Migration from tld's to .com sub folders
-
Hi Guys,
We currently operate five websites, 1 on .co.uk, 1 on .co.nz, 1 on .de and 1 on .com (geo targeted to USA) and 1 on .com/au (targeted at Australia).
Open Site Explorer currently credits our .co.uk with 212 unique domains linking to us, our .com has 130, our .co.nz has 110 and our .de (which is new) has around 10. We have a website on .com/au targeting Australia and we have gained around 30 - 40 links into this sub folder. Our rankings in google australia for this website are fantastic and it would appear to me that we have inherited all the domain authority of our .com.
The UK is currently our most important market and we operate a website on a .co.uk there. Our main competitors there have around 300 - 400 unique domains linking to them. What I am thinking of doing is deploying our UK content onto our .com root domain (which is currently geo targeted at the US which is a really small market for us) and redirecting all of the .co.uk pages at the root folder of the .com and changing the geo targeting of the .com to the UK. Additionally I was going to migrate our .co.nz and our .de websites into .com/nz/ and .com/de/ sub folders. I will also create a new .com/us/ folder for the US.
I can only go off the fact that the only sub folder website we have (.com/au) has been very successful for us. Do you think migration of all of these websites onto the .com domain using sub folders will provide a meaningful boost to our rankings by virtue of having more back links into one domain? Are there any big risks in doing so and how long would you expect the redirects and changes to be picked up by google.
I really appreciate any help and comments on this.
Kind Regards
Conrad Cranfield -
I would be quite wary of this for another reason... You may be getting a better Click Thru Rate than you realise - thanks to the .co.uk - which you will lose if you switch to a .com
Perhaps try testing adwords with .co.uk versus .com and see if there is a difference.
-
Thank you Alan and Felicity for your advice.
-
Conrad - I would not proceed with the subfolders
You started asking this question due to your positive experience in Australia. I suspect your experience has more to do with a less developed e-commerce market than a strong SEO strategy
I have worked the last 3 years in the UK and am now working on australian domains - the level of competition does not compare
-
sorry, it was just the same link to Matt Cutts recomeneding tlds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo -
What do they allow sorry? The link you sent seems to be dead - Thanks Felecity for your posts too
-
I agree, but you have seen what Google said on the subject, take their advice.
Or if it in the one website, just have the one version for english speakers.
In asp.net this is possible with globalization, that will replace regional stuff like data and currency. and select differences. This is done by detecting the ursers computer settings.(big job)
another problem with subfolders is getting the user to the correct directory, and still haveing your home page rank.There is no easy way around this, except for TLD's that you already have.
I asume you would like to get better rankings by consolidating, i dont think that will happen if you have duplicate content.
There is also the fact that people like to see tehir ownn TLD when making a trans action
-
google allows it, i believe bing do also, but i dont have the ref right now.
Edited to fix link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo -
unique content for all your sub folders - then enjoy the strength of your domain
-
Thanks Alan - what would you suggest - so many articles I have read say that as long as you use google web master tools to geo locate each and every sub folder site (and the root directory) then google will not treat each site as a duplicate as it is not interpreted to be competing in each regional google?
We would have the html lang type set for each country (eg: lang="en-us" for USA, "en-gb" for the UK etc..) Additionally we would be making sure that all pricing was served up in local currency on each sub site, with local contact details and additionally with localised use of language. However, there would still be quite a large chunck of content that translates almost the same between say UK, NZ and Australian english and even to a lesser degree US english.
With so many opinions out there it is quite confusing!
-
Yes many have, they come here to ask what to do about there duplicate content.
-
Thanks guys for your input - has anyone on this forum deployed a multi-country targeted website on sub folders?
-
May 26, 2011Matt BurgessContent Coordinator at Tourism Queensland
I'm facing a similar situation. I recently asked Tiffany Oberoi (google) at the SMX Conference in Sydney whether she suggested taking our respective TLDs and moving into a subfolder format (ie. example.com/au, example.com/nz, example.com/uk etc).
Her response? Stick with the TLDs. I don't think the geotargetting option in GWT is as reliable as it's made out to be.
Flag01<a class="image-button add-response-button"> </a>
-
He never said that at all.
He said if you have them in different geo tld's. you should be fine.
