Is it safe to redirect our .nl (netherlands) domain that we have just purchased to our .com domain?
-
Hi all!
We've recently developed a German version of our website with German translation and now we have just purchased a .nl domain, but with this one, we want all of the copy to remain in English. Is it ok to redirect our .nl domain to our current .com website or will this give us bad SEO points?
Thank you!
-
I would add a link from the home page to the rest of your content (the .com site) but make it clear that people will be taken to a new site.
Redirects not required.
-
Thank you so much for all of your responses.
I thought the redirect would be the easiest option for now but then we would want the contact page, and preferably the homepage, to have the Dutch telephone number, email address and map (of the Amsterdam office).
At the moment, translation for the .nl website is not an option, but this is something we are thinking about for phase 2. Our .de domain has been translated, and for now, we just want to get the .nl domain up and running!
Is there a way we would be able to have a dutch homepage, with the correct telephone numbers and map, but then redirect to the rest of the website on .com?
Building links to .de and .nl will be something to think about in the future but for now we just want the sites to be indexed and accessible to users from their respective countries.
Thank you!
-
The 301 shouldn't be a problem but as stated it might be odd if used on advertising and then people end up on a different domain. It will help you snap up domain name so no-one else can use it though.
If you don't want a duplicate nl site in Dutch, you could keep the nl domain to a single page with Dutch content and then suggest Dutch visitors visit your main .com site. Would be worth having a contact page with address in Holland too.
If you make the nl site a re-gig of your .com site, make the content as different (and appealing to Dutch visitors) as possible.
Although many Dutch can speak English, they can't all, especially older generations so bear in mind when thinking about just serving English content.
-
If you made the .nl site the same as the .com com site, you could also cross-domain rel=canonical each page over to the .com site, which would leave visitors on the .nl site but assign all value over to the .com. As Ash said though, putting unique content--either Dutch or English--might me your most effective option. It may be even more effective if you host it in the Netherlands, too.
-
Yes, doing a 301 redirect from your .nl to the .com site will be fine, but why are you doing that?
Are you going to advertise in Holland and show the .nl URL? If so, users might be unsettled if they end up at the .com site. If it is just 301'd and that's all you do, then hardly anyone other than a person guessing your URL will even use it. You might not even rank in Holland.
There are no bad SEO points for the .com site, but you could be losing the chance to rank on Google.nl. I don't think Google.nl will note the 301 and therefore show the .com as well as a well-SEO'd .nl site.
You could put English content on the .nl site, preferably a rewritten version of the .com site. The key is to get .nl links to the .nl domain (if not 301'd). Make it a Dutch site as much as you can - get listed in Dutch directories, get Dutch citations, etc.
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
-
New domain or subdirectory?
I noticed my domain authority has dropped slightly in the recent update, and it has me re-thinking a strategy for a website I just recently launched. I purchased the domain name kansasisbeautiful.com about a year ago and have been working on building it for most of that time. Earlier in August, I went ahead and launched it. However, towards the end of the development of the website, I decided to just put it in a subdirectory of my parent company (my photography business) at mickeyshannon.com/kansas and redirected the kansasisbeautiful.com domain to the subdirectory. mickeyshannon.com is my photography business website. The Kansas website has it's own distinct design, but is powered completely by my photography. I created it for a few purposes, including promoting tourism to the state of Kansas and to publish a book on Kansas travel next year, but one of it's main goals is also to help sell my photography prints. I decided to put it in a subdirectory (mickeyshannon.com/kansas) as I had hoped it might drive more traffic into buying photo prints if it lived on my main website. However, I've been re-thinking my strategy and have been wondering if I'm competing against myself too much. Many of my photography prints have the name of a location in them and have their own URL per photo (for example: "Flint Hills Spring Sunrise" is at http://www.mickeyshannon.com/photo/flint-hills-spring-sunset/). It makes me wonder if the new Kansas travel website page for the Flint Hills (http://www.mickeyshannon.com/kansas/flint-hills/) is competing for that keyword. Would I be better moving mickeyshannon.com/kansas to kansasisbeautiful.com? I was worried having so many backlinks back to my photography site would send up red flags with Google as if the kansasisbeautiful.com website was just a spammy website created to push traffic to mickeyshannon.com when it really has it's own purpose. Any thoughts on whether using the domain name or keeping it at the subdomain level is better? Hopefully that made sense. Thanks, Mickey
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VSphoto0 -
.com or .co.uk
I have ownership over the .co.uk and the .com for my brand name and I was wondering which URL I should use. Most my sales come from within the UK, (with only a small amount from the US). Currently I'm using the .co.uk and redirecting the .com URL but should I be doing this the other way around? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
