Website in English targeting different countries - is it worth investing in .com?
-
Hi,
I was wondering...
Let's say there is a company in Norway and It sell tours in Norway. Website is only in english, content stays exactly the same for each country (as the website is for people looking for tours in Norway). The domain is registered with .no ccTLD. Main target is USA, Canada and Uk and couple of other countries in Europe. Would the website benefit from having .com instead of .no?
Thanks!
-
The structure is really going to be up to you. The differences in terms of what helps ranking are so very small today that it is better to choose based on user preference and your own.
For consistency, it would be best to get a .co.uk that is on brand, but that route takes a ton of work over time. My favorite route is a subfolder (/uk) off of a gTLD in most instances.
If your .com.au is already ranking well, expect that to keep happening until the UK subsite has had a chance to strengthen. And make sure your content is different!
-
Hi Kate - here's the results - essentially its suggesting a number of options for URL structure similar to ones I am tossing up between but still unsure which is the best option in short or long term?
Keep in Mind:
- The site content in each country must be different.
- Don't use IP detection for country targeting, but ask your customers to set a cookie.
- Only use people native to the country for outreach in order to minimize cultural differences.
Action Items:
- Pick the URL structure for your international growth and stick with it. Keep in mind that the structure needs to include both translations and geo-targeting. We recommend one of the following options:
- ccTLD and subfolder:
www.domain.co.uk/de/product - ccTLD and parameter:
www.domain.co.uk/product?lang=fr - Subdomain and parameter:
ca.domain.com/product?lang=fr - Subdomain and subfolder:
ca.domain.com/fr/product - Subfolder and parameter:
www.domain.com/ca/product?lang=fr
- ccTLD and subfolder:
- Translate your content. Don't machine translate; while manual translation is costly, it's the best for your brand and user experience.
- Put your HREFLANG in XML sitemaps.
- Use the Language Meta tag for Bing translation targeting.
- Set up Google Webmaster Tools Geo-Targeting.
- Set up Bing Webmaster Tools Geo-Targeting.
-
Did you visit that tool? Can you let me know the result?
-
Hey Kate
Really appreciate you taking the time to respond and help out!
So for a business that is currently operating in USA, Canada, Australia, NZ and opening in UK and Germany soon with further expansion on cards how would you tackle this scenario:
I already have a .com.au that ranks #3 on Page1 of Google for highest traffic keyword
I have a .co.nz that ranks #5 on Pg1 for highest traffic keywordNow looking to do do a .co.uk howver someone has pinched it. Do you suggest going for:
.com/uk/
uk.domainname.com (and keep reusing subdomains
Or a .co.uk domain?Just as an FYI and to throw futher spanner in the works.... my .com.au domain ranks on #2 for Page1 of Google UK for my target keyword as its currently not very competetive
Any feedback is helpful!
-
Thank you!
Have a lovely day
-
Yes, but that is if none of your competitors ever move to a gTLD. It's one of many factors. The right thing to do is bite the bullet and move it now. But I would not expect much of a short term gain.
-
To sum up: preferably go with .com. Itself it wouldn't have a big impact but in long run and with good SEO strategy in place it should actually help with ranking.
On the other hand if i go with .no and do the same work, the effect should be generally the same, right?
-
In theory, all else being equal in terms of relevance, page quality, and ranking page strength (which it never is), yes. Your page would be from a site that is not targeting a specific country, so it should be marginally more relevant. However, as stated above, it won't MAKE you rank better for sure. There are a host of other factors.
And yes, it is lack of knowledge and geo-centricity. You all see .no more often, so that is the go to in the other business owners heads. Lack of knowledge is the primary problem though.
-
So lets have this example of another nordic country: Iceland
If you type "tours in iceland" - 90% pages that will come up will have .is ending. Yet they are still ranking internationally. If we were to launch a .com in Iceland, would it have an advantage over the other ones(assuming that everything else is equal)?
Why they are all using ccTLD? Is it lack of knowledge?
-
Actually, if the page is the most relevant to the users query, any TLD can rank well in Google.com, Google.co.uk, etc.
This is not a matter of user preference. It is a matter of indicating the the search engines what your target market is. A ccTLD indicates that you want to only target one country. That is not the case here. But they can rank with a .no to users in the other countries, it is just harder.
-
You can't geo-target a ccTLD to another country outside of the ccTLD's country, so depending on your business needs, you might need a gTLD like .com. Check out this strategy tool and let me know what result you get. I can recommend further from there. http://outspokenmedia.com/international-seo-strategy/
-
Hm, actually no. It's an interesting dilemma, but I would still prefer the .com.
You are too focused on your product - and not enough on your target audience. They are not from Norway - therefore the .no is wasted.
-
Hi Leszek,
Your target markets/audience will not come to google.no or any other search engine with .no extensions to search. Search engines they will be searching on will be with .com, .ca and .co.uk etc. so it certainly makes sense for you to invest in .com or some other generic domains like .tour etc. if available for your industry.
