Country Specific Domains
-
Is there any type of "best practice" for country level domains?
I run a TLD .com, and have a few country specific domains (.co.uk, .eu, ...). Right now, I'm not doing anything with them. Previously, I had them redirected to the main .com, but didn't want to anger the Google gods with any type of duplicate content, redirects, or anything of that nature.
Any suggestions on how to best utalize these domains?
-
Hey,
It really depends on what you're looking to do - are you wanting to actively trade via those other ccTLDs?
For example - with your .co.uk; do you have the ability to offer your product in the UK? If so, then it's absolutely fine to set up as a separate site.
However, if you're just going to replicate your current site you will need to do a little work to avoid that content being seen as duplicate.
You can geo-target via webmaster tools see - http://www.seo-chicks.com/1463/geotargeting-on-the-same-domain-using-xml-sitemaps.html
You can also implement rel-alternate hreflang via your sitemaps see - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/multilingual-and-multinational-site.html
As Fidelityim says - I'd also recommend you including other signals e.g.
- Local phone numbers
- Local bricks and mortar addresses
- Local currency
This helps the search engines understand where you're trying to target.
Please note, that whilst this activity will help in terms of geo-targeting your content in order to actually rank in these countries you'll likely need to do some link building for each of these sites too.
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
Good point from Highland.
If you're not looking to build out largely different/unique sites for each ccTLD, just re-produce your main .com site on the other ccTLDs and start off by adding in a country flag and maybe a 'local' phone number just to send some signals to users that this is a more 'locally' relevant site.
-
There's nothing wrong with doing that. ccTLDs can be duplicates of their .com brethren because it's understood that they're localized. As Matt Cutts said, spammers are not using ccTLDs like that and Google is pretty smart at figuring that out.
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
-
Acquired domains for SEO
hi there, For one of our insurance websites we acquired a domain, this domain is going to be redirected to our domain. After some research we discovered the domain we've bought also includes other domains which 301 redirect to specific 'insurance products'. These domains are also included in the deal. But what is the best technical solution for redirecting these specific redirected product domains? They already redirect to the product pages of the domain we've bought, so after redirect this domain, the sub (product) redirected domains will also link to us. It would be like this: A) www.sub-carinsurancesite.nl (301) -> www.domain-we-bought.com/car-insurance -> www.ourdomain.com/car-insurance
Technical SEO | | remkoallertz
B) www.sub-carinsurancesite.nl (301) -> www.ourdomain.com/car-insurance & www.domain-we-bought.com/car-insurance -> www.ourdomain.com/car-insurance etc0 -
Domain vs Sub Domain and Rankings
Hi All Wanting some advice. I have a client which has a number of individual centres that are part of an umbrella organisation. Each individual centre has its own web site and some of these sites have similar (not duplicate content) products and services. Currently the individual centres are sub domains of the umbrella organisation. i.e. Umbrella organisation www.organisation.org.au Individual centres are sub domains i.e. www.centre1.organisation.org.au, www.centre2.organisation.org.au etc. I'm feeling that perhaps this setup might be affecting the rankings of the individual sites because they are sub domains. Would love to hear some thoughts or experience on this and whether its worth going through the process of migrating the individual centre domains. Thanks Ian
Technical SEO | | iragless0 -
International architecture: Country specific subfolders > domain mapping to tld
Hi Ive got a clients dev saying they are setting up with country/language specific subfolders (as i recommended) BUT now they are saying they want to set up on network.domain.com (for example) and then each language will have its own sub-folder BUT will be domain mapped to the TLD as and when they get them. I have asked them to clarify since sounds a bit strange since thought best to have domain.com then /uk and /us etc etc and sure ok to forward country specific TLD's to these subfolders. Its this new subdomain (network.) thats concerning me and mapping rather than forwarding (or is it the same thing) but anyone know off hand if above sounds ok or also thinks a bit strange or know issues with such a set up ? many thanks dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Local site under generic domain
Howdy Mozers, We have main website on .com domain and local websites for each language like .es, .fr, .in etc. We decided to move all local sites under main domain .com using subdirectories with gTLDs. One of the local sites has a manual penalty. Right now we are redirecting local site which have penalty using 302 redirect. So my question is. Will 302 redirect hurt our main site? Is there any other way to redirect visitors from local site without passing penalty? We have few thousands monthly users who are still using local domain links to get to our site, so we can't remove redirect at all. Best Regards,
Technical SEO | | juris_l
Juris0 -
Blog.domain or domain.com/blog
My client can't do domain.com/blog because he's on wix. I'm thinking blog.domain.com. Do you have any resources for the pros and cons of this? I understand that google looks at them very similarly now, is that true for google +?
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
Problem with 1 Domain but not 60 Others
Hi, I have about 60+ domains which are spread across a few different IP address's and a couple of Servers The domains use the same template, which is modified per the specific domain Out of the 60, a single domain attracts virtually no traffic. In google webmaster, there are no messages, nothing out of the order The supporting blogs etc... for that domain are all fine. Any idea why one domain does not perform, while the other 60 plug are successful?
Technical SEO | | Bucky0 -
Domain Masking with New Keyword-Rich Domains
Hello, friends. We have an ecommerce site and we also own several keyword-rich domains but haven't done anything with them yet. Is there any value in using domain masking to point them to either product pages or special landing pages on our primary ecommerce site? Here's an example: Primary site is widgetzone.com Keyword rich URL is acmewidget.com (which is totally blank and isn't indexed) It could point to our category page for Acme Widgets: widgetzone.com/category/acme-widgets or it could point to a new landing page: widgetzone.com/acme-widgets My concern is that because the keyword-rich URL hasn't been utilized at all there's really no point in redirecting it. I'm of the mind that it's either going to be ineffective at best or a duplicate content issue at worst. What do you guys think? As a follow-up, if we don't redirect these domains, what should we do with them? Just try to sell them off rather than create totally new sites?
Technical SEO | | jbreeden0 -
301 redirect from domain to home.aspx
We have been asked to look at a website and have found a 301 redirect from the domain www.domain.com to www.domain.com/home.aspx. Why would someone do this, this way round? We can't think of a good reason and are wondering if we have overlooked something? Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | travelinnovations0