How is the effect of an abbreviated domain?
-
Hi,
i am looking to register a domain name for an island in the english/spanish spoken part of America. The names for xxxxisland.com are already registered but xxxxisla.com is free. Does it has any effect on my SEO when i use a shorter version of island respectively the spanish name for island?
Thanks
-
My Pleasure Falk
-
Thanks
-
Hi Falk
Here is a nice response by Anthony on "use abbreviations for domains?" : http://www.seomoz.org/q/use-abbreviations-for-domains
Hope it helps.
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
-
Using a top level domain name and directing it to a subfolder
Hi, we have a large international network. Our main website sits on .com domain and is used by the UK market. We have an international site in a subdirectory .com/dk/ for Denmark for example. We have also purchased the domain name www.ourcompany.dk/. Should we be forwarding the domain name (www.ourcompany.dk/) to point to the subdirectory www.ourcomany.com.dk/ so in the browser it shows up as www.ourcompany.dk or should we be displaying it as www.ourcompany.com/dk/? Are there any pros and cons to this method? Which one is best and are there any benefits in SEO. Ideally we want the .com domain name to have the best domain authority so would this impact it in any way? Any tips would be great.
International SEO | | Easigrass0 -
Impact changing domain from ccTLD to .com
I've got a couple of clients who have an international market for their products or services. Both of these clients have a .co.uk domain. For one site the US market is the major audience, the other it's european countries. At the moment, neither of these clients have translated page or content targeted to a specific country. There are no plans at this stage to create such content. Google considers the .co.uk to be targeted to the United Kingdom. The assumption is that by changing this to .com it will increase their international reach. For both the domains, referral and direct traffic is much more diverse than organic (which as you'd expect is heavily UK weighted - but there is some international organic traffic) Does anyone have any experience making such a change? How did the change affect your international reach/visibility? Does anyone have any metrics that they'd like to share that could be used to make a case to clients? (Note, I'm not interested in how you'd go about handling the domain change - I'm happy/confident about doing this.)
International SEO | | DougRoberts0 -
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 -
.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?
International SEO | | driansmith0 -
Does penguin update affect all sub-domains?
A UK sub-domain of a big US site got hit by Penguin last week. The two operations are completely separate apart from sharing a parent domain. The US site also run a multitude of other sub-domains in the same marketplace. Their link profile is not squeaky clean. The question is, could the actions of the US site, either in bad links, or poor on-site issues, have caused Penguin to hit the UK sub-domain? Unfortunately I have no access to the US Analytics or rankings data to know if they were hit by Penguin too. Thanks
International SEO | | BeattieGroup0 -
Multiple domains for one site / satellite domains
Hi, I know this has been asked a few times before but I want to clarify everything my own head. We've recently relaunched a website for a client that combined three existing sites into one. The new site is http://www.gowerpensions.com/ I've added 301 rewrite rules to the three old domains to to point to the correct page on the new website, i.e the old contact page goes to the new one, the about page to the new about page etc, etc. The old domains are thehorizonplan.com, horizonqrops.com and horizonqnups.com. I've informed Google Webmaster Tools of the change. The client also has several other domains such as horizonpensions.com and qnupscheme.com. Am I correct in thinking I should not park these domains on top of the gowerpensions.com website as this will be seen as duplicate content? I don't think there is anything linking to these domains. They might not even be listed in Google. With the thehorizonplan.com, horizonqrops.com and horizonqnups.com domains there are existing links to them, but will parking these on top of gowerpensions.com cause a problem, or should I keep my 301 redirects forever? Would a better strategy be to make microsites on all of the satellite domains that link to the main one to create more relevant links? If this is the case then I'd need to fix any third party links to the old horizon domains. I hope that makes sense. Thanks Ric
International SEO | | BWIRic0 -
Geo-targeting a sub-folder that's had url's rewritten from a sub-domain
I have a client that's setting up a section of his site in a different language, and we're planning to geo-target those pages to that country. I have suggested a sub-folder solution as it's the most cost effective solution, and it will allow domain authority to flow into those pages. His developer is indicating that they can only set this up as a sub-domain, for technical reasons, but they're suggesting they can rewrite the url's to appear as sub folder pages. I'm wondering how this will work in terms of geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I geo-target the sub domain or the sub folder i.e. does Google only see urls or does it physically see those pages on the sub-domain? It seems like it might be a messy solution. Would it be a better idea just to forget about the rewrites and live with the site being a sub domain? Thanks,
International SEO | | Leighm0 -
Country specific domains pointing to a .com site
Hello, I am new to seo so please be easy if this happens to be a "silly" question. My company has a .com site. We are expanding into global markets, focusing on specific countries right now. General question: Would I be penalized for duplicate content if I purchased country-specific domains and pointed them to the .com site? Thanks, Jim
International SEO | | jimmer0