-
Hi LSlversen,
thank you for your response.
But don't you think that people looking to book tours in Norway expect to do it on the website located in Norway (domain-wise)?
-
Thank you Kate for response.
-
I would definitely use the .com domain.
Honestly, in your situation a .no doesn't make that much sense. The site is about Norway, sure, but your language is English and you're targeting basically every other country than Norway. If you're using a ccTLD, it's fair for a consumer to expect the language on the website to match the cc - which is not the case here.
So a .com would absolutely be the way to go, in my opinion.
-
Hey Kate
What would you suggest for a .com.au domain that is now looking to expand into UK?
Would you suggest uk.domainname.com.au or www.domainname.com.au/uk/ ?
Is there a best practise for this?
-
Yes. Simply put, all else being equal, if you are targeting an multiple country international audience in which your offerings do not change, you should have a general TLD rather than a ccTLD. I can't say that you will start ranking better for sure, but it'll help in the long run.
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
-
Redirecting an Entire Website?
Is it best to redirect an old website to a new website page by page to like pages or just the entire site all at once to the home page of the new site? I do have about 10 good pages on the site that are worth directing to corresponding pages on the new site. Just trying to figure out what is going to preserve the most link juice. Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | photoseo10 -
Despite proper hreflang and lang attribute implementation using xml sitemaps, I'm seeing sitelinks from different countries. Any help please?
When someone searches for our brand in US, instead of only US links, users are served with canadian or iranian sitelinks. Despite we have properly implemented xml sitemaps with hreflangs, even we have implemented lang attribute in the head section of source code for every country. I'd be thankful for any advice.
Technical SEO | | eset0 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
Should I change my targeted page?
Currently I have a site where the targeted keywords were on the home page, with links built to the homepage. It has been widely recognised though that Google is looking more and more for specific content on webpages that holds greater relevance to search queries. As such, I switched this targeted page to other created webpages - changing metatags and creating more relevant content for respective keywords. I thought this would improve rankings, however, upon doing this there was a sharp fall in rankings for keywords. Is there anything that I could have done wrong, or can do better so that keywords move back up the rankings?
Technical SEO | | Gavo0 -
Website is not indexed in Google
Hi Guys, I have a problem with a website from a customer. His website is not indexed in Google (except for the homepage). I could not find anything that can possibly be the cause. I already checked the robots.txt, sitemap, and plugins on the website. In the HTML code i also couldn't find anything which makes indexing harder than usual. This is the website i am talking about: http://www.xxxx.nl/ (Dutch) The only thing that i am guessing now is the Google sandbox, but even that is quite unlikely. I hope you guys discover something i could not find! Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | B.Great0 -
Including videos on an eCommerce website.
Hi,
Technical SEO | | ChrisHolgate
We're about to start integrating video content on our eCommerece site in order to bolster the quantity and diversity of useful content that each page presents a potential customer. We’re talking product reviews, information relating to the differences between different products and company information. From an SEO perspective it has been suggested that Google will like this however I have a question regarding the actual method of integration. Usually I would just insert some embed code linking to the correct video on our YouTube channel however I’m really conscious that a search engine will just see the embed code, notice the page loads slightly slower and not really gain anything useful from the video file. I’m assuming that this isn’t the case but I have several questions: - Would you host on YouTube and simply insert the embed code in to the page. Would any alternative site (or even self-hosted) be preferable? - Should I be padding out either side of the embed code with a description of the video and an annotation on OUR site? - Does Google actually look at the link and ascertain the relevance of the video file to the actual page? If it does this does it gain anything useful that could help on-page SEO? These are probably all pretty basic questions for which I do apologise but I want to make sure that before spending a sizable amount of time on this that we start off with a correct integration! Many thanks0 -
Google.com
Hi We are managing a .com site for a client working on getting the site ranking. The site is hosted in the US. The content is rich, deep and unique. The site is in a competitive market but had begun ranking top 50 for a selection of keywords and we could see many more in the top 100. The site is now going backwards and only has a few keywords ranking top 50 and all the others have disappeared from the rankings all together. Any thought as to what could cause this. The site is managed from the Uk but as mentioned is hosted in the US. No penguin issues as all content unique, rich, relevant and fresh. SEO is also managed from the UK. Thoughts
Technical SEO | | SEOwins0 -
Global SEO Targeting
Hi, I have a website currently on the domain example.co.uk (.com is not available) I'm looking to enter other markets such as Brazil, Russia - obviously content will need to change to suit the desired market / language. I'm looking for some information on the best practice to enter foreign markets. I was thinking maybe to create individual sites for each location eg: example.br example.ru This way I could localise each site in terms of business directories, content, language etc. Or have my example.co.uk with various languages on it Experience, suggestions are welcomed - thanks.
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0