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.
Non .Com or .Co Versus .ca or .fm sites - In terms of SEO value
-
We are launching a new site with a non traditional top level domain . We were looking at either .ca or .in as we are not able to get the traditional .com or .co or .net etc .
I was wondering if this has any SEO effect ? Does Google/Bing treat this domain differently .Will it be penalized ?
Note : My site is a US based site targeting US audience
-
Mmm.... try to use a termination which is not a country level one. .CA or .IN automatically are targeting they respective countries and you can't avoid the inconviences of that geotargetization if not doing an huge link building in your real target country.
Try to check out other generic termination (avoind cc.which is banned by Google)
-
Chait
I think there are really two questions you should ask: the one re SEO effect, Google/Bong, etc. and, how they are perceived.
As to Google others have stated correctly there is no penalty. I am not sure that using a .ca/.in is wise even if you are US based, use US server, and make correct geotarget selections in GWMT. The reason is not Google/SEO per se, but perception.
It is a given that in some countries, having a cc tld that is different is not wise due to bias. A documented one is the French bias in Europe (no hate mail please, my son was born in Paris - yes France, not Texas). In the US, as open minded as half of us seem to be, there will always be a bias if someone knows the .in is India and there may well be one with .ca especially if you are in more northern states that are more likely to see it.So, you have to factor all in and then ask: "Why am I going this way?" Is whatever domain name so critical that you are willing to sacrifice for it? Have you considered using hyphens?
We do a lot with EMD's using hyphens and without. At the same time, I believe many over emphasize EMD and could spend time and energy better elsewhere. Is there a second best EMD and then spend all the energy on something else SEO?
I cannot imagine, short of a known and, likely, very well known brand where I would risk a .ca or .in in the US for that EMD.
Good Luck, let us know what direction you take and how it works,
Robert
-
Thank You for the answers . To extend this discussion further (to help me and others interested)
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1347922&topic=2371325&ctx=topic
Google apparantly treats some ccTLDs (such as .tv, .me, etc.) as gTLD
.as .bz .cc .cd .co .dj .fm .la .me .ms .nu .sc .sr .tv .tk .ws
-
Google should not penalize you for using .in or .ca however like William said Google may give top priority to the .com version of your site especially because you are targeting the USA and your SEO effort will benefit the.com more than it will benefit you especially with branded names and direct traffic. Hope this helps.
-
It won't rank you as well. Penalize too harsh of a word. You will still rank but your rankings increase much more if you have a TLD, .com, .net, .org.
Of course these statements can be irrelevant if the site is a viral site. But even bit.ly moved to bitly.com(not exact reason why they changed though).
EDIT: Not to mention that the .ca or .in could be liable for Canada and India laws respectively.
But hey, if you are looking for business in Canada or India, it would be an awesome domain!
-
So if I understand you correctly .. Google will Penalize me when ranking(in the US) when I have .in or .ca
Is the above a fair statement
-
.com would be best but .ca and .in will most likely not work well if your target is in US.
.ca and .in is used and definitely considered when ranking. I suggest you come up with another variation of the domain and get a .com.
One of the main problems I can see off the bat is that the current owners of the sites .com, .net might already have a huge presence and it will hinder majority of your efforts because you will most likely never beat out the .com(unless its nonexistent or spam).
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
-
How long does google takes to crawl a single site ?
lately i have been thinking , when a crawler visits an already visited site or indexed site, whats the duration of its scanning?
Algorithm Updates | | Sam09schulz0 -
On page vs Off page vs Technical SEO: Priority, easy to handle, easy to measure.
Hi community, I am just trying to figure out which can be priority in on page, off page and technical SEO. Which one you prefer to go first? Which one is easy to handle? Which one is easy to measure? Your opinions and suggestions please. Expecting more realistic answers rather than usual check list. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Hotel SEO, 3-pack & Search Console: How to get the right data and how to improve CTR?
Hey guys, I've been working with some hotels and I feel like there are some specific issues which need special solutions.