He never mentioned subfolders. What he did say ios that if they are all in the same tld, they will typically see it as duplicate. let alone on the same website.
no where in that video or else where have i seen him or anyone else say that geo tageting will save you. Every spammer can do that. -
? From what Matt said what we are planning to do is fine (we are not creating 100's or even 10 different sites). As long as we have them geo targeted and regionalised (including currency display) then he is saying we are fine to do what we are suggesting.
-
My understanding is that yes you will still have a problem.
see this video -
Hi Alan,
Is duplicate content an issue even if we have the root folder geo targeted using google web master tools, and all sub folder sites also geo targeted (again using google web master tools)?
We run different lang tags for each site (eg: lang="EN-GB", lang="EN-US", etc...). We also where appropriate use regional spelling and variations of phrases (so for the US site "rain boots", Australian site "gum boots" and for the UK "wellies". However, plenty of the content will be the same across all of the sites. Is this still a problem even with the use of google web master tools to geo target each site?
Cheers
Conrad
-
One probllem you will have with subfoldersis duplicate content, keeping your domains on seperate tld's means you are safe from duplicate content.
-
Hi Felicity, yes in terms of rankings for our targeted search phrases. We rank higher in google Australia than in either Google UK or Google New Zealand for which we have far more incoming links to (to our .co.uk and .co.nz) than we do the actual .com/au sub folder site. There is less competition for these phrases than in the UK, however our competitors in Australia have around 100 - 200 unique domains linking into their sites as opposed to only 30 - 40 into our .com/au sub folder. So it appears to me that the sub folder site has inherited all the authority of the master .com domain.
-
Perhaps your success is to do with less competetion in the aussie market place - I have noticed that websites in australia can get in the top 3 positions with very poor onsite optimisation and few links - of course it varies from industry to industry but I would analyse the backlinks etc of the other aussie websitesfirst -
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
-
Redirect to 'default' or English (/en) version of site?
Hi Moz Community! I'm trying to work through a thorny internationalization issue with the 'default' and English versions of our site. We have an international set-up of: www.domain.com (in english) www.domain.com/en www.domain.com/en-gb www.domain.com/fr-fr www.domain.com/de-de and so on... All the canonicals and HREFLANGs are set up, except the English language version is giving me pause. If you visit www.domain.com, all of the internal links on that page (due to the current way our cms works) point to www.domain.com/en/ versions of the pages. Content is identical between the two versions. The canonical on, say, www.domain.com/en/products points to www.domain.com/products. Feels like we're pulling in two different directions with our internationalization signals. Links go one way, canonical goes another. Three options I can see: Remove the /en/ version of the site. 301 all the /en versions of pages to /. Update the hreflangs to point the EN language users to the / version. **Redirect the / version of the site to /en. **The reverse of the above. **Keep both the /en and the / versions, update the links on / version. **Make it so that visitors to the / version of the site follow links that don't take them to the /en site. It feels like the /en version of the site is redundant and potentially sending confusing signals to search engines (it's currently a bit of a toss-up as to which version of a page ranks). I'm leaning toward removing the /en version and redirecting to the / version. It would be a big step as currently - due to the internal linking - about 40% of our traffic goes through the /en path. Anything to be aware of? Any recommendations or advice would be much appreciated.
International SEO | | MaxSydenham0 -
What's the best strategy for acquisition?
Hi All, Recently acquired a competitor company. This acquired company is small in size but is the exclusive UK distributor for a gigantic Swedish company. This is the way the current domain structure is divided. swedish-supplier.se (Not owned by us - swedish supplier ) Swedish-supplier.co.uk (owned by us, operating as the swedish supplier in the UK) New-acquired-company.com (owned by us) The supplier doesn't want us to have two websites as they keep getting confused customers. Because of this we have agreed to remove www.swedish-suplier.co.uk and solely sell the product at www.new-aqquired-company.com. However, because of the sheer size of the Swedish supplier, a lot of traffic comes through to swedish-supplier.co.uk. My question is, how can we work together with the supplier to remove this domain and still maintain a good amount of UK traffic? Should we point swedish-supplier.co.uk back to the suppliers original translated web site and have them pass enquiries onto us or should we point it to our website? & What's the best way to go about it? Thanks, Danny
International SEO | | DannyHoodless0 -
Web Site Migration - Time to Google indexing
Soon we will do a website migration .com.br to .com/pt-br. Wi will do this migration when we have with lower traffic. Trying to follow Google Guidelines, applying the 301 redirect, sitemap etc... I would like to know, how long time the Google generally will use to transfering the relevance of .com.br to .com/pt-br/ using redirect 301?
