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 QueenslandI'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
-
Subfolders and 301's
Hello all, Quite simply, I'm stuck. Well, I think I am. We are about to launch a whole new International side of our website. We're an education job board www.eteach.com for schools in the UK and a little internationally. Now that the business is growing we want to make our brand more global. All the big bosses wanted to create a brand new website called www.eteachinternational.com. I managed to persuade them to not to do that and instead use a subfolder approach off of our well established and strong domain www.eteach.com (phew). However, now I'm getting a little lost in making sure I don't duplicate my content. We have a staffroom section on our website which basically has lots of relevant content for people searching how to become a teacher, e.g. www.eteach.com/how-to-become-a-teacher. We also want this same content on the international subfolder, as it will still be relevant content for international teachers. However... Do I have to completely re-write the content (which I'm trying to avoid as it will be very similar) or can I put in a rel=canonical to the already existing pages? So basically (I know this HTML isn't right, it's just for visual's sake!): www.eteach.com/international/how-to-become-a-teacher rel=canonical --> www.eteach.com/how-to-become-a-teacher I understand this gives all the authority to the original page, not the international one, but I'm fine with that (unless anyone can suggest anything else?)
International SEO | | Eteach_Marketing0 -
.com versus local domains
Hi all, One of my clients has local domain websites in various parts of the world (co.uk etc. etc.) and there has always been a discussion about where a move from local domain (the current set-up) to a targeted .com domain (i.e. .com/uk) would benefit from a SEO perspective. The main reasoning (seo-wise) that keeps coming up is that there'd only be one domain to link to which would help with link juice being passed around. Any thoughts as whether this would actually be the case or if this possible benefit would be outweighed by other cons? Recent moves (local to .com) from a few websites (the Guardian newspaper in the UK being the most recent one off the top of my head) has made me start thinking about it again! Diana
International SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0 -
Change domain from .es to .com
Hi all, we have a website with 2 domains name to point to it: -hacerfamilia.es -hacerfamilia.com We used to take .es like the default domain, so the .com redirected to the .es with a 301 header. But now we decided to change to .com because it is more international. So default domain would be .com. We made a multiple redirect to .es to .com with a simple htaccess rule, with a 301 header. The hosting it is the same, and the address too, for the two domains. Should we take any other steps? Thank you.
International SEO | | seoseoseos0 -
How to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
Dear all, what is the best way to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries? What must I add to my code of websites my .nl domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? What must I add to my code of websites my .be domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | HMK-NL3 -
Sub Domains in WM Tools
Hi Mozzers, Does anyone know if you can set a specified territory for a sub domain in WM Tools? I know you can do it at domain level but can you do it for a sub folder such as US.example.com or UK.example.com I can't see it anywhere in the interface? Thanks
International SEO | | Bush_JSM0 -
Anyone have experience using .asia TLD?
We are the top US supplier of a very high end French made product. The largest market for their products is Japan. We would like to target Japanese buyers that travel (for business or pleasure) to the West Coast (we're in SF) for personalized US delivery. I have been reading all related SEOmoz posts for International SEO. But looking to the future there could be other Asian opportunities, so a .asia domain has appeal (as does the $6 per year cost vs. $99 for a .jp). Is this TLD credible (both to potential customers and Yahoo Japan)? THX
International SEO | | Chasmo1 -
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 -
Subdomain vs folder vs TLD
We are launching in a number of international markets and I am trying to figure out if I should be launching them as folders, e.g.: /es (spanish), /br (brazil), /in (india) or whether they should be subdomains, e.g. es.mysite.com, br.mysite.com, etc. In brazil we managed to secure the tld (.com.br) but not in other regions. Whats the best strategy for us? I was thinking of doing folders as I understand that this strengthens the main domain, while subdomains are considered as separate sites. For Brazil, should we also use a folder, or launch on the .com.br? I assume that using the .com.br means we will have to build up authority from scratch, and in addition, the authority we build up on the .com.br will not help to grow the .com In addition, is there value in interlinking between verions (the versions will have the same content but in different languages)? Thanks!
International SEO | | medico0