Keyphrase ranking a geo-redirected site in Google
-
Hi all
This is the situation. I have a client who runs a number of ccTLD sites (all exact match brand name domains), including a .com which they use for the US.
This is a hair care product and due to Advertising Standards Authority (UK) restrictions, they cannot use a certain phrase to promote their products - 'hair loss' on the domain.co.uk site. However, in the US, there is no such restriction and can use wording this on the site.
A brand name search in google.co.uk brings up .co.uk as 1st result and .com as 2nd result, so the .com is indexed in google.co.uk. Any non-US user visiting domain.com will be redirected to their ccTLD site.
Here's my question - could I feasibly get the domain.com site ranking in google.co.uk for certain 'hair loss' based keyphrases, considering the fact that I can mention it in the copy on there but not on the domain.co.uk site. Would I need to remove any Geographic Target in the WMT account for domain.com?
Or is this a form of Google cloaking and could see the site penalised?
Thanks
-
It's not against Google guidelines for two of your domains to rank for one query - as long as what Google sees for those domains matches what users see, that's permitted and wouldn't be considered cloaking. I can't speak to the UK legal aspects, of course.
Whether it's a a good idea or not is a bit tougher to answer. If your removed geo-targeting and your two sites seemed to have very similar English-language content, it's possible they could compete with each other in unexpected ways or that one could get filtered out. Typically, if that happens, Google will filter out the .com in the Google.co.uk searches, so, at worst, you'd be back where you started. I don't think it's a big risk - just something to keep your eyes open about. If ranking both lets you hit some terms that you couldn't otherwise, their may be a business advantage. I'd just monitor the SERPs closely and make sure you don't encounter side effects.
The only thing I would warn about is don't try to trick Google into thinking the .com is the UK site or vise-versa. If Google naturally shows both and that lets you target different keywords, that's fine.
-
You could just rel="canonical" to all the US pages you want to out-rank the UK pages.
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 do hreflang attributes affect ranking?
We have a site in English. We are considering translating the site into Dutch. If we use a hreflang attribute does that mean we have to create a duplicate page in Dutch for each English page, or does Google auto-translate? How would duplicate pages, even if they are in a different language, affect ranking?
International SEO | | Substance-create0 -
US site vs New Canadian site for Brand
Hi Everyone, My company decided to create a Canadian site for Canadian customers. How do I slowly transition the US site for ranking in Google.ca? I was thinking of using robots.txt to block Google.Ca from crawling the US site? Can anyone provide some advice oh how this should be managed? Thank you!
International SEO | | JMSCC0 -
Need help with search results for US site for a compnay that has many international sites
I am tasked with optimizing a US site for a company that has many international sites. Currently, if you search for just the main company name and don't include "USA" in your search, it won't even give you the US site on the SERP. It displays the Italian, French, etc etc sites - even though I'm searching on Google in the US with a preferred language of Engilsh. Unfortunately I don't have any control over the other sites, only the US one. Is there anything I can add to the US site (aside from setting the country code in GSC) so that when someone searches from within the USA, they get the US site and not all of the other ones? thanks!
International SEO | | SEOIntouch0 -
Does replacing of external redirects impact SEO?
Previously I have asked about the replacing of internal redirects with actual live pages. The answer is, yes it'll work but may not be huge impact. Now I am concerned with external redirects. We have enough number of external redirecting links. I am thinking to replace them with actual landing pages. Will this improve SEO? Thanks, Satish
International SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?
Hi, I have a question regarding the country targeting aspect of HREFLANG. Can the same site be targeted with multiple country HREFlang entries? Example: A global company has an English South African site (geotargeted in webmaster tools to South Africa), with a hreflang entry targeted to "en-za", to signify English language and South Africa as the country. Could you add entries to the same site to target other English speaking South African countries? Entries would look something like this: (cd = Congo, a completely random example) etc... Since you can only geo-target a site to one country in WMT would this be a viable option? Thanks in advance for any help! Vince
International SEO | | SimonByrneIFS0 -
International Sites - Sitemaps, Robots & Geolocating in WMT
Hi Guys, I have a site that has now been launched in the US having originally just been UK. In order to accommodate this, the website has been set-up using directories for each country. Example: domain.com/en-gb domain.com/en-us As the site was originally set-up for UK, the sitemap, robots file & Webmaster Tools account were added to the main domain. Example: domain.com/sitemap.xml domain.com/robots.txt The question is does this now need changing to make it specific for each country. Example: The sitemap and robots.txt for the UK would move to: domain.com/en-gb/sitemap.xml domain.com/en-gb/robots.txt and the US would have its own separate sitemap and robots.txt. Example : domain.com/en-us/sitemap.xml domain.com/en-us/robots.txt Also in order to Geolocate this in WMT would this need to be done for each directory version instead of the main domain? Currently the WMT account for the UK site is verified at www.domain.com, would this need reverifying at domain.com/en-gb? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
International SEO | | CarlWint0 -
3 month old site lost almost complete traffic overnight
Hi All, I started a Indian coupon and deal site http://www.couponspy.in/ around 3 month ago and traffic increased almost daily. But yesterday my site lost almost all of its traffic. Keywords which ranked 1-5 lost around 4-15 places and keywords which ranked 6-20 lost ca. 20-50 places. The Moz Crawl Diagnostics doesn't indicate any mayor issues. Has there been a Google Panda update in India? Reasons why my site has been affected? Please help!!!! 😉 I have seen the same traffic decrease on other coupon start ups, eg https://www.cuponation.in/ and https://www.cuponation.in/ Did we all make the same mistake? Any guesses?
International SEO | | ParvatiSingh0 -
Have I over-optimized (on-site optimization using SEOMoz tool)?
Hey all, Quite new to SEO although I tried to educate myself as much as I could. I just spent (really) a lot of time doing the onsite optimization of a few key pages of a website in 3 languages (in which I'm more or less conversational - with the help of Google Translate). I know content should not be misleading and feel natural. I think the result is natural but I'm not sure... I optimized as much as I could so as to reach an "A" grade as per SEOMoz tool for each page, for 1-4 keywords per page. I feel sometimes I stretched a bit, but not sure what "stretching" is given my lack of experience. So I was wondering if some of you could tell me what they thought and if there was some obvious don'ts in my work. Here are a few key pages I have optimized: The homepage: http://goo.gl/00Fti The search results page: http://goo.gl/b1fxE The property page: http://goo.gl/t2GdY The destinations page: http://goo.gl/0Kc0l Note that the other versions of the page - Italian & Spanish - may be more awkward, so I welcome your opinions for these as well (dropdown on top of the page to change the language). Thanks!!
International SEO | | Philoups0