Subdomain vs subdomain with ccTLD
-
Hi,
We are about to launch a subdomain and I am not sure about which subdomain will benefit us the most:
Before I continue I must point out that unfortunately subfolders are not an option (sorry, hard to explain).
Things to consider:
- Brand.com is a global site with very high domain authority, DA = 95+
- Brand.co.uk has no content and simply redirects to brand.com
- Our product is hotels so local search is important and the local (national) market accounts for a good majority of the market.
According to the following post if we were to go for location.brand.com we would benefit from ‘some’ amount of inherited domain authority but would loose out on Geo target bonus. If we went for location.brand.co.uk we would benefit significantly from Geo target bonus but would loose out completely on inherited domain authority
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview
I was more inclined to go for location.brand.co.uk as our SEO agency advised that we will not benefit from the domain authority as we will be considered a new domain. However, after looking into it further I am finding it hard to decide because if we could capitalize on brand.com and inheriting part of its domain authority then it could help our seo efforts significantly.
Thanks!!
-
Hi Alan,
Thanks for your response and a very valid point. Duplicate content wont be a big issue as brand.com is very light on content for each location so the sub domain will have a lot of new content (and some re-written content).
Good tip on the regional data. Will make sure we implement this.
-
If you go with brand.co.uk, you do not have to worry about duplicate content, google allows for simullar sites that are in different tlds. but i would make sure thet you have the correct regional data like date formats, currency and that sort of thing.
Maybe that is the clincher
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
-
CcTLD vs subfolder for international SEO
In what situations is subfolder better than ccTLD, and vice versa.
International SEO | | MedicalSEOMarketing1 -
Multiple Domains Appearing in SERP - 1 .com, 1 ccTLD
Our global domain and our US ccTLD domain both appear for brand searches in the US. How do I recommend to our Tech team to fix this, as it skews our Organic traffic numbers between the two domains? The brand is Sportradar. (Sportradar.com / Sportradar.us )
International SEO | | mitchell-moz0 -
International SEO & Duplicate Content: ccTLD, hreflang, and relcanonical tags
Hi Everyone, I have a client that has two sites (example.com & example.co.uk) each have the same English content, but no hreflang or rel="canonical" tags in place. Would this be interpreted as duplicate content? They haven't changed the copy to speak to specific regions, but have tried targeting the UK with a ccTLD. I've taken a look at some other comparable question on MOZ like this post - > https://moz.com/community/q/international-hreflang-will-this-handle-duplicate-content where one of the answers says **"If no translation is happening within a geo-targeted site, HREFLANG is not necessary." **If hreflang tags are not necessary, then would I need rel="canonical" to avoid duplicate content? Thanks for taking the time to help a fellow SEO out.
International SEO | | ccox10 -
Working with country specific domain names vs. staying with .com
I've recently inherited a client that has a country specific domain for Canada (.ca) but there is also a US branch for the company at the .com address. They have a direct competitor that operates also in the U.S. and Canada that has decided to operate entirely under the .com address and re-direct all .ca traffic to their .com address. When I compare the link analysis data for both the .ca, .com, and competitors site, I'm finding there is a huge difference between the .ca site and the competitors site, but not a huge difference between the .com site and the competitors site. For example, the domain authorities are as follows: myclient.ca (Canadian branch) - 22 myclient.com (US branch) - 46 competitor.com - 53 When I do a brand search for my client in Canada, the Canadian branch website shows up first, but the American one is second. At this point, would it be better for my client to consolidate the two branches into the .com address and focus on increasing external followed links to the .com website? Or, is there merit in continuing to create a separate inbound link strategy for the .ca site? Thanks.
International SEO | | modernmusings0 -
SEO for .com vs. .com.au websites
I have a new client from Australia who has a website on a .com.au domain. He has the same domain name registered for .com. Example: exampledomain.com.au, and exampledomain.com He started with the .com.au site for a product he offers in Australia. He's bringing the same product to the U.S. (it's a medical device product) and wants us to build a site for it and point to the .com. Right now, he has what appears is the same site showing on the .com as on the .com.au. So both domains are pointing to the same host, but there are separate sections or directories within the hosting account for each website - and the content is exactly the same. Would this be viewed as duplicate content by Google? What's the best way to structure or build the new site on the .com to get the best SEO in the USA, maintain the .au version and not have the websites compete or be viewed as having duplicate content? Thanks, Greg
International SEO | | gregelwell0 -
Google US vs Google UK
I could have posted this somewhere else, but I cannot find it. So, I have keywords that rank well in Google US and many that do well in Google UK too. I thought all of my keywords ranking well in the US would also rank well the UK. I have figured out today that it is not the case. Why would I rank in the top 3 in the US and not even show up in the top 50 in the UK? It is very strange. Thanks for your help! I am not super new to SEO or web business. I have had a very good company that has been ranking well since 2004.
International SEO | | journeybeyondtravel0 -
IP Redirection vs. cloaking: no clear directives from Google
Hi there, Here is our situation:we need to force an IP Redirection for our US users to www.domain.com and at the same time we have different country-specific subfolders with thei own language such as www.domain.com/fr. Our fear is that by forcing an IP redirection for US IP, we will prevent googlebot (which has an US IP) from crawling our country-specific subfolders. I didn't find any clear directives from Google representatives on that matter. In this video Matt Cutts says it's always better to show Googlebot the same content as your users http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw&noredirect=1, but on the other hand in that other video he says "Google basically crawls from one IP address range worldwide because (they) have one index worldwide. (They) don't build different indices, one for each country". This seems a contradiction to me... Thank you for your help !! Matteo
International SEO | | H-FARM0 -
Internationally targetted subdomains and Duplicate content
A client has a site they'd like to translated into French, not for the french market but for french speaking countries. My research tells me the best way to implement this for this particular client is to create subfolders for each country. For ease of implementation I’ve decided against ccTLD’s and Sub Domains. So for example… I'll create www.website.com/mr/ for Mauritania and in GWT set this to target Mauritania. Excellent so far. But then I need to build another sub folder for Morocco. I'll then create www.website.com/ma/ for Morocco and in GWT set this to target Morocco. Now the content on these two sub folders will be exactly the same and I’m thinking about doing this for all French speaking African countries. It would be nice to use www.website.com/fr/ but in GWT you can only set one Target country. Duplicate content issues arise and my fear of perturbing the almighty Google becomes a possibility. My research indicates that I should simply canonical back to the page I want indexed. But I want them both to be indexed surely!? I therefore decided to share my situation with my fellow SEO’s to see if I’m being stupid or missing something simple both a distinct possibility!
International SEO | | eazytiger0