.CA or .COM?
-
If a real estate client of mine only wants to rank in the Google.ca, Yahoo.ca, and Bing.ca listings (doesn't care about the U.S. search engines), would it be advantageous of me to have her domain name by .ca and forget the .com?
She lives here in Phoenix, is originally Canadian, and goes back and forth. Interestingly, when searching in Google.ca, most domain names or .com. Is this because these people are trying to target both search engines?
Thank you!
Chris Gray
-
Well, even the Moz staff/associates don't seem to be agreeing on this one - it's definitely an unusual situation. There were some calls to try a .ca domain, but since you see so many .com's ranking, we're not sure that's going to have much of an impact.
Part of the problem is that real estate is a really competitive market for SEO, and many of the agents targeting Phoenix-related properties will also be local. My guts says that, if your client can only take on Canadian customers, then push the Canadian "local" signals hard, and don't worry about the Phoenix signals as much (except for content and keyword targeting).
-
No, you're not crazy
It's basically two local SEO problems in one, and I'm honestly not sure where the sweet spot is. If you overoptimize for Phoenix, you may hurt your standing on Google.ca.I suspect you have to keyword optimize for Phoenix/Arizona, but geo-target for Canada. Since Canada pulls a lot of .com results, though, you can afford to have some Phoenix-based geo-cues. I'm not sure anyone can tell you the perfect balance. I'm going to see if the broader Moz team has experience with this issue.
-
-
Peter,
True, it is a task. But there quite a few competitors in this area if you search for 'phoenix real estate,' 'arizona real estate,' etc. in google.ca.
It seems like I need to show the search engines that my goal is to rank in the Canadian search engines, but that I'm local in Phoenix. Therefore, I need to do heavy-duty local optimization for Phoenix.
Does this sound like it would work or am I making things up?
-
I would probably recommend doing both the .com (since it's more universally accepted, esp. here in the USA) as well as the .ca (since you could probably script it with French, English and so forth for local people who know your realtor).
Additonally, having reciprocal backlinks will ease the transition for those who are local or snowbirds who like the sunniness of AZ.
Best of luck Chris!
-
So, just to clarify, she's basically looking for Canadians who want to buy property in Arizona? Wow, that's quite a niche, and not an easy SEO problem. You're crossing 2 geo-targeting streams, in a sense.
-
I am trying to have her rank for: Arizona Real Estate, Arizona Homes for Sale, and Phoenix Real Estate (all in Google.ca, Yahoo.ca, and Bing.ca)
-
What keywords is she trying to rank for? This will help us answer the question
-
Her business is located officially in Scottsdale, AZ. She does have an office in her home in Calgary, Canada, but doesn't want people to know about it (because it's in her home). Thoughts with this new info?
Also, can you elude a bit to these other factors to target Canada? This way I can do further research. Thank you so much!
-
Is her business located in Canada (e.g. she has a physical Canadian office address that will be on the site)?
I would recommend that, along with the .ca, plus dozens of other factors to specifically target Canada.
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
-
.cn domain vs. .com/cn/ folder structure
Hey Moz Community, I'd love to hear your response based on some real world data around leveraging a .cn domain vs. porting the site over to a sub-folder structure (ie. com/cn/ structure). Currently, the site lives on a .cn and is fully translated/localized in simplified chinese - which is the ideal state. As part of a website redesign + cost analysis there is a discussion around moving all global content under a sub-folder structure using href lang, GWT combination to define country content. My question is around China specifically - does a .cn have a signficant impact on ranking? I've read conflicing reports. Secondly, how do Chinese users react to a non-.cn domain? I would imaging the click-through rate performance from SERPs is much lower. Thoughts? Comments?
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
Multi country targeting for listing site, ccTLD, sub domain or .com/folder?
Hi I know this has been covered in a few questions but seen nothing recent that may take into account changes google may have applied. We would like to target multiple english speaking counties with a new project and I'm a little unsure as to whether ccTLD, subdomain or subfolders are the best way to publish country specific information. Can anyone shed some light on this?
International SEO | | Mulith0 -
301 redirect .com to .nl
Hi guys, We have two job websites: one international job website (.com, PR5) and one Dutch job website (.nl, PR0). We have decided to focus on our Dutch job website and want to 301 redirect the international website to the Dutch website. Will this give us the boost we are hoping for on the Dutch site? Or does a .com redirect to .nl work different than a .nl to .nl redirect for example. We're hoping that the international juice will boost our Dutch website of course. Looking forward to your thoughts!
