.co.uk domain for US market??
-
I have a client in the UK with a very successful .co.uk domain.
He has also chosen to enter other markets by translating the website into different languages and acquiring the appropriate domains. So he has a .fr and a .de for example.
He wants a larger presence in the US market. The question is - Does he acquire the .com and ensure all pages are very different to the UK variant ( a lot of work) or is it more appropriate to use the .co.uk domain and (for example) acquire more US links to the site in order to increase its universal/US appeal in the eyes of Google?
-
Eyepaq,
You do have a point (and thanks for pointing out how it's CTR that is affected and not buying behavior). That said, I do not think the drop would be anywhere close to even 20% given you are switching to a .com. The world is used to .com's. What would be affecting it initially would be the movement of link juice, but he is not going to drop right away with the old domain even with the 301. So, organically he will see some diminution likely, but I doubt a lot.
Again, all of this MUST be weighed. There will be trade-offs. He must decide with the client what the tradeoffs are they want to achieve their goals.
Best,
-
Sorry, but had to take care of clients.
1. Again, not that they don't want to purchase from, just there would seem to be a hesitation to click on it vs a .com.
2. What risk is there in a 301? First, you mention throwing away years of work, how? The loss of link juice for a 301 is generally said to be 1 to 10%. However, my experience is and I have done more than a few on sites from 25 page professional practices to 800+ page ecommerce sites (I have not done a massive ecommerce site but would without worry as long as I was clear as to what I was doing and why.) With the sites I have done I have NEVER lost even 2% of the link juice. It usually takes a couple of months for all to transfer and that could present a problem if the site is going to dip for a month and lose some revenue. (Remember, all alternatives have costs so you have to measure each and look at modifications - e.g. if you are going to fall a bit in rankings as 301 works, you might increase PPC). As to domain age, the last one I did was 10 year old domain and the client is quite happy to be getting more customers.
3. You would not need subdomains. The best thing I can do for you is to direct you to an expert with a recent blog here on the moz. Gianluca Fiorelli lays it out brilliantly in International SEO: Dropping the Dust.
Understand, with any of what you are doing, experience will help and you might consider getting assistance and working with someone while looking over their shoulder.
Hope this helps,
Robert
-
Good point eyepaq. Ta
-
One add-on point: if you 301 redirect the co.uk to dot com your client might lose on CTR in the UK as english folks like anywhere else (well maybe France is making an exceptions as tehy only buy from Fr domains
are feeling more friendly towards regional domains (on most of the verticals).
-
Thats really helpful - thanks Robert.
Can I make a few points?
1. I understand totally your initial point about the desire of Americans NOT to purchase from a .co.uk site.
2. "What if instead, you acquire the .com ......, 301 redirect from the .co.uk to the .com" Interesting question. Would I take the risk of recommending this to a client? Would HE take the risk? It feels like throwing away years of work. Plus, there would be a loss of 'link-juice' via a 301. Makes me very nervous with a 7 year-old domain.
3. Unclear on the usage of the "rel=alternate hreflang="x" " coding. Am I correct in saying that (if we went with the .com) we could have sub-domains for each of the US, Australia, etc - and that the content could be identical? But this tagging would avoid any Google penalty?
Thanks
-
Yes, It was crossed out by Google WMT, the rel=alternate hreflang="x" replaced the use of canonicalization to fix the problem. Some say it was because people were having too much problem with the canonical. Not matter, this is an easy solution IMO.
Best,
-
Very interesting Robert. The link you provided has a section that talks about "Annotating pages as substantially similar content" - the aspect particularly pertinent to my dilemma/question. Unfortunately that section has been crossed out. Does your recommendation/suggestion remain the same?
Regards
Ian
-
Dr. Ian
Great question. The first hurdle I see with a desire to be in the US using a .co.uk site is one of perception from the searcher/customer more than one of ranking with Google. While it is talked about more with some other countries, people here still look at the .uk and ponder it. I will tell you I have quite a multi cultural family(Syrian wife, son born in Paris, etc.) and when searching personally for a product, the idea of purchasing from a .uk vs a .us site is part of the decision. Not from a quality/etc pov, but what about the shipping? (I think that before digging into the site.)
