Are provincial third-level domains bad for SEO?
-
My prospect's domain ends in ".on.ca" (Ontario, Canada).
The structure of their site is companyname.on.ca (main page) and all other pages are sub-folders (companyname.on.ca/page-name-1
All pages are no more than two levels deep.
I'm wondering if anyone knows if the provincial sub-domain (.on.ca) presents an SEO challenge?
-
"most provincial level domains are reserved for government institutions" - I didn't know this, very interesting bit of info there!
It would be very hard to say if they had been definitively hindered but IMO it's seeming more and more likely
-
Not a problem
-
Thank you.
-
You're correct. As a Canadian, I wouldn't be concerned with a county level domain. For example: thismotel.ca but a .com would be better as they also attract customers from outside of Canada.
But they have a provincial second level domain. .on.ca. (thismotel.on.ca), no site can be found under just thismotel.ca and a search for WHOIS on CIRA results in this message "The domain name requested has usage restrictions applied to it."
Based on my research they've likely had this domain since before 2010 as now most provincial level domains are reserved for government institutions.
I'm thinking they will likely need a new domain for user experience alone, but I don't know if the fact they have a provincial second level domain has hindered them in the past with their SERP rank.
-
To echo what's been said:
-
no clear SEO downside of you using the TLD .on.ca
-
there may be benefit to procuring other TLDs for your domain name, particularly if:
-
.com is available,
-
you serve other provinces or other countries (and not just Ontario), and
-
your search competitors tend to use non-provincial TLDs (e.g. .com, .ca, .org, etc)
-
-
You are right but my POV is that although it's a different situation, the same limiting factors might come into play. Event with just one site with one region based TLD, these points from Google are still valid (mostly, some can be ignored):
Country-specific domain
Cons:
- Expensive (can have limited availability) - still relevant but also since this cost is already paid, of little concern to OP
- Requires more infrastructure - this is irrelevant as it's just one site so loads of infrastructure won't be needed
- Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes) - still relevant but also since this cost is already paid, of little concern to OP
-
Pros:
- Clear geotargeting - this is highly relevant and could, IMO, if Google had written the documentation correctly - also have been listed in the cons pile
- Server location irrelevant - n/a
- Easy separation of site - n/a
So the main thing to focus on here is this statement from Google on country-specific domains:
"Clear geotargeting"
... now "clear geotargeting" can be highly beneficial, it can give your site and pages more 'relevance' for a specific area. But it's a double-edged sword! If you have international ambition, it can be a limiting factor (that's really what I was getting at) and it could make ranking internationally, very difficult indeed. It would mean that when OP does decide to go international (if that time ever comes) OP will either require a network of domains which could be costly in terms of setting up all the required infrastructure
So although OP's setup might be ok 'for now', later it could become an unwieldy leviathan which proves to be... not very scaleable. Or at the least, not so easily scaleable
So OPs decision is, does OP want to have some local gains now at the cost of having a more difficult time later when OP scales the site, or is OP unwilling to make that trade?
And think of this: Google have pretty much stated numerous times that 'locked' geo-targeting (to one specific area, either through TLD choices or Google Search Console) can make it much more difficult to rank outside of the specified area. One could make the assumption that for provincial TLDs, if Google starts interpreting them in a similar way - it could be hard to rank even outside of the local province. That could be a real thorn in OPs side later, though right now it might matter much
The truth is no approach is intrinsically 'good' or 'bad' for SEO. It entirely depends on OPs goals, KPIs and ambitions (to which we are not currently party)
-
I may have misunderstood, but I don't think 22Eighteen was asking about having multiple sites with different TLDs targetting multiple areas, I got the impression that this was a single site that happened to have a provincial TLD.
-
Google haven't extended this documentation to cover provincial third-level TLDs but if you look here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en
... there's a table on the page (scroll down) which you might find quite useful. It outlines the various pitfalls of different types of local-specific URLs. I'd expect this kind of stuff to hold true for the newer provincial TLDs
-
I've never come across any issues with using a variety of TLD from a purely SEO point of view. I would argue that they can have some effect on CTR (which could indirectly affect your rankings) if you have competitors that use "more important" TLR with the same subdomain, e.g. yourdomain.co.uk vs yourdomain.com, but in your case, with a company name, this seems less likely to be an issue. While I would recommend getting hold of the other domains (if they haven't already) and redirecting, I would suggest migrating to a different TLD if they have used the original domain for a long period.
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
-
Domain name change
Dear team, If a website with a domain name - example - raisins.com wishes to change to peanuts.com is this a dangerous task or a relatively simple one? I hope that by keeping my Q short, provides ease.
Web Design | | AdrianCGreen0 -
Community Discussion: UX & SEO – Your experience?
