Considering Switching Domain from .ca to .com for Service Area Business - What is the Risk / Reward?
-
Hello,
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to share their thoughts on this. I will preface this by saying that I am very new to the community and have lots to learn, so please forgive any obvious errors on my part. That having been said am very happy to receive positive criticism and feedback
Quick Background:
- We are a high end mobile wellness business based in Toronto Canada offering in home/office servicing including: yoga, pilates, nutrition, meditation, chiropractors, etc...
- As we are expanding  we are transitioning form new leads coming from business partners and word of mouth to driving new business online
- As such we have an new Squarespace site (which is the first site I ever built, so any feedback is welcome) and are venturing into social media, SEO, local citations etc... for the first time
- We have a significant content catalogue originally  for client and instructor education that we are now repurposing for this new digital adventure but have not yet deployed
- While currently focused in Torotno, we have plans to expand to several other countries in the next two years.
- As the site is quite new and we have little content or incoming links I was thinking now is the time to switch to .com from .ca before we roll out
Website: www.anahana.ca
Risk Reward? & Other Issues?
- Both domains are currently verified with Squarespace, and it seems easy enough to switch. What could blow up by making this switch which I might not be aware of?
- Our emails and business card use the .ca, but I don't think this would matter too much 6-12 months out... is there something else I might be missing on this?
- .com and using subfolders or subdomains as opposed to country specific TLDs ? This is something I am still working on understanding, but from what I have learned thus far, if we are going to progressively roll out a large content library, is it not better from an SEO standpoint to have this all in one domain?
- Local SEO and legal considerations for TLDs when operating local Service Area Businesses.
I am sure there are many other angles here that I am missing and am not really looking for any hard answer on much of this, but any general advice, suggested resources, and experienced insights would be extremely helpful.
Thanks so much,
cj
-
This is very helpful. Thank you very much for the answer.
There is lots to learn!!
-
Usually when you move pages from one URL to another, you can notice a minor dip in performance initially. This is because backlinks which hit your site through 301 redirects will give you less SEO equity than those which hit your website directly
That's just at the page level, but when the URL of every single page on a site changes, you get the same thing (it just encapsulates your total SEO performance rather than a small fraction of it). As long as the redirect migration project is handled properly by an expert at a high level of granularity, usually any performance dip (even for a whole website) is minimal
Even if your architecture doesn't change and there's no redesign, if all of your pages move from one domain to another that still counts as a 'migration' in SEO terms and you still need to take extensive measures to prevent traffic tail-off
An SEO expert should be crawling all of your current site's pages **AND **adding in historic URL (which may no longer be live) from Analytics / Omniture / Search Console. In that way, even legacy pages which may previously have been ignored can be properly redirected (rather than 'just' your live URLs before the move) which can add a little extra padding and security
You need to retain hosting on the old domain so that it can continue to host either a .htaccess or web.config file (Apache (Linux) vs IIS (Windows). This file will coordinate your granular and rule-based redirects
Having a list of your currently live (old domain) and legacy (no longer live) URLs is great but it's not enough. It's even better to scan all of those URLs using something like URL Profiler (which relies upon API keys and subscriptions to multiple other data sources, including Moz) to determine for yourself - which of these URLs are worth using your granular redirects on?
Typically you end up with a big spreadsheet that looks like this:
Because you're aggregating data from multiple sources, leave it to a data analyst. Don't allow such a project to be handled by an amateur. Invest in insuring your SEO performance by working with pros...
-
Hi there, if anything it'll help with local SEO as a type of trust signal
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
-
Page Structure for Law Firm with Multiple Services
Hello and thanks in advance for any help. I'll try to keep this simple. I am about to do some major SEO for our Law Firm. We have 4 practice areas and I will be focusing on Lemon Law Attorneys for this example. I always try my best to keep it clean, organized and for the user. This one just has me a little confused about which direction to take as its a little more complex. The business is 1 location. The office is in San Diego but we service all of California. CURRENT PAGE STRUCTURE
Local SEO | | ChrisCanada
.com (home)
.com/practice-areas/
.com/practice-areas/lemon-law-attorneys/
.com/practice-areas/service-two-example/
.com/practice-areas/service-three-example/
.com/practice-areas/service-four-example/ I did some research and got better keywords (listed below) KEYWORD & SEARCH VOLUME lemon law 40500
-Â california lemon law 9900
-Â lemon law california 9900
-Â lemon law attorney 3600
-Â california lemon law attorney 880
-Â lemon law attorney san diego 170 It would be nice to rank for both California and San Diego search terms but I'm ok if that's not the right way to do it. These are the options I can think of using Lemon Law Attorney as an example. I'd love to hear what you think would work best and im open to other options. PAGE STRUCTURE (Option A)
.com/practice-areas/
.com/practice-areas/lemon-law-attorney-san-diego/ PAGE STRUCTURE (Option B)
.com/practice-areas/
.com/practice-areas/california-lemon-law-attorney/
.com/practice-areas/california-lemon-law-attorney/lemon-law-attorney-san-diego/ PAGE STRUCTURE (Option C)
.com/lemon-law/
.com/lemon-law/california-lemon-law-attorney/
.com/lemon-law/california-lemon-law-attorney/lemon-law-attorney-san-diego/ PAGE STRUCTURE (Option D)
.com/lemon-law/
.com/lemon-law/california/
.com/lemon-law/california/san-diego/ PAGE STRUCTURE (Option E)
.com/lemon-law-attorney/
.com/lemon-law-attorney/california/
.com/lemon-law-attorney/california/san-diego/ The biggest problem I see if having to make unique Lemon Law content for both California and San Diego Lemon Law Attorney pages. I dont want the site to look spammy to the end user. At the same time I want to make sure im setting myself up for success from the start. Thank you,
Chris1 -
What markup/schema is "responsible" for location pin in mobile rich snippets?