International SEO | | mobic0 -
When searching for example.com, only example.co.uk is showing up. Why?
Hi there, I have a quick question, when looking for our client's domain name in Google (Google.it, Google.co.uk and Google.com), we search for example.com, but the first (and only) search result showing is example.co.uk (which redirects then to example.com) Why is the co.uk domain showing instead of the com domain where we are redirecting to? I don't assume that this is any form of penalisation? Thanks!
International SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
International (foreign language) URL's best practices
I'm curious if there is a benefit or best practice with regards to using the localized language on international sites (with specific ccTLDs). For example, should my french site (site.fr) use the french language as keywords within the URLs or should they be in english? e.g. www.site.fr/nourriture vs. www.site.fr/food Is that considered best practice for SEO (or just for brand perception those markets?). Is there a tangible loss in SEO if we do not use the correct language for those URLs and just stick with English around the world? I recall seeing a Matt Cutts video on the topic and he said that google does support i18n URL's but other SE's might not support them as gracefully but he didn't come down with a hard recommendation to go with i18n URL's or just English. Would love a strong ruling in favor one direction based on best practices.
International SEO | | mongillo0 -
International SEO: abcJP.com OR abcJapan.com
The ccTLD .jp is not available. What URL should I use instead? MybrandJP.com or MybrandJapan.com *Mybrand is a four-letter acronym
International SEO | | FXDD0 -
Targeting specific Geographic areas. Use 1 large.Com or several smaller country specific TLDs?
Hi, I have a small number of exact match domains, both country specific TLDs and also the Generic TLD dot com and dot net. They are: ExactMatch**.Com**
International SEO | | Hurf
ExactMatch**.Net** ExactMatch**.Co.Uk**
ExactMatch**.Ca**
ExactMatch**.Co.Nz**
ExactMatch**.Co.Za** We have already successfully launched our UK site using the exact match .co.uk and this is currently number 2 in the UK SERPS for the Google, Yahoo and Bing. They are/will be niche specific classified ad sites, which are Geographically targeted by country (to Engish speakers in the main) and each region is likely to have a minumum of 2,000 unique listings submitted over the course of a year of so. My question (FINALLY) is this: Am I better to build one large global site (will grow to approx. 12,000 listings) using EXACTMATCH.Com with .com - targeting US users and then geo-targeted sub directories (ExactMatch.Com/Nz etc) - each sub dir targeted to the matching geographic area in webmaster tools, or use the ccTLDs and host each site in the country with perhaps (each site growing to approx 2,000 listings) I could use the ccTLDs just for marketing/branding onlyand redirect these to the specific sub directory of the .com site? I am aware that there is one main ccTLD that I cannot get .Com.Au (as I am not a resident of Australia - and it is already in use.) so I was wondering if the single site with .Com/AU/ etc might help me better target that country? If I use each ccTLD as separate sites I suppose I could use the largely redundant .net to target Australia? Your thoughts and advice would be most welcome. Thanks! An additional bit of intormation (or two) the .com is circa 2004. The product advertised is a reasonably bulky (perhaps 6kgs boxed) physical product and therefore the seller is unlikely to want to ship globally - will this make them shy away from a global site - even one divided into global sub sections? FYI Seller can specify in their listing Will Ship To ....... I would be open to looking at using the front page of the .Com site as a page which visitors select the country they wish to buy/sell on. (IF it is the general consensus that it is better to create one large site.) Consider also please how the end user is likely to percieve the benefits to them of one LARGE SITE versus TARGETED SITE - I know the .Com would be divided into geographic sub directories, but I am not sure if they won't see an additinal benefit to the ccTLD - Does this add a degree of reassurance and relevance that a .com/ccTLD cannot provide? I suppose I am biased by the fact that ebay use ccTLDs? Thanks again - and please forgive my tone which may suggest I am playing devil's advocate here. I am very torn on this issue.0 -
How can I view Google.com SERPs from outside the US?
If I go to Google.com I get redirected back to Google.co.uk and search results have a UK bias. I'm trying to research the US market and have a hazy recolection of Rand demonstrating how you can add a few characters to the google.co.uk url to see US results - just can't remember what video I saw it in. Any ideas? Thanks a lot
International SEO | | trbaldwin0