International SEO | | rodjer0 -
What is the best way to rank well on both Google.co.uk & Google.com?
I am working on a website that is primarily a UK based software company but is now expanding into the US. The website is a .com site and is not geo-targeted to any specific location. Currently the site ranks well on Google.co.uk for a number of the focus keywords. We are now targeting Google.com as well to increase visibility in the USA. The site is ranking number 1 for one of the focus terms on Google.co.uk but no where to be seen on Google.com but on another term the site ranks 3rd in both Google.co.uk and .com. There are a number of other terms that rank on the first page in Google.co.uk and on the 3rd or 4th page in Google.com. The server is located in Germany and I do not want to geotarget the site to the US as I am concerned this would have a negative impact on the .co.uk ranking. The site currently has a mix of .com and .co.uk links pointing back to the site, in actual fact possibly more links actually come from US sites already. My original plan was to just focus on building links back to the target pages from US sites rather than creating a US folder on the site and geotargeting that section of the site in WMT and having to build page authority for a completely new page with no existing backlinks. But now that I have a number 1 ranking on .co.uk and the same term not ranking at all in .com as well as a postion 3 ranking for a term in both .co.uk and .com I am slightly confused as to the best options. Any help, advice, opinions would be greatly appreciated.
International SEO | | PaulSimms0 -
My site is not showing on google.com ?
My website is not showing at all on google.com searches under search terms. It is showing if i search for my domain (xyz.com) but not by keywords. Searching by keywords and search terms shows my website on yahoo , bing and non US oogle as google.co.uk or google.com.pk on first page. Would appreciate any help in trying to understand why this is happening? The website is medicare.md. if you search for term "medicare doctors PG county maryland" it is #1 in bing and yahoo but not even showing on google.com first TEN pages, although not banned. Interestingly if you do that search on google.co.pk it is #4. Quite Puzzuling !! Would appreciate any help or advice . Sherif Hassan
International SEO | | sherohass0 -
Use country-specific domains or stick to already strong .com domain?
We run an online store with the majority of our customers coming from 4 different European countries. The site is accessible through TLD's of all of these countries. However our .com domain currently has the most links pointing to it and the highest domain authority. Unfortunately, we are unable to tell through which TLD visitors reach our site. The niche is rather competetive, and therefore I am unsure whether it would be worth it to solely use our .com domain for the English language, and try to rank for each of the seperate languages with its own country-specific domain. **Question/discussion: **Will it be worth the costs and time to spent to build links for the country specific domains in these countries, or should we focus on making our .com domain stronger and use it for all countries? I'm aware of the benefits of ranking with a domain in the country the user is in. Note: We have major duplicate content issues at this moment, due the content being available in different languages, on a handful of domains. On each domain, users can view the site in different languages. In addition, the language indication in the url is not very clear (?lang=x) so I believe this should be improved to make it easier for search engines to tell which language is presented. If I choose to use a different language for each TLD, then the language flag in the navigation on the site will point to a different domain, so each language is hosted on 1 domain and there is no more duplicate content. However, I'm afraid this will lead to lower rankings, as the (strong) .com domain will no longer host the content in different languages.
International SEO | | 1200wd0 -
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 -
Multi-lingual SEO: Country-specific TLD's, or migration to a huge .com site?
Dear SEOmoz team, I’m an in-house SEO looking after a number of sites in a competitive vertical. Right now we have our core example.com site translated into over thirty different languages, with each one sitting on its own country-specific TLD (so example.de, example.jp, example.es, example.co.kr etc…). Though we’re using a template system so that changes to the .com domain propagate across all languages, over the years things have become more complex in quite a few areas. For example, the level of analytics script hacks and filters we have created in order to channel users through to each language profile is now bordering on the epic. For a number of reasons we’ve recently been discussing the cost/benefit of migrating all of these languages into the single example.com domain. On first look this would appear to simplify things greatly; however I’m nervous about what effect this would have on our organic SE traffic. All these separate sites have cumulatively received years of on/off-site work, and even if we went through the process of setting up page-for-page redirects to their new home on example.com, I would hate to lose all this hard-work (and business) if we saw our rankings tank as a result of the move. So I guess the question is, for an international business such as ours, which is the optimal site structure in the eyes of the search engines; Local sites on local TLD’s, or one mammoth site with language identifiers in the URL path (or subdomains)? Is Google still so reliant on TLD for geo targeting search results, or is it less of a factor in today’s search engine environment? Cheers!
International SEO | | linklater0