Howdy, Saw this new(?) feature in mobile rich snippets (attached here). Anyone knows what part of schema (or whatever else) is making this appear? P.S. From all responses, and some thinking, it looks like the answer would be "who knows", as usual with Google. But most likely it would be related to usual LocalBusiness addressLocality itemprop. 0739Z5v
Local SEO | | DmitriiK0 -
Buying a .IE domain and forward to .com domain?
Hi, One of our clients currently owns a .com domain and they are interested in marketing into the Irish market. They have asked us if they should buy a .IE domain name and then forward it onto their .com one. I know that Google has been clamping down on people who use the 'Backdoor' method of buying 100's of keyword rich domains and forwarding them onto their website but would it really make a difference if they just bought one .IE domain? Keen to know if anyone has done this sort of thing before and their experience. Thanks
Local SEO | | O2C0 -
Two websites, same business name, same NAP
Hi, A client of mine offers loft conversions and wants to make a go of it. So he has a website dedicated to loft conversions. He is also a joiner/carpenter and has another old website which offers general joinery work and insurance work. Both websites have the same business name and same address and phone number. There is only one Google place page for the loft conversions website. The loft conversions website is not ranking as well as we would like locally. Could it be due to the same NAP? What are the best options? Redirect the old website to the loft conversions one (he might not like that idea) Change the address and phone number on one website?(and all subsequent citations?) Would love some help on this!
Local SEO | | AL123al0 -
.ca for Canada-specific business currently using .com?
I work for a Canadian company and we are re-doing our website (corporate and branch sites) and the question has come up if we should change our current main domain from .com to .ca for local SEO benefits since we don't target an international audience. We own both versions but the .ca re-directs to the .com and we use .com in all our marketing materials. My understanding is that we can specify in Google Webmaster Tools that the focus of the site is Canada and I feel that switching to the .ca as the main domain isn't necessary, but I was wondering if there are real SEO benefits to make us seriously consider the change? Thanks, Taira
Local SEO | | ArborMemorial0 -
How worthwhile is schema markup for a local business?
One of our clients was told that they need to implement schema on their website, and now they're very concerned that the lack of schema might be holding them back. We could certainly implement it for them, but I'm doubtful how much of a difference it will make. The client is a plastic surgery practice, so their content is fairly straightforward (services, locations, photo galleries, etc.). We're planning to add schema markup to their name, address and phone info in their website footer, but we're not sure if it's worthwhile doing anything beyond that. (I'm assuming schema markup for customer ratings would best be handled by a dedicated review management system like RealPatientRatings.com). What would you recommend for schema implementation?
Local SEO | | ClearPivot0 -
Google+ for Business Links Section - Not Available
I haven't found any documentation on this - curious if anyone's noticed that Google+ Local Listings (i.e. brick-n-mortar shops) don't have access to a Links section like a "brand" page might? Seems strange not to let them link out to their social media assets while Coke and Ford have that privilege. I wonder why? Thanks!
Local SEO | | PerfectPitchConcepts0 -
Please help me choose which is the better brand name or domain name?
I am helping a friend and getting involved in looking at launching a taxi service in a major city. Now this is for one of the major cities of world. A big part of the branding of the company or service will be the unique and memorable telephone number this company owns. This company is not expected to be anything huge, just a good small local business. However, we are trying to utilise online marketing which I feel have not been utilised by this cector that much.. The telephone number is something as good as 100 1515, but slightly better. These numbers are hard to get hold of and even when there is one available it's often very expensive. So a big part of the company will be getting that number seen everywhere. As it's a regional business, just for that one city, and for taxi services having a good telephone number that people can easily remember is important. However, most people now use smart phones, and people will often search on their phones or ipads for "birmingham taxi" or "birmingham taxi service" and so on. I have the opportunity, as an example to either go with "getbirminghamtaxi.co.uk" or "getabirminghamtaxi". So the choice is between "Get Birmingham Taxi" or Get a Birmingham Taxi" - the difference being putting the "a" in the middle like a sentence. I also thought of exact match domain "birmingham taxi" or birminghamtaxi.co.uk but the owner wants between £3,000-£12,000 (so  between $5,000-$20,000) for it. I feel with a domain purchased for just £3 ($5) I would be able to test the market, and if I found it was successful, we could then consider acquiring a more expensive EMD. I feel that services like private taxi hire firms are small tiny regional businesses, and they don't really do much on search and SEO. I feel if our one did, it would stand out, and I do think quite a few people search online for taxi's, and I know I do. I am also aware that there are now app's like Halo but there is room for a small business to thrive doing a lot online and offline marketing with a great number. This is not for Birmingham. I have just made that up. So I would welcome people's feedback in terms of which domain name would be best, with or without the "a"? If you have an alternative suggestion I would welcome that. Also if anyone has any other comments or feedback about this market, doing business, marketing, or any knowledge that you have that you would like to share with us - then that would be appreciated. Thank you.
Local SEO | | RyanShahed0