.Com version of my site is ranking better than .co.uk for my UK Website for branded search. 301 redirect mess
Dear Mozzers, I have an issue with my UK Website (short url is - http://goo.gl/dJ7IgD ) whereby when I type my company name in to google.co.uk search the .com version returns in Search as opposed to the .co.uk and from looking at open site explorer the page rank of the .com is higher than the .co.uk ?. Infact I cant even see the .co.uk homepage version but other pages from my site. The .com version is also 301'd to the .co.uk. From looking at Open Site Explorer, I have noticed that we have more links pointing to .com as opposed to .co.uk. Alot of these are from our own separate microsites which we closed down last year and I have noticed the IT company who closed them down for some reason 301'd them to the .com version of our site as opposed to the .co.uk but If I look in http://httpstatus.io/ (http status checker tool) to check one of these mircosites it shows - 301 - 302 - 200 status codes which to me looks wrong ?. I am wondering what it should read ... e.g should it just be a 301 to a 200 status code ?. My Website short url is - http://goo.gl/dJ7IgD and an example of some of 10 microsites we closed down last year which seems to be redirected to .com is http://goo.gl/BkcIjy and http://goo.gl/kogJ02 As these were redirected almost a year ago - it is okay if I now get them redirected to the .co.uk version of my site or what should I do ? They currently redirect to the home page but given that each of the microsites are based on an individual category of my main site , would it be better to 301 them to the relevant category on my site. My only concern is that , may cause to much internal linking and therefore I wont have enough links on my homepage ? How would you suggest I go about building up my .co.uk authority so it ranks betters than the .com- I am guessing this is obviously affecting my rankings and I am losing link juice with all this. Any advice greatly appreciated . thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Redirect wordpress.com and internal link ?
Hi Moz Fans, First of all, I need to say thanks to all of answer to previous post. And today i also have the another question that similar to that post. Because our website using Wordpress.org as our CMS for blog post then easier to redirect by point to new site, According to setting site URL ? However in our each blog articles also have anchor text as internal link that link to another blog post, Which mean those link will be automatic redirect to new URL. So once Google bot re-crawl our website when we tell the Google by webmaster tools and the redirection we using 301. What will be happen when Google Bot crawl those link again We need to changes those link as well Keep same with redirection. Nothing happen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ASKHANUMANTHAILAND0 -
Where/how do you set up 301 redirects when keeping the same domain and not preserving the filename?
Hi there, I'm just reaching to to ask for some help in understanding where 301 redirects should be set up on a website when keeping the same domain but not preserving the original filenames? Essentially what is happening is an old website is being completely overhauled and brought up to date from a technical and usability standpoint. While the SEO isn't great naturally many of the pages have been indexed by google over time. A few pages have decent statistics and I don't want to lose the juice from them, but they do still need a lot of improving. So my question is this, would all the redirection take place in the .htaccess file only in this case? From reading here on Moz I think this is the case, but I need to confirm that. I was reading this article which has thrown me slightly: https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection but this seems more complex as the website was actually moving domains. Open to any insight and if you need further clarification or information let me know.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODarren0 -
307 Redirect
Just checking the headers on a client site and discovered a 307 redirect. General suggestion from http status code sites is that it is similar to a 302 temporary redirect. Can someone confirm this is the case or is there a difference?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjalc20110 -
Should we move to a new domain??
Working with a company that is considering moving to a new domain and wanted some advice.They have 2 domains (they own both) and one is a shorter version of the other. The current domain is over 10 years old and has a domain authority score of 80. It is 9 characters long. The new domain (which they also own) has a DA score of 43 and is only 3 characters long. The debate is as much about branding as anything but there is a concern on how it will affect search. I was hoping for so advice and any pitfalls others may have experienced. Thanks!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2comarketing0 -
Buying a banned domain
Hello all, I've found a exact match keyword domain that I'm able to buy. Problem is that I'm under the impression it might have been banned by google, currently it is only showing adsense without content. The site can't be found using the cache: or site: parameters in Google and the PR is 0. What are your experiences on buying a banned domain and how can I double check if the domain is banned? This blogpost suggests I should not buy it, any other opinions? Thanks. Hellemans
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hellemans0