Migration from tld's to .com sub folders

[ConradC]

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

[Peterdallisomo]

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.

[ConradC]

Thank you Alan and Felicity for your advice.

[GardenBeet]

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

[AlanMosley]

sorry, it was just the same link to Matt Cutts recomeneding tlds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

[ConradC]

What do they allow sorry? The link you sent seems to be dead - Thanks Felecity for your posts too

[AlanMosley]

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

[AlanMosley]

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

[GardenBeet]

unique content for all your sub folders - then enjoy the strength of your domain

[ConradC]

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!

[AlanMosley]

Yes many have, they come here to ask what to do about there duplicate content.

[ConradC]

Thanks guys for your input - has anyone on this forum deployed a multi-country targeted website on sub folders?

[GardenBeet]

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.

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[AlanMosley]

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.

[ConradC]

? 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.

[AlanMosley]

My understanding is that yes you will still have a problem.
see this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

[ConradC]

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

[AlanMosley]

One probllem you will have with subfoldersis duplicate content, keeping your domains on seperate tld's means you are safe from duplicate content.

[ConradC]

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.

[GardenBeet]

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 -