Would it be ok if my ccTLD (.au) has links pointing to my .com (main) site?

[MicroSourcing_PRM]

The main pages of my .au site are all in .au, but once you go to the inner pages, the users will be directed to my .com site. The .com will act as the content for the top pages of the .au. Would that be ok?

[MicroSourcing_PRM]

Hi Robert!

We aim to target the Australian market that is why we want to set up a .au site, and yes, we are a bit pressed for time so instead of rewriting everything, we intend to just create .au pages for our main sections, but the inner pages would be from our .com site. They're both in English so we also think that there's a chance we would be considered having duplicate content if we rewrite all our .com pages to be used in .au.

We would definitely use geotargeting/language selection for our AU site to avoid any issues.

Thank you so much Robert for taking the time to answer my question! I truly appreciate it!

[RobertFisher]

Karen,

First a question, is the content you are linking to something you want to rank for in say Google.au? My concern would be that a .au domain with similar keywords would outrank the linked to page. One thing to do would be to test this out with your .com now by doing ranking analysis on Google.au. If not an issue, link.

If the above is an issue, and understanding that .com is not a ccTLD, I would first make sure my .com site was set geographically to EN-US. By going into GWMT - Site configuration. In Settings select Geographic Target then click on  Target Users In and select United States. (Do this even if you are in the US). (I am making an assumption here that the site is English).

The reason is this, if you are linking to the .com I am guessing that you are saving time and money by not recreating content or, you are in a hurry. So, to avoid being seen as duplicate content and yet to allow you to use the same content on the .au site, I would do the above. For the .au, if you are not on a server in Australia, I would still do the language selection of EN-AU even though it is a cc TLD.

Then just use the content from the .com, but do it on the .au. Yes, you would get linking value the other way, so there are some things you need to weigh in my opinion.

Would like to see some other mozzers jump on this.

Best

BTW - Please keep the doors open on Open Source - contribute to your developers for your plugins whenever you can