Redirecting the .com of our site
-
Hey guys,
A company I consult for has a different site for its users depending on the geography. Example:
When a visitor goes to www.company.com if the user is from the EU, it gets redirected to http://eu.company.com
If the user is from the US, it goes to http://us.company.com
And so on.
I have two questions:
Does having a redirect on the .com will influence rankings on each specific sub-site? I suspect it will affect the .com since it will simply not get indexed but not sure if affects the sub domains.
The content on this sub-sites are not different (I´m still trying to figure out why they are using the sub-domains). Will they get penalized for duplicate content?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Gianluca!
As always, your advice is top notch.
Cheers!
F.
-
As written by David Sottimano in a comment to my post about International SEO, first consider this:
"Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language. These redirections could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site." - support.google.com source
Ask your client this: is it absolutely necessary to deliver the Irish user exclusively to the Irish site? Should the Irish user be able to see other sites?
If the answers are yes and no respectively, you can get away with IP sniffing & server side redirects as long as you do not force redirection on American IPs (Note: Gbot still crawls from the US, but if they change, this won't work). The downsides; usability issues, and the fact that American IPs can see anything they want.
You could also use client side redirection (javascript) with even American IPs with no real consequence (Gbot shouldn't* execute the JS). This is a bit more flimsy, and won't work at all with JS disabled users. Maybe use http://www.wipmania.com/en/api/ for example, and maybe test to see what pisses people off less?
Said that... I would not use geo redirections, but present a box hover or bar (as it does Google when you visit, for instance, Google.it from Finland) where asking if the want to visit the .eu site or prefer to visit the US one (and vice versa). That way you are sure your site will be crawled with not problems (at least not this problem).
For the duplicated content issue, check out what I write about the rel="alternate" hreflang in my post here on Moz.
-
Anyone else?
-
Anyone else can shed some light on this?
Thanks!
-
Hello,
Redirecting your main domain to sub-domain isn't a good technique in seo practice however it is still useful having some strong reason. As you said your client want a redirect based on geographical location and goes to sub-domain etc. In this matter I just wanna say it is extremely dangerous idea because of providing same content using different URLs could be a penalty be Google. It could be acceptable if you provide language translations with your sub-domains.
I hope this would be helpful to you.
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
-
Changing URL structure of site, including AMP - redirect AMP too?
So, I'm changing all the URLs of a site, including all its AMP URLs, I'll be redirecting all the normal URLs, but do I need to also redirect all the AMP pages?
Technical SEO | | alksfjasldfu934341 -
Mobile site content and main site content
Help, pls! I have one main site and a mobile version of that site (m.domain.com). The main site has more pages, more content, different named urls. The main site has consistently done well in Google. The mobile site has not: the mobile site is buried. I am working on adding more content to the mobile site, but am concerned about duplicate content. Could someone pls tell me the best way to deal with these two versions of our site? I can't use rel=canonical because the urls do not correspond to the same names on the main site, or can I? Does this mean I need to change the url names, offer different content (abridged), etc? I really am at a loss as to how to interpret Google's rules for this. Could someone please tell me what I am doing wrong? Any help or tips would GREATLY appreciated!!!!! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | lfrazer0 -
Should I show archives on site?
Should I show my archives on my site? I have WordPress and have dragged the archive widget to the bottom. Would this be considered duplicate content?This is what it looks like. October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012
Technical SEO | | MyAllenMedia0 -
Redirects
I have a question about 404ed domains and old domains. #1 A domain has many links to it, but has been 404ed for 4 months. Should I redirect to a page I own and is almost exactly the same content. Will the fact that it was once 404ed be an issue? #2 I have an old domain that has many links but has been stagnant for a long time. Are these links still valuable and I should I redirect them to an important page on a different site? Does penguin influence your advice?
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
How do I stop www.mysite.com/ showing as a duplicate of www.mysite.com
I have run the campaigns software over a site and it is showing that www.mysite.com/ is a duplicate of www.mysite.com, how do I correct this? Is it a genuine duplicate page? My first thought was to use rel canonical but there is no page called / to put it on. Your suggestions welcomed Sean
Technical SEO | | ske110 -
Want to Target Mobile site for Google Mobile Version and Desktop Site for Google Desktop Version
I have ecommerce site with both mobile version and desktop version. Mobile version starts with m.example.com and full version starts with www.example.com I am using same content through out both site and using 301 redirection by detecting user agent vice-versa. My both sites are accessible to crawl by any google spider. I have submitted both sites's sitemap to GWT and mobile site having mobile sitemap xml, so google can easily recognize my mobile site. Is it going to help to rank my both sites as per my expectation? I need to rank for mobile site in Google mobile and ranking for desktop site in Google desktop version. Some of pages of my mobile site are started to appearing in Google desktop version. So how I can stop them to appear in Google desktop? Your comments are highly welcome.
Technical SEO | | Hexpress0 -
Redirects
Hello, My question is: how important is it to wait for the a redirect to get seen and cached before you take down the old page? More in depth: my old platform has seriously limited my ability to add sitemaps and make edits to htacces. I just want to change nameservers (which will delete everything on there) and upload the htaccess is that alright? Another way of saying it: when redirecting a page, is it necessary for google to see the old page before it is deleted? Thanks Tyler
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
Will Google index a 301 redirect for a new site?
So here is the problem... We have setup a 301redirect for our clients website. When you search the clients name it comes up with the old .co.uk website. We have made this redirect to the new .com website. However on the SERPs when it shows the .co.uk it shows the old title pages which currently say 'Holding Page'. When you click on that link it takes you to the fully functioning .com website. My question is, will the title tags in the SERPs which show the .co.uk update to the new ones from the .com? I'm thinking it will be just a case of Google catching up on things and it will sort itself out eventually. If anyone could help I would REALLY appreciate it. Thanks Chris
Technical SEO | | Weerdboil0