We've been looking at the relationship between SEO & UX a bit more closely lately on the blog. Our good pal Cyrus started the wheels turning with a tweet: https://twitter.com/CyrusShepard/status/748296076411625473 ...and that morphed into a Whiteboard Friday idea, which was filmed and posted here: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/ux-vs-seo-whiteboard-friday We shared the story of one site that enjoyed rapid growth and that subsequently battled with managing that UX/SEO relationship on Thursday. And it's hard, right? UX and SEO teams often operate independently of one another, and may make decisions that affect one another's work. Sometimes it's a "hindsight is 20/20" situation. Sometimes the answer is so radical and impactful that you may want to settle for a "safe" alternative. I'd imagine many of you have encountered some big issues with user experience and search optimization in your day-to-day over the years. What's the most difficult situation you've encountered with this? How did you resolve it? (I'd bet money on there being some really creative solutions out there :). Is there a particularly challenging situation you're struggling with now that you'd want to share & crowdsource ideas for?
Web Design | | FeliciaCrawford3 -
Changing top level navigation between site sections
We've got an internal proposal to change our top level nav depending on the section of the site. For example, on our homepage it might read: Products, Library, About with relevant links dropping down below. As we have varied products, the drop down underneath it would include the various families. When arriving on the product family page the top-level nav would change to represent more specific offerings. For example: xxx.com 1. Products; 2. Library; 3. About xxx.com/xxx 1. Product family 1; 2. Product family 2; 3. Product family 3; 4. Library; 5. About What are the SEO/UX implications of this? It seems confusing but allows more specific navigation via the main nav depending on the section of the site. Also it seems that an alternating TLN might not be too Google-friendly.
Web Design | | gwelch0 -
Is it against google guidelines to use third party review sites as well as have reviews on my site marked up with schema?
So, i look after a site for my family business. We have teamed up with the third party site TrustPilot because we like the way it enables us to send out reviews to our customers directly from our system. It's been going great and some of the reviews have been brilliant. I have used a couple of these reviews on our site and marked them up with: REVIEW CONTENT We work in the service industry and so one of the problems we have found is that getting our customers to actually go online and leave a review. They normally just leave their comments on a job sheet that the workers have signed when they leave. So I have created a page on our site where we post some of the reviews the guys receive too. I have used the following: REVIEW TITLE REVIEW Written by: CUSTOMER NAME Type of Service:House Removal Date published: DATE PUBLISHED 10 / 10 stars I was just wondering I was told that this could be against googles guidelines and as i've seen a bit of a drop in our rankings in the last week or so i'm a little concerned. Is this getting me penalised? Should I not use my reviews referencing the ones on trust pilot and should i not have my own reviews page with rich snippets?
Web Design | | BearPaw881 -
New ecommerce site: Close old site and full domain redirect or keep it linking to new site?
We have rebranded and are working on our new site (B). Our old site (A) has a much higher domain/page authority than our new site. Currently we have the original Site A still there, with all links/pages pointing to the new Site B when people click. I am unsure whether we'd be best to close down the Site A completely and do a full domain redirect to Site B. Site A: 10 years age and has a moderate amount of links to it.
Web Design | | ModowestNZ
Homepage - PA: 24 DA:11 Site B: 6 months age, few links
Homepage - PA: 1 DA:2 My concern with the full domain redirect is that the indexed/ranking pages would dissapear. The benefit is less brand confusion for our niche range of party accessories.0 -
Will SASS ruin my SEO?
Hello, I am thinking about using SASS for my website, striping the current CSS style sheets and translating it all to SASS.. will this hurt my SEO?
Web Design | | DanielBernhardt0 -
Website Redesign SEO Checklist
I am looking for a comprehensive Website Redesign SEO Checklist. One of my customers is changing its website design (including URL structure) and I need all kinds of suggestions for a smooth SEO operation. Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | stradiji0 -
How about some SEO tips for small local businesses
The amount of time I hear people say write good content and people will naturally link to you. I appreciate this must be valid for large websites that a driven by content. However, it doesn't really hold much hope for smaller businesses with just service information etc. I work for a small business that does web design in the UK. However, I'm finding it difficult to do any sort of link building. In my opinion nobody is going to link to any of our content naturally or if it is, its going to be small time. Our rankings have dropped slightly (only to 4th in our local county). I've done the following thinks to try get it back up there but its having little or no results. Adding us to local business directories External Articles on site Cleaned up some duplicate title tags. What link building can I do? Is link building the home page sometimes not always the way to go? What content can I write that google will like? See what I mean? My rankings did climb a little bit but then dropped straight back down to their original places 2 weeks later. Help would be appreciated.
Web Design | | sanchez19600