Are provincial third-level domains bad for SEO?
-
My prospect's domain ends in ".on.ca" (Ontario, Canada).
The structure of their site is companyname.on.ca (main page) and all other pages are sub-folders (companyname.on.ca/page-name-1
All pages are no more than two levels deep.
I'm wondering if anyone knows if the provincial sub-domain (.on.ca) presents an SEO challenge?
-
"most provincial level domains are reserved for government institutions" - I didn't know this, very interesting bit of info there!
It would be very hard to say if they had been definitively hindered but IMO it's seeming more and more likely
-
Not a problem
-
Thank you.
-
You're correct. As a Canadian, I wouldn't be concerned with a county level domain. For example: thismotel.ca but a .com would be better as they also attract customers from outside of Canada.
But they have a provincial second level domain. .on.ca. (thismotel.on.ca), no site can be found under just thismotel.ca and a search for WHOIS on CIRA results in this message "The domain name requested has usage restrictions applied to it."
Based on my research they've likely had this domain since before 2010 as now most provincial level domains are reserved for government institutions.
I'm thinking they will likely need a new domain for user experience alone, but I don't know if the fact they have a provincial second level domain has hindered them in the past with their SERP rank.
-
To echo what's been said:
-
no clear SEO downside of you using the TLD .on.ca
-
there may be benefit to procuring other TLDs for your domain name, particularly if:
-
.com is available,
-
you serve other provinces or other countries (and not just Ontario), and
-
your search competitors tend to use non-provincial TLDs (e.g. .com, .ca, .org, etc)
-
-
You are right but my POV is that although it's a different situation, the same limiting factors might come into play. Event with just one site with one region based TLD, these points from Google are still valid (mostly, some can be ignored):
Country-specific domain
Cons:
- Expensive (can have limited availability) - still relevant but also since this cost is already paid, of little concern to OP
- Requires more infrastructure - this is irrelevant as it's just one site so loads of infrastructure won't be needed
- Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes) - still relevant but also since this cost is already paid, of little concern to OP
-
Pros:
- Clear geotargeting - this is highly relevant and could, IMO, if Google had written the documentation correctly - also have been listed in the cons pile
- Server location irrelevant - n/a
- Easy separation of site - n/a
So the main thing to focus on here is this statement from Google on country-specific domains:
"Clear geotargeting"
... now "clear geotargeting" can be highly beneficial, it can give your site and pages more 'relevance' for a specific area. But it's a double-edged sword! If you have international ambition, it can be a limiting factor (that's really what I was getting at) and it could make ranking internationally, very difficult indeed. It would mean that when OP does decide to go international (if that time ever comes) OP will either require a network of domains which could be costly in terms of setting up all the required infrastructure
So although OP's setup might be ok 'for now', later it could become an unwieldy leviathan which proves to be... not very scaleable. Or at the least, not so easily scaleable
So OPs decision is, does OP want to have some local gains now at the cost of having a more difficult time later when OP scales the site, or is OP unwilling to make that trade?
And think of this: Google have pretty much stated numerous times that 'locked' geo-targeting (to one specific area, either through TLD choices or Google Search Console) can make it much more difficult to rank outside of the specified area. One could make the assumption that for provincial TLDs, if Google starts interpreting them in a similar way - it could be hard to rank even outside of the local province. That could be a real thorn in OPs side later, though right now it might matter much
The truth is no approach is intrinsically 'good' or 'bad' for SEO. It entirely depends on OPs goals, KPIs and ambitions (to which we are not currently party)
-
I may have misunderstood, but I don't think 22Eighteen was asking about having multiple sites with different TLDs targetting multiple areas, I got the impression that this was a single site that happened to have a provincial TLD.
-
Google haven't extended this documentation to cover provincial third-level TLDs but if you look here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en
... there's a table on the page (scroll down) which you might find quite useful. It outlines the various pitfalls of different types of local-specific URLs. I'd expect this kind of stuff to hold true for the newer provincial TLDs
-
I've never come across any issues with using a variety of TLD from a purely SEO point of view. I would argue that they can have some effect on CTR (which could indirectly affect your rankings) if you have competitors that use "more important" TLR with the same subdomain, e.g. yourdomain.co.uk vs yourdomain.com, but in your case, with a company name, this seems less likely to be an issue. While I would recommend getting hold of the other domains (if they haven't already) and redirecting, I would suggest migrating to a different TLD if they have used the original domain for a long period.
