Ranking gcctld?
-
I am working on a new site that uses a .io TLD. I have just started working to get the domain to rank for its own name.
What are some others experience with ranking and SEO for gcctlds?
-
As an update I am seeing a very slow start to getting the domain to rank in the top 200 results for its own name (riley). By this time with a .com I would usually have seen my site somewhere in the top 100 without much effort. Although, I haven't started a new domain from scratch for a competitive key work like "riley" in a while. I will continue to build links and eventually do more marketing when the site if further along.
Let me know if anyone else has had some of the same experiences with gccTLD rankings.
Thanks!
-
Awesome! The dev community has been using .io for a while, so it is natural that it gets considered a gccTLD. Really good to here him mention it.
-
Matt Cutts must have been reading this thread - check it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJqZIH_0Ars
He mentions using .io as a "non geographic" specific domain.
-
Wish I could help you out more here, but I don't have much experience in this realm. All of my work has only ever been on .coms. Sorry!
-
Both of you have great advise and appreciate your help. Have you ever worked on getting a gccTLD to rank or competed for keyword targets with a gccTLD?
-
.io gets used a lot around the world as a general TLD, so Google no longer assumes that it's a site targeted to the British Indian Ocean Territory (here is their help center file on this). Your site will be treated similarly as any other gTLD. This is probably true for Bing as well, but I couldn't find any documentation about it.
If you're not US-specific, I'd leave the country targeting blank in Google/Bing webmaster tools. Either way I wouldn't expect it to make a huge difference. Just know that Google doesn't think you're trying to target the British Indian Ocean Territory based on your TLD choice. As CleverPhD pointed out, they use a bunch of other factors to help determine this as well.
-
Here is the Google info on what the Geotargeting does
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en
They would look at the extension, but also where you are hosted, location information on the site (eg your address) etc.
As far as who you target with the settings
"The tool handles geographic data, not language data. If you're targeting users in different locations—for example, if you have a site in French that you want users in France, Canada, and Mali to read—we don't recommend that you use this tool to set France as a geographic target. A good example of where it would be useful is for a restaurant website: if the restaurant is in Canada, it's probably not of interest to folks in France. But if your content is in French and is of interest to people in multiple countries/regions, it's probably better not to restrict it."
So, it depends on what users you want to target. If you truly want to be international, do not set it. I bet if your site is in english and your are hosted in the US and your physical address is in the US, Google will show you as a US site.
-
Great tip! I had setup webmaster tools, but not checked this setting. My location was set to the "-" by default. I changed it to US, does this mean that if I want to target international traffic I won't be able to?
Is this the same in bing? Going to look now.
-
One quick suggestion. Make sure in Google webmaster tools under site settings that when you verify the domain that you properly specify your location. I am betting that you are not based in the middle of the Indian Ocean!
Also there is a great answer here
http://moz.com/community/q/do-domain-extensions-such-as-com-or-net-affect-seo-value
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
-
About porn sites and ranking
Hello, I'm thinking to extend my website into porn. At the moment there is no pornography on it, although we do talk about sex related topics and products (from dating to tutorials, to toys etc.) Would it be dangerous to keep the porn section on the same domain as the rest? Would this negatively affect my non-porn content as Googlebot would "flag" my website as being pornographic (although only a few pages would be)? Or simply Googlebot would leave the current non-porn pages ranking as they are now, just fine, and plus it would rank the porn pages if they "deserve" to? I hope my question is clear. I don't want to create a subdomain.
Algorithm Updates | | fabx0 -
Http vs Https Related Rankings Drop?
I've noticed in a number of keyword ranking tools (Moz included) that our rankings have dropped substantially for a number of our top performing keywords precisely 7 days back. When you view the attached screenshot you'll see there was a drastic drop in the overall organic impressions as well as a drop in keyword rankings. I also noticed that all the keywords which have dropped in rank now show with the https version of our home page url. I've read up on this and it believe that this should not cause a drop in rankings but we have even added https as a domain in webmaster tools with no improvement. Quite simply, has Google de-indexed our http home page url which was previously tied to our higher rankings for our core keywords? How can we get this back without "disavowing" our https version of the site. We're not doing anything to game search results so I dont think we're being penalized, simply there is some sort technical glitch taking place between recognizing HTTP vs HTTPS versions of our site. Our home page is goo.gl/qVPRwf and an example keyword is "wedding ring sets his and hers" Can anyone recommend further debugging steps or have an understanding of what can be done at this point? Also, if it helps, I have studied the Help Center, read the FAQs and searched for similar questions with no success.wedding ring sets his and hers impressions%20-%20ranking%20drop.png?dl=0
Algorithm Updates | | punitshah0 -
Is user engagement a ranking signal?
Read something about user engagement might be a signal that Google uses, along with links and on-site optimisation, to decide if a search result goes up or down. What should I believe and what are the developments in this field?
Algorithm Updates | | MozzieJr0 -
Google Rankings Dropped in Past Few Weeks
Hi All, I work for an online appliance retailer and over the past weeks, we've seen a drop in our google SERPs. This time last year we were ranking in the top 3 for our top converting key terms, but now we are ranking towards the bottom of the first page or even on the top of the second page with the big box stores now dominating for our key terms. Needless to say traffic for these pages has dropped off considerably. We still have quite a bit of traffic coming in for other key terms, but they don't convert as well. Is anyone else seeing the same thing? If so what are you doing to combat this? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | airnwater0 -
Why Am I Ranking in Bing but Not Google
My website is ranking is ranking in Bing, but it's nowhere to be found on Google? What can be some causes for this?
Algorithm Updates | | locallyrank0 -
SERP and SEO Moz ranking
Until a couple of months ago the predicted SEO Moz ranking for a specific keyword was fairly close to what I actually experienced with my website. However, since then the correlation has not been good. For example, according to SEO Moz I am ranked #1 for a specific keyword with google.ca and google.com yet my site actually shows up consistently at #3 for that keyword. Has anyone else noticed this divergence?
Algorithm Updates | | casper4340 -
Can AJAX implementation affect the rankings in Google Panda?
Hi there, I have the following situation with one of our job sites. We migrate the site to a new application, which is better from design point of view and also usability. For this we use a lot AJAX especially in searches. So every time a user is filtering down their search new results will be shown on the page, at the same url and with no page load. But, having this implementation. affected Bounce rate - which increased from 38% to nearly 60%, PI/visits - which are now half, at 3 and also Avg Time on Site is half that is used to be coming to 2,5 min from nearly 6 min. From Rand post, it is clearly that the content is very important in Google Panda, and all of these parameters we should consider, as it is telling the quality of the content. So, my question will be, can this site be hit by Panda updates (maybe later on) because Bounce Rate, PI/Visits and Avg Time on site, decreased in such way? At the moment we don't measure the Ajax impresion, but as I understood that we can do that though virtual pages in GA, does anyone of you have the experience how to handle this? Won't be this an artificial increase? Thanks, Irina
Algorithm Updates | | InformMedia0 -
Ranking Tracking Tool Not Accurate?
Is google still updating the algo on a daily basis or for the most part are you other mozzers seeing your rankings stick? I ask because the rank tracking software I use locally on my laptop shows me inaccurate rankings, as well as the SEOMOZ tool (which was just updates yesterday). I am not sure why this is happening, but as of yesterday I lost four page one rankings, which I didn't deserve anyway, and was apparently a fluke until they did the PR update. So I dont mind, but I am curious if they are still tweaking on a daily basis or if its safe to continue link building. I dont want them to make another change and have it affect my rankings in a negative way.
Algorithm Updates | | getbigyadig0