Algorithm Updates | | Maggiathor
Maybe some of you also work for hotels and face similar problems. Question 1: Google "forces" 3-packs impressions to OTAs like booking.com via Hotel Ads. You basically have a big blue "book now" button and a small little website button. This ends up basically leading to CTRs below 1% despite a 1-3 Position. Is there any way to improve the organic CTR? Of course we use hotel ads, but they offer bad analytics AND we basically pay for our SEO-Performance. Question 2: Search console doesn't specify wether or not a impression comes from 3-Pack or the rest of the organic results, which basically leads to a average position which says nothing. It's hard to evaluate the performance of meta-titles and texts, because the ctr is also mixed. What would be a better way to get this data or do you think google will change this in some time (new search console doesn't offer this). Question 3: Hotel Rankings are dominated by OTAs, Meta-Searchers and BIg Chains. Has anyone experience in SEO for smaller, family owned Hotels? Any tricks how to get a steady traffic source outside of brand results? Hope there are some travel experts in here 🙂0 -
Having 2 domains with same name - Impact on SEO
Hi AllAs we still dwindle with the rankings not coming in line with the efforts.I have a question: We have 2 websites 1. http://www.example.com/ (which lost traffic and rank in Jan 2013). So we assumed that it was due to some penguin penalty. So we worked on disavow extra but nothing actually helped.Though there was no manual penalty mentioned in the GWT. Frustrated with this we thought of having another website 6 months back: 2. https://example.org/ - we did all the right things and by the book. But we are not seeing ranking here too. We did backlink analysis on all competitors and worked on only quality links they had. So all our links are highly highly relevant. But still the ranks are not moving beyond third page...in fact they moved to 6-7 page in last 2-3 days. Please suggest .. 1. is it due to same name of domain (our brand name) causing the issue. If yes should we go for 302 or 301 redirect to save ourselves from any penalty that our last website may have got. We can not leave that name unattended as our cataloges etc have that website mentioned. i will expect a scientific reply here not gut feeling please. 2. Is it to do with .org domain extension that it should not be with commercial organizations like us Kindly reply at the earliest Regards Aman
Algorithm Updates | | Aman_1230 -
Is it better to build a large site that covers many verticals or many sites dedicated to each vertical
Just wondering from an seo perspective is it better to build a large site that covers many verticals or build out many sites one for each vertical?
Algorithm Updates | | tlhseo0 -
Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice
Greetings, Im a new SEO and really knew nothing until signing up to SEOMoz. After reading the SEO101 and gathering as much information in a short period of time things started to become a little clearer. So I started my first campaign used my new SEO knowledge and input all of my meta information. Then I waited a few days to see what happened with my search result. We had never ranked for a single keyword before mind you. So a couple/few of days go by and I started punching in my keywords and looking through the pages. There I was page three. I was SO happy. I read the entire SEO101 again, realized a little more about what I had to do. So I started changing everything up, adding pictures, I found out what a IMG ALT Attributes were in the HTML editor, bolded text and all the other things I missed the first time around. Three days go by and I move up again. I start to notice my traffic is increasing and I am actually getting organic hits through search traffic. This has never happened before. I am over the moon. But I realize that I have my main focus keyword as the second key word in my title tag. So I switch the two words around, wait a few more days. Here's why I ask my question. The original title tag was still showing up and I was on the first page for both keywords, and I could see both title tags when searching for either keyword. So; Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice ? Warmest regards, Michael S&M Warning: adult site, NSFW
Algorithm Updates | | Sexandmetal0 -
What's better .NET or a hyphenated.COM domain
What's better .NET or a hyphenated .COM domain I know this is simple but in selecting a domain for my current project and I only have two options. firstname-lastname.COM or
Algorithm Updates | | RonSparks
firstnamelastname.NET I'm leaning to the .COM as after reading the how to choose a domain name post. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name Thanks1 -
Singular vs plural SEO
Hi everyone, OK I've been looking at the Google adwords keyword tool and it's thrown some of my On-page SEO into question (everything said here are examples, I haven't used any real life terms or figures). Lets say my page is about "Green Apples", let's say the keyword tool shows that the singular version "Green Apple" gets more searches (as an example). Should I optimize for the singular or the plural? Also lets say my title tag for that page is "Green Apples | Apples Galore UK" would Google/SEOmoz count that as an optimisation for the singular "Green Apple" or do the search engines take the title literally and don't differenciate between singular and plurals? Thanks in advance everyone! Regards, Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshSEO20112