money Your Life content category. This type of content is monitored carefully by Google Quality Raters

75% of the domains have at least one high-performance content directory (based on data from August 2022 – learn more) and we’ll look at some of those later in this document.

There’s an overwhelming majority of ‘know’ informative content but commercial content exists. Many shops appear on subdomains, possibly for business reasons as a host is easier to outsource than a directory.

• https://shop.sciencemuseum.org.uk/collections/
• https://shop.scouts.org.uk/uniforms/
• https://shop.tate.org.uk/prints/
• https://shop.wwf.org.uk/products/
• https://shopping.rspb.org.uk/bird-food/

Competition

With 10 organic positions in every page of a Google search result, there are 9 competitors, advertisers and Google features.

moneyhelper.org.uk is one of the domains working in an extremely competitive environment, and one that includes other non-profit domains. citizensadvice.org.uk, ageuk.org.uk, litrg.org.uk, and many government websites overlap with their keyword rankings.

oxfam.org.uk shop trending up since 2021

Oxfam.org.uk has hosted a number of projects over the years, from tag-your-bag, to what could be festivals and an SMS donation site. The two biggest hosts today are www.oxfam.org.uk and, the one with the most visibility, the online shop.

The graph above, ending in 2023, shows a rocky time for the shop after the move from directory to a subdomain. Two years later the picture is a little different:

The visibility has grown significantly and, although there are a few tremors in the graphic, the overarching trend is very positive.

nutrition.org.uk Site re-org complete

Nutrition. It’s exactly the sort of information Google is targeting when it talks about Your Money, Your Life. If you get it wrong here, Google can take action that can easily shutter a business. When you get it right, the number of searchers is potentially huge. Healthline’s nutrition directory, for example, is as big as a top 100 domain. Healthline was a Visibility Leader Winner in 2021. Listen to Anthony Machi talk about the process they use at Healthline Nutrition.

The domain nutrition.org.uk story was one of serious troubles after a re-org in 2021

Complex migrations are never easy for Google but that slow climb is indicative of Google re-learning a website from scratch. A re-organisation of content had left many thousands of 404s.

The current VI history graphic shows much more stability.

Stability was reached towards at the start of 2023 but an additional content move, in March 2024, resulted in another downward blip. Since then, the domain has been stable and appears in positive territory in our table above.

Commercial projects on org.uk

While the org.uk TLD was tightly managed in the past it’s now available for commercial profit-making domains. Here are two examples. Both are at the bottom of the table.

exchangerates.org.uk

This finance-focused website stands out from most as it’s clearly a for-profit organisation. Owned, it appears, by a UK limited company, there’s a range of contributors offering news, along with a lot of data-led Information about the money markets. There are plenty of ads across the site.

Here’s the current 5 year VI development:

The story is quite clear. Despite a recent rise, the domain has lost most of the visibility it had in 2022.

exchangerates.org.uk competes with some big-hitters in the sector. xe.com, wise.com, travelex.co.uk, bloomberg.com and forbes.com among them. One of the biggest competitors, however, is Google itself.

phrases.org.uk – ad driven evergreen content

A rising tide lifts all boats, says the website among thousands of proverbs. Unfortunately thi website appears to be swimming against the tide. The story is told with the SISTRIX VI history, and a screenshot taken while looking at the website.

The full-screen interstitial ad shown while researching for this article shows one of the reasons that this commercial site might be failing.

High performing content directories

Information websites contain a lot of information that simply won’t rank well unless it’s well-structured and internally linked together. We can find content projects across directories by comparing SISTRIX performance figures and it’s this process we use to find and expose high performance content in or Visibility Leaders research. We can do the same here, and it will allow us to learn more about what works in the sector.

This content can be both educational and inspiring for content project managers. Be it writing style, user experience, media types, brand voice or even technical SEO characteristics and software stack, there’s always something for SEOs to learn from.

While some domains simply ‘own’ their keywords (scout uniforms on scouts.org.uk is a good example) others are providing general content that competes with other, sometimes commercial domains. In the table below we’ve listed and linked examples of top performing content within the top 100 org.uk domains. We’ve selected informational content, shops and other types of content. Take a look at the content and see what you can learn. Sharing your findings in the comments below will help everyone learn even more.

Note that some of these directories are not active URLs. Content may appear underneath these directories.

Summary

• Domains in .org.uk performed very well during the period 2022 to 2025, despite many Google updates
• 88 of the top 100 domains gained during the period
• Sites in org.uk are generally smaller than commercial websites sites
• The sites have a tighter content focus than some commercial content marketing projects. In many cases the aim and scope of the organisation’s content is stated
• The websites build trust using a wide range of informative pages (listed above.)
• Content includes informative, and eCommerce projects
• Some org.uk domains are run on a classic for-profit model
• Do not assume that success is because of the .org.uk TLD

This article was fully updated in August 2025.