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
-
Blogging for SEO in Muse 2017
Can anyone give advice about SEO - specifically blogging in Wordpress and embedding it in your Muse site - that is specific to the 2017 updates. I found a lot of negative information, but that was mostly on forums from 2+ years ago. On their own forums, Muse says that you can get SEO plugins that help with this, but I am not sure I can trust those with clients yet. I have worked in Wordpress for years, but prefer the design freedom adobe provides. Specifically I am worried about whether the traffic to the site would be credited to the wordpress blog (on a different URL) or if it positively impacts my own URL used for the muse site. Would it be considered duplicate content? Also, are there any solutions that I don't know to ask about? Thanks in advance for listening.
Web Design | | Jesiwicks0 -
URL Structure's Effect on SEO
Hello all, I have a client who currently has a very poor URL structure. As it stands, their URLs are formatted in the following manner: http://www.domain.com/category/subcategory/page In all my years of SEO, however, I have always tried to implement the following format: http://www.domain.com/category/page The web designer for this particular project has been very reluctant to change the structure for obvious reasons, but I'm convinced that by modifying the URL structure, SEO will improve. I am correct in thinking this? Likewise, if I am able to get the URL structure changed, what do I need to look out for to make sure we don't lose any traction for our keyword terms? Any and all insight/suggestions is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
Web Design | | maxcarnage0 -
Infinite Scroll and SEO - Is it enough to only link to the previous and next page in the pagination?
Hi all, We are implementing an eCommerce site where the results pages of the products will be visibile on one page (always loading new products when you scroll down the page). Now, I have read that the Google spiders cannot "load" new products scrolling down the page, hence the spider only sees the first few products of the results page. Our developer wants to implement a system where a users sees the first products on example.com/products Then scrolling down, he will see new products with the URL changing to example.com/page/2 and so on. Is it enough that we add a pagination link that goes from example.com/products to example.com/page/2 Then another link that goes from example.com/page/2 to example.com/page/3 and so on, so the Google spider can make his way through all the pages? Or is that too much deep linking and the spider wouldn't even crawl all the results pages? Any recommendations how to go about this? Many thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
Can wordpress actually be bad for sites if it static?
Hello, So last year I did rank for my website. Yet I switched from Adobe Muse to wordpress. I thought it would be great for updating and blobbing if I ever do it. So I got a theme, and went for it I have Yoast and that's it for plugins. But if I take say another couple of years to blog, am I hurting myself with wordpress? Like Google knows I am using wordpress so it expects me to be creating content? I know its an odd question, just had to ask
Web Design | | Berner0 -
I need help with international SEO for two sites?
I'll try to keep this clear... I am working with an company based in Germany, they own company.com/de and company.com/en, and that's how they are currently structuring their domains. They also own companyusa.com that they really want to show up in USA only. They want to keep company.com/en for England/english speaking Europe and company.com/de for their German audience in Germany. They are wanting us to optimize/SEO for companyusa.com, and they want that URL to show up as the top google search in the USA for their "company" keyword. What is showing up now is www.company.com/en 1st in Google because it's been around longer and it has more domain authority. What is the best practice for us optimize companyusa.com so that it is the top dog in the USA while not messing up the other domains? Should we merge? Subfolders all around? Thanks for all the input.
Web Design | | Rocket.Fuel0 -
Drop Down Menus & SEO?
Do these typically have a negative impact on SEO? I know this is kind of a vague question, does it make it harder to spider? Are there SEO friendly ways of coding these? There are so many sites out there that have these, so I've got to assume it's different on a case by case basis.
Web Design | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
What are the SEO best practices for infinite scrolling?
Is infinite scrolling bad for SEO? Is there a way to implement infinite scrolling without hurting a site's SEO?
Web Design | | BostonWright0 -
How WP Themes work with Navigation Structure for SEO and JQuery Headers?
I am trying to find the best WP Theme for our company. I noticed most of them do not offer a left hand side navigation on the home pages, and usually are on the right side on the inside pages. I always thought that Home Page links were very important for SEO. Currenly we have a left drop down navigation with all of our product catagories, keyword optimized. The structure follows for all the pages. Is this not as important to Search Engines anymore? Is it better to have a products link, to all the products and then the inside pages, have just a navigation bar, for that particular catagory? This seems to be very common on all the templates i am seeing. I also noticed, and really like the JQueary Tabs. I would use this for displaying, PDFs and Specifications Charts. Also, some home page images are using a jquery slider with some text, linking to a page. Is Jquery the new javascript and do search engines see what is in the code? I also noticed they all have footers that have links and some other information. Is this a SEO must have?
Web Design | | hfranz0