Targeting different countries with domain name
-
Hi currently have a eCommerce store .com.au targeting Australia. We want to start targeting the US market with the same products.
I guess what would be the top choice in this case since our domain is location-specific to Australia and not a generic top-level domain (gTLD)?
Cheers,
Chris
-
@Seoman10 - don't really agree with your answer:
1. Targeting the us market with a .com.au extension doesn't make sense (source https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399)
"If your site has a generic top-level domain, such as .com or .org, you can help us determine which countries are most important to you. If your site has a country-coded top-level domain (such as .ie or .fr) it is already associated with a geographic region (in this example, Ireland or France). If you use a country-coded domain, you won't be able to specify a geographic location. "
2. Duplicate content on different TLD's if they target different countries / languages can be handled using hreflang tags (check https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077) in combination with geotargeting (check https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en#2)
Dirk
-
Typically the TLD should match that of the country you want to target, although practically I've never seen it make much difference. If it was a very competitive market sector and very location specific it may make more of the difference.
One thing you should be aware of do not just add a second TLD to your website, this will cause Google to see duplicate content which it doesn't like possibly other search engines as well.
-
Hi Jay,
I would suggest you to buy the .com domain if its available. Using a country specific domain to target international market is not a good idea. If .com isn't available, you can think about buying country specific domains to target various countries.
https://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo can help you understand more on this. Hope this 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
-
Domain Migration Hell!
5 weeks ago we migrated our site to a new domain. We also installed an SSL certificate on the new domain. The new domain was purchased 5 years ago but we only used it as a redirect address. It was more consistent with our brand so we decided to migrate to it. Great care was taken setting up page to page redirects. A formal domain change request was made to Google. In fact the move was implemented with only a handful of broken links on a 500 page site. Those links were quickly fixed. Our traffic declined from about 350 visitors a week to as low as 40 visitors the first full week after the move. Now the number of organic Google visits is up to 80, a drop of 75% !!! All except 20 (out of 500) pages are reindexed on Google Search Console. MOZ domain authority for the new domain has climbed from 5 to about 12. The old domain had a DA of 23. In Google Search Console hundreds of "URL Not Allowed" errors are the site map for our previous domain that redirects to our new domain. Attached please see image of this. The site map for the new domain appears normal, but about 160 pages are indexed that are not in the sitemap. I wonder if these two issues have somehow contributed to the drop in ranking. I have included images showing GCT for the 2 domains. I posted on MOZ a month ago and was told it just might take time. No improvement and now I am wonder if there is not some issue with the sitemaps causing havoc. Are traffic is down more than 80%. This does not seem normal. Any advice? Any suggestions as to how to expedite recovery? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?
There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake"). About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain? Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smpomoryCRH0 -
B2B site targeting 20,000 companies with 20,000 dedicated "target company pages" on own website.
An energy company I'm working with has decided to target 20,000 odd companies on their own b2b website, by producing a new dedicated page per target company on their website - each page including unique copy and a sales proposition (20,000 odd new pages to optimize! Yikes!). I've never come across such an approach before... what might be the SEO pitfalls (other than that's a helluva number of pages to optimize!). Any thoughts would be very welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Can you canonical your homepage to a different URL on the same domain?
I would like to know if it is acceptable (or even possible from Google's standpoint) to canonical your homepage to a different URL on the same domain? For example, my homepage is www.grasscare.com (it's not) and I've built links to that page for years for terms like "grass seed" and "buy grass seed" because all I sold in the past was grass seed. If I then decide I want to sell both grass seed and sod, can I canonical my homepage (grasscare.com) to a new URL www.grasscare.com/grasss-seed.html to preserve the link value I've built up for "grass seed"?The new homepage would turn into a doorway page of sorts, forcing users to select either grass seed or sod before going further. Whatever content there is on the new homepage about grass seed would also be present on grasscare.com/grass-seed.html, though it would only be a small amount of content. Can a canonical be used to point the homepage to this new page and also, will this canonical pass all of the link value and ranking signals it help in the past to the new URL? Thank you in advance for any help or insight.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andrewv0 -
Using Webmaster Tools to Redirect Domain to Specific Page on Another Domain
Hey Everyone, we redirected an entire domain to a specific URL on another domain (not the homepage). We used a 301 Redirect, but I'm also wondering if I should use the Google Webmaster Tools "Change of Address" section to redirect. There is no option to redirect the old domain to the specific URL on the new domain within the "Change of Address" section. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
No Results for Google/Bing Keyword Search by Domain Name
My site is bestwebconsult [dot] com When I do a search for my exact domain name in Google and bing, it does not appear at all. I have submitted a sitemap to Webmaster Tools. It is a relatively new site completed with in the last month. Built with Joomla. This leads me to believe that something is misconfigured on the website. Please advise, thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | crave811 -
New Domain name vs Low Ranked Existing Site
I am going to build a new site. I could hang it off an existing site with similar content or buy a new keyword rich domain and start over. The existing site does not have much trust or authority beyond the domain being registered for 5 plus years. I would prefer to start over and build linksfrom scratch but I realize we are starting at the bottom. The keywords we will be competing against are not super competetive so I think we can get ranking within 6 months or so. These post Panda days I am rethinking everything so any input is appreciated. I did a similar niche site a few years ago and found the site ranked well fairly quickly for its little nice. Today though it may be different. I have no experience in buying domains and would have no idea where to start there. New or existing? Thanks for any input.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Reportcard0 -
Local SEO - Business name and web address different
Howdy Local Experts, I'm hoping you can clear up something for me.. I'm setting up some places for a company that's spread across 5 cities. I am creaitng 5 separate locations for this. The company name is not the same as the website name. All the SEO efforts are for the website name ( the brand ) not the parent company name., so... 1. When creating the places do I enter the business name in "company/organisation" and put the brand name in the web site field? Or is it better for seo to have the brand name here as the company name too? 2. Are all 5 listings more or less going to be the same except for the address and phone numbers? I suppose unique photos etc for each location is better here? 3. When creating citations i am essentially going to be building 5 separate "links", one for each place is that correct. So adding the specific location details into the matching state and city business directories etc? 3. The exact business category doesn't accurately show up in the list. Do i select the closest thing here or create custom categories to better match the business. Apologies for the lenghty question, Derek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClickValueMedia0