.us domain extension for US locales
-
I have a large US travel site and am looking to make targeted pages for specific locations, attractions etc around the United States. With many of the TLD's already purchased for these niches, I thought about using the .us extension as it seemed relevant to the topics. Does this hurt seo possibilities or does the .us extension come across as spammy?
-
You make a good point. That depending on the project requirements and timeline, the extensions may not matter too much. Great job on the quick rankings!
-
Yeah I wouldn't sacrifice branding but we made the decision that at the moment keyword rich domains are doing very well. I have no doubt that this success will be short lived and the project I worked on did still have a branded domain, our plan was to create a landing page with a keyword rich domain on .co because of the easy at which it could be ranked and within weeks we were ranking 3rd on yahoo for the keywords in the domain. When it is re-evaluated I'm sure that the site will be dropped well beyond the first page however currently the project itself has actually made a sizable revenue steam since the page was created. My strategy is that opportunities come and go every day and that this was just another opportunity to gain business.
-
Here's a good place to get started: http://www.dotsauce.com/2011/03/17/google-may-adjust-keyword-domain-rankings-how-to-avoid-getting-dropped/
-
This is great to hear that you have done well. I have always believed that, all things being equal, the domain extension should have minor effects on SERPs. With the spamming of the .info and other cheaper extensions I would imagine that Google would have to put some check in place to eliminate the abuse of the cheaper domain. I wonder if it is possible that the .co (being a newer domain extension) didn't have the checks against it that a .info would
Danial made a very valid point about branding vs keyword rich domains... we shall see as we move forward.
-
I really like the thought of moving towards brandable domains. It seems that we all get lost in the immediate value of the domain keywords and treat the site itself as an afterthought. I am looking forward to seeing Google's statement indicating their future plans in how they value the domain name.
-
From an SEO perspective, all TLD's are supposedly treated equal, but I have my doubts. So the text book answer is your TLD has no affect on SEO. Now if you got a .co.uk for a US travel site, that could be problematic. But a .us is supposedly the same as a .info or a .com or .net or whatever else. Again, I have my doubts.
The problem with a .us domain is in your branding. Let's say you were YountTravel.us. You cannot brand yourself as Yount Travel because by default everyone thinks .com. So you have to brand the .us with your brand name so people will actually remember your website.
My best advice is to not pay any attention to keyword rich domains. Google said they won't for long. I would build any website around a brand, so I think a brandable .com is infinitely better than a keyword rich .us.
-
I have always been of the impression that a website other than .com/.co.uk is a bit spammy however recently there has been an increasing number of very authoritative websites on other TLD's. I have personally been working on a .co and have found it very useful as I have managed to get a very competitive URL ranked.
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
-
Domain authority vs indexed pages
Hello, There are many articles and from our personal experience we can say that you can rank a page without backlinks with high DA but we cant figure out if DA of domain help to rank as the link juice ( so the link juice going from home page thru all pages to specific page) or it will rank a page even if its not linked in any way from homepage or any other pages and even if it not linked in any way from other pages and still ranks just because of high DA, does that DA value will spread even above all indexed pages if you have lets say 100,000 pages, i mean if domain has 100 indexed pages and DA of 50 and another domain has 100,000 and DA of 100, if both pages are the same on those domains and have no backlinks to it from my understanding page on domain with 100 indexed pages and DA of 50 suppose to rank higher ? Please share what you think
Branding | | maxdelop0 -
Top level domains showing wrong meta tag des in different country
Hi Everyone I have 3 top level domains - and its showing up my meta tag description in USA and Australia search for my NEW ZEALAND meta tag description. Not sure whats going on, but now that im ranking for all top level domains in those countries it looks weird having a NZ in the Search when its a USA and AUSTRALIA domain name. See the attachments Cheers new
Branding | | edward-may0 -
Moving to a new domain
Hi, We are about to rebrand. This means we need to move all of our content on to a new domain. I want to make sure this process is as smooth as possible and we don't lose too much by way of rankings. I have read this page: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/best-practices-when-moving-your-site.html and plan on following the instructions to the letter, but was wondering if anyone had any additional tips? Also, the article linked above is OLD. From 2008, is there anything'new' that I should know? Thank you (in advance) for any help you can offer, it is much appreciated! Best wishes, Amelia EDIT: I forgot quite a big element when first posting this question! We are merging two existing websites into the new URL. The two sites are for two different products we offer, but we'll now be offering both products under the same URL.
Branding | | CommT0 -
International domain query
my client is a financial services company with some ccTLDs for brand name but does not own the .com eg: brandname.ch, brandname.ro etc we need to launch a brand UK site plus a global site. should we go for another name on the .com: brandname_financial.com_, and: brandname_financial.ch_, brandname_financial.ro_ etc or could we go for instead brandname.uk.com and brandname.eu.com? i'm worried the owner of brandname.com will build a site and out rank us.....however the alternative is a longer url but owning the .com hope that makes sense and any advice would be gladly received! Many thanks
Branding | | bisibee10 -
Merging domains will sum the authority?
Hi guys, I have two websites that are almost the same, I am working to merge them. One domain have authority 44 and other 24... After I merge I will have authority 68? Should I keep the older domain or the newer? The newer has my keyword in the URL but the older have 10 years. Thank you
Branding | | Felip30 -
High authority brand expanding product line, domain question
Hi MOZers, I've been given a handy little domain puzzle to deal with and would love insight from the community. Here's the situation: We're retailers of one specific, big, nationally known product. Let's pretend it's the Snuggee (IT'S NOT). People search for it and buy it from our site, or from Amazon or other retailers that we distribute it to. We're about to expand to carry a bunch of related, but different products - so from a one-product brand to 5 or 6 different items, relating to different keyword searches. Imagine Snuggee people want to start selling a whole bunch of products that solve the same needs of warming the front of your body and making you look silly. The owners want to change the main domain from [specific product] to [name similar to specific product, but is more general]. What concerns me is how to handle the fame of the branded product in terms of domain names. Current domain, based on that product, has a ton of links and a decent age. Owners are thinking to redirect everything to fresh new unestablished domain. While I know 301s will pass most link value, it will also be a home page that will be about a bunch of products - not just that main known one. In fact, we're considering making a URL for each product as landing page, of which old famous product would be one of 5 or 6 pages. Two main options we're considering right now: Keep old domain as a doorway page featuring just old product, with same look and feel, and from which any links would point to the new domain. Try to keep this as ranking for top result for this search, which should be easy. Unify everything under new domain, with old product being featured on a separate page / subdirectory. Hope that new home page still can rank pretty well for our old product, even though it will be talking about other products now as well. What we'd stand to lose would be the SERP for old products featuring too many big box retailers that sell our stuff and take a chunk out of our margins. The goal is to help us become known for many things, while still being always the best search result for what we're already known for. Which of those two options seem best, or is there another I'm missing altogether? Thank you!
Branding | | advancedSemiotics0 -
Trying to de-mystify Google Places, Google Local & Google Plus
There is a lot of online 'noise' regarding the changes / merging and making the best out of Googles' Places / Local & Google Plus. Any tips, ideas, experiences or just plain revelations regarding all or any of the above services and how they will work & come together in the future?
Branding | | ScotSEO0 -
Google Displays Domain / URL Above Description?
I am seeing a new SERP format from Google. (new for me at least) In the past the title tag would display as the first line of a listing, followed by description and domain / URL. Today I see the domain / URL as the second line. This is placing an emphasis on "Who". If you have a big brand or a great URL this might be helpful to your CTR. Are you seeing this? What do you think of it?
Branding | | EGOL0