Non .Com or .Co Versus .ca or .fm sites - In terms of SEO value
-
We are launching a new site with a non traditional top level domain . We were looking at either .ca or .in as we are not able to get the traditional .com or .co or .net etc .
I was wondering if this has any SEO effect ? Does Google/Bing treat this domain differently .Will it be penalized ?
Note : My site is a US based site targeting US audience
-
Mmm.... try to use a termination which is not a country level one. .CA or .IN automatically are targeting they respective countries and you can't avoid the inconviences of that geotargetization if not doing an huge link building in your real target country.
Try to check out other generic termination (avoind cc.which is banned by Google)
-
Chait
I think there are really two questions you should ask: the one re SEO effect, Google/Bong, etc. and, how they are perceived.
As to Google others have stated correctly there is no penalty. I am not sure that using a .ca/.in is wise even if you are US based, use US server, and make correct geotarget selections in GWMT. The reason is not Google/SEO per se, but perception.
It is a given that in some countries, having a cc tld that is different is not wise due to bias. A documented one is the French bias in Europe (no hate mail please, my son was born in Paris - yes France, not Texas). In the US, as open minded as half of us seem to be, there will always be a bias if someone knows the .in is India and there may well be one with .ca especially if you are in more northern states that are more likely to see it.So, you have to factor all in and then ask: "Why am I going this way?" Is whatever domain name so critical that you are willing to sacrifice for it? Have you considered using hyphens?
We do a lot with EMD's using hyphens and without. At the same time, I believe many over emphasize EMD and could spend time and energy better elsewhere. Is there a second best EMD and then spend all the energy on something else SEO?
I cannot imagine, short of a known and, likely, very well known brand where I would risk a .ca or .in in the US for that EMD.
Good Luck, let us know what direction you take and how it works,
Robert
-
Thank You for the answers . To extend this discussion further (to help me and others interested)
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1347922&topic=2371325&ctx=topic
Google apparantly treats some ccTLDs (such as .tv, .me, etc.) as gTLD
.as .bz .cc .cd .co .dj .fm .la .me .ms .nu .sc .sr .tv .tk .ws
-
Google should not penalize you for using .in or .ca however like William said Google may give top priority to the .com version of your site especially because you are targeting the USA and your SEO effort will benefit the.com more than it will benefit you especially with branded names and direct traffic. Hope this helps.
-
It won't rank you as well. Penalize too harsh of a word. You will still rank but your rankings increase much more if you have a TLD, .com, .net, .org.
Of course these statements can be irrelevant if the site is a viral site. But even bit.ly moved to bitly.com(not exact reason why they changed though).
EDIT: Not to mention that the .ca or .in could be liable for Canada and India laws respectively.
But hey, if you are looking for business in Canada or India, it would be an awesome domain!
-
So if I understand you correctly .. Google will Penalize me when ranking(in the US) when I have .in or .ca
Is the above a fair statement
-
.com would be best but .ca and .in will most likely not work well if your target is in US.
.ca and .in is used and definitely considered when ranking. I suggest you come up with another variation of the domain and get a .com.
One of the main problems I can see off the bat is that the current owners of the sites .com, .net might already have a huge presence and it will hinder majority of your efforts because you will most likely never beat out the .com(unless its nonexistent or spam).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My site is showing indexed in search console but not appearing in Serps
hi, i have recently made sites.google site and submitted to search console but when I copy paste in google , its not appearing
Algorithm Updates | | alan-shultis0 -
GSC Performance completely dropped off, but Google Analytics is steady. Why can't GSC track my site anymore?
Hey everyone! I'm having a weird issue that I've never experienced before. For one of my clients, GSC has a complete drop-off in the Performance section. All of the data shows that everything fell flat, or almost completely flat. But in Google Analytics, we have steady results. No huge drop-off in traffic, etc. Do any of you know why GSC would all of a sudden be unable to crawl our site? Or track this data? Let me know what you think!
Algorithm Updates | | TaylorAtVelox
Thanks!2 -
Does an EAT score on my YMYL site impact my rankings?
I've read some conflicting information on YMYL and EAT. If the Google Quality Raters are out there reviewing YMYL pages and scoring them on EAT, does that site's score have an impact on that page's/site's ranking?
Algorithm Updates | | BFMichael0 -
How much do branded search organic traffic & direct traffic impact the ranking for their non-branded topic/keyword?
Hi Moz community, We can see many websites with a reputation will have more number of visitors landing with these two types of traffic mostly (>90%): organic traffic of brand queries and direct traffic. Will these visits help and impact the ranking of these websites for the keywords/topics they been employing? Ex: Moz will have many such visitors. Will this really impact the ranking of Moz for non-brand queries they try to rank for, like "SEO Software". If so, will this have a huge impact or it's just a minor ranking factor. Because we have this with our website and we don't see such boost in rankings compared to our competitors with less direct traffic; where as I been looking at some SEO articles that direct traffic is one of the most important ranking factors. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Best place to employ "branded" related keywords to gain SEO benefits and rank for "non branded" keywords?
Hi all, I want to put this question straight with an example rather than confusing with a scenario. If there is company called "vertigo", a tiles manufacturer. There are many search queries with thousands of searches like "vertigo tiles life", "vertigo tiles for garden", "vertigo tiles dealers", "vertigo tiles for kitchen", etc....These kind of pages will eventually have tendency to rank for non-branded keywords like "tiles for garden", "tiles for kitchen", etc. So where to employ these kind of help/info pages? Main website or sub-domain? Is it Okay to have these pages on sub-domain and traffic getting diverted to sub domain? What if the same pages are on main website? Will main website have ranking improvement for non branded keywords because of employing the landing pages with related topics? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Will Google penalize 2 sites for targeting "like" keyword phrases?
I own (2) different websites, one an HTML site that has been live for 20 years and a ecommerce site that has been live for 7 years. We sell custom printed (branded) tents for use at trade shows and other indoor and outdoor events. While our ecomm site targets "trade show" tents our HTML site targets "event" tents. I believe that the keyword phrases are dissimilar enough that targeting "trade show tents" on one site and "event tents" on the other should not cause Google to penalize one or the other or both sites for having similar content. The content is different on both sites. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with, or opinions on, my thoughts... either way. Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | terry_tradeshowstuff
Terry Hepola0 -
What is the best way to build a Mobile Site?
I am looking into building a mobile version for my website, knowing that Google Likes Google should I stick with using their mobile building tool or build something from scratch in Dreamweaver? How to optimize for Google Mobile? Thx
Algorithm Updates | | Ben-HPB0 -
My site traffic has dropped
My site http://www.clairehegarty.co.uk has always got around 500 visitors a day but for some reason the past couple of days this has dropped to around 50 visitors a day. can anyone please help me to understand what has happened and has anyone else come across this where their traffic has gone down hill by so much many thanks
Algorithm Updates | | ClaireH-1848860