Now, when you say, "acquire the .com and insure all the pages are very different to the UK site (a lot of work)...", I would ask why does it need to be "very different" and why does it need to be a "lot" of work? What if instead, you acquire the .com or other gTLD, 301 redirect from the .co.uk to the .com, and have a single English language site that is out of the UK? Then, for pages that are more US with US $, etc. you could use rel=alternate hreflang="x" to distinguish for Google. Because all are used to the generic TLD, you do not have the perception issue. (You would need to do a 301 redirect to the new domain to maintain link juice, etc.). This would also allow you to use same for Australia, etc. as the site grows.
In this way, you could have duplicate or near duplicate pages, have a single site, and grow rankings on both sides of the pond.
Hope this helps,
Robert
edit to add GWMT link
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
-
What are the SEO implications of having a website hosted in Singapore (as a subdomain of the global website) when the website is targeting the UK audience?
What are the SEO implications of having a website hosted in Singapore (as a subdomain of the global website) when the website is targeting the UK audience? Will it be hard to get it to rank? Will there be problems with search console?
International SEO | | ToniFarrington-Allthingsweb0 -
Problems with the google cache version of different domains.
We have problems with the google cache version of different domains.
International SEO | | Humix
For the “.nl” domain we have an “.be” cache..
Enter “cache:www.dmlights.nl” in your browser to see this result. Following points are already adapted: Sitemap contains hreflang tag Sitemap is moved to the location www.dmlights.nl/sitemap.xml We checked the DNS configuration Changed the Content language in de response header to : Content-Language: nl-NL Removed the cache with webmastertools Resolved serverrequest errors. Can anyone provide a solution to fix this problem? Thanks, Pieter0 -
How to Use Additional Country Domains
Greetings Mozlings We have a .co.uk address but mostly sell to South East Asia. Is there a benefit to getting .com.my, .com.sg, .co.id addresses If we do how should we use them - a simple redirect to the .co.uk? A single page site with a link to the .co.uk Some other way We're resource and time lite so we're looking to maximise the benefits with the minimum time investment Cheers Denis
International SEO | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Is it possible to geotag language folders on a .co.uk domain
Hi all, I'm going around in circles a little on this one, so I thought that I'd as as I haven't found anyone asking quite the same thing (sorry if someone has). I have a .co.uk site and would like to set up some different language variations. I've been looking at the subfolder route for now (budget is limited). Can I set a geotag in webmaster tools on a .co.uk site or does it need to be a domain that Google considers country neutral? Many thanks for any suggestions!
International SEO | | ceecee0 -
Ranking issues for UK vs US spelling - advice please
Hi guys, I'm reaching out here for what may seem to be a very simple and obvious issue, but not something I can find a good answer for. We have a .com site hosted in Germany that serves our worldwide audience. The site is in English, but our business language is British (UK) English. This means that we rank very well for (e.g.) optimisation software but optimization software is nowhere to be found. The cause of this to me seems obvious; a robot reading those two phrases sees two distinct words. Nonetheless, having seen discussions of a similar nature around the use of plurals in keywords, it would seem to me that Google should have this sort of thing covered. Am I right or wrong here? If I'm wrong, then what are my options? I really don't want to have to make a copy of the entire site; apart from the additional effort involved in content upkeep I see this path fraught with duplicate content issues. Any help is very much appreciated, thanks.
International SEO | | StevenHowe0 -
Cross domain rel alternate, will it help or hurt?
I have a website that has similar pages on a US version and a UK version. Currently we want Uk traffic to go to the US, but the US domain is so strong it is outranking the UK in the UK. We want to try using rel alternate but have some concerns. Currently for some of our keywords US is #1, UK is #4. If we implement rel alternate, will it just remove our US page? We don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot and lose traffic. Is this worth doing, will it just remove our US ranking and our double listing? Any anecdotes, experiences or opinions are appreciated. Thanks.
International SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
Change domain from .es to .com
Hi all, we have a website with 2 domains name to point to it: -hacerfamilia.es -hacerfamilia.com We used to take .es like the default domain, so the .com redirected to the .es with a 301 header. But now we decided to change to .com because it is more international. So default domain would be .com. We made a multiple redirect to .es to .com with a simple htaccess rule, with a 301 header. The hosting it is the same, and the address too, for the two domains. Should we take any other steps? Thank you.
International SEO | | seoseoseos0 -
Domain strategy for UK and USA
Hi Everyone, We have example.org.uk with 20K inbound links. We want to target the US as well as the UK. I would be interested to hear what approaches are best for SEO. For example is it better to keep our current domain and have subdirectories for USA for example. Or would it be better to register example.org and then use subdirectories. Or is it better to use different domains for each country? Any help with this much appreciated. Cheers
International SEO | | MarkChambers0