Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How .ae and .com domain in SEO performance for UAE region?
-
I have a domain for my UAE based project called https://mydubaiseo.com/ and however, one of my colleagues suggested going with .ae option.
Whether if we change the domain like as suggested get earlier results than .com domain or what?\Which domain .com or .ae ranks faster in UAE location if the SEO strategies followed in the same way? -
@0eup-ombitao yes ae is stronger than .com if it is regional oriented website
-
@melissabrown I think it's up to the natives which domain extension they prefer. Personally, a country where English is not the main language: I still prefer .COM.
-
Great question! Country code top level domains are the single strongest way to show search engines and users that site content is specifically targeted to a certain country or region! So, if you are targeting potential customers in the UAE, and know that you will continue to focus on this country, using the .ae TLD is a great way to do that! It will signal to Google that your website's content is highly relevant to an audience in this country. Here's a great resource on country code top level domains.
However, there are some initial challenges with changing a domain name, especially if you've already built up an audience and backlinks. You may initially see a drop in rankings and traffic, but this is usually temporary. If you do plan on changing the TLD, I would recommend doing this sooner than later! Here's a great guide on how to properly move domains.
Hope this helps!
-
@0eup-ombitao TLD - Top level domain is to help sites e.g. you might find you go to a .co.uk for UK sites etc. its not essential to ranks though, if lots of links are related to the source material you'll find you can rank regardless. The biggest reason I would swap is your users, are they used to going to .com domains or .ae domains which do they trust more? Just remember Google wants to give users what it thinks is the best result for a search not which TLD is most related to the country

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
-
English pages given preference over local language
We recently launched a new design of our website and for SEO purposes we decided to have our website both in English and in Dutch. However, when I look at the rankings in MOZ for many of our keywords, it seems the English pages are being preferred over the Dutch ones. That never used to be the case when we had our website in the old design. It mainly is for pages that have an English keyword attached to them, but even then the Dutch page would just rank. I'm trying to figure out why English pages are being preferred now and whether that could actually damage our rankings, as search engines would prefer copy in the local language. An example is this page: https://www.bluebillywig.com/nl/html5-video-player/ for the keywords "HTML5 player" and "HTML5 video player".
Local SEO | | Billywig0 -
Old domain to new domain
Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website. I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | inlinear
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
Holger0 -
Transfer a Main Domain to a Sub-Domain
My IT department tells me they want to transfer my main site domain, which has been in existence since 1999 as an e-commerce site (maindomain.com) to a sub-domain (www2.maindomain.com) or a completely new domain (newdomain.net). This is because we are launching a new website and B2C e-commerce engine, but we still have to maintain the legacy B2B e-commerce engine which contains hard-coded URLs, and both systems can't use the same domain. I've been researching the issue across SEOmoz, but I haven't come across this exact type of scenario (mostly I've seen a sub-domain to new domain). I see major problems with their proposal, including negative SEO impact, loss of domain authority/ranking and issues with branding. Does anyone know the exact type of impact I can expect to see in this scenario and specific steps I should go about to minimize the impact? Btw, I will be using Danny Dover's guide on properly moving domains where appropriate. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AscendLearning0 -
Checkout on different domain
Is it a bad SEO move to have a your checkout process on a separate domain instead of the main domain for a ecommerce site. There is no real content on the checkout pages and they are completely new pages that are not indexed in the search engines. Do to the backend architecture it is impossibe for us to have them on the same domain. An example is this page: http://www.printingforless.com/2/Brochure-Printing.html One option we've discussed to not pass page rank on to the checkout domain by iFraming all of the links to the checkout domain. We could also move the checkout process to a subdomain instead of a new domain. Please ignore the concerns with visitors security and conversion rate. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | PrintingForLess.com0 -
Any way around buying hosting for an old domain to 301 redirect to a new domain?
Howdy. I have just read this QA thread, so I think I have my answer. But I'm going to ask anyway! Basically DomainA.com is being retired, and DomainB.com is going to be launched. We're going to have to redirect numerous URLs from DomainA.com to DomainB.com. I think the way to go about this is to continue paying for hosting for DomainA.com, serving a .htaccess from that hosting account, and then hosting DomainB.com separately. Anybody know of a way to avoid paying for hosting a .htaccess file on DomainA.com? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | SamTurri0 -
.com or .co.uk in UK index? but the .com has higher domain authority...
Hi there i have a .com and a .co.uk for a site that has been around a while. However not much seo has been done on it, i was wonderign do i continue to optimise for the .com or switch to the .co.uk to rank in Google UK index for various search terms. .COM = 40 domain authority .CO.UK - 10 domain authority. Let the debate start 🙂
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0