.com ranking over other ccTLD's that were created
-
We had a ecommerce website that used to function as the website for every other locale we had around the world. For example the French version was Domain.com/fr_FR/ or a German version in English would be Domain.com/en_DE/. Recently we moved all of our larger international locales to their corresponding ccTLD so no we have Domain.fr and Domain.de.(This happened about two months ago) The problem with this is that we are getting hardly any organic traffic and sales on these new TLD's. I am thinking this is because they are new but I am not positive. If you compare the traffic we used to see on the old domain versus the traffic we see on the new domain it is a lot less.
I am currently going through to make sure that all of the old pages are not up and the next thing I want to know is for the old pages would it be better to use a 301 re-direct or a rel=canonical to the new ccTLD to avoid duplicate content and those old pages from out ranking our new pages?
Also what are some other causes for our traffic being down so much? It just seems that there is a much bigger problem but I don't know what it could be.
-
TANKS!
-
Nice additions Robert! Cheers.
-
Great response. I would have given you exactly the same steps. You should follow John's advise:)
Link building to these individual ccTLD's will be the biggest obstacle to overcome, especially in short amounts of time (if that matters), but, if you have time and resources, this will help the geographic level of your brand on a global level. It's just too bad when you have to break up one master domain (pooled together), and go with individual domains for each country you are targeting.
Cheers, Rob
-
You want to use a 301 for the redirect to insure you get the juice from previous links. Here are two good articles from moz: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection and since you moved domains: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains
By using the 301 you are telling the engines that not only the location changed, but that any updated content, etc. will be found there.
When you do this, you can take a snapshot of the values (DA, PA, MozTrust, etc.) of both pages and follow along. We are starting to do that with any site changes and 301's to develop a timeline until Site A acquires what it will from Site B and will eventually do a paper on same.
Best.
-
The new domains have no domain authority yet, as they are new and likely have few backlinks, so it makes sense they'd rank poorly to start. Now you'll have to build links to these new domains individually. The nice thing about your set up before is that all of your domains pooled all of their domain authority within one domain. Hopefully having the different ccTLDs will pay off for you down the line.
This is a good time to 301 redirect your old pages to their new counterparts. That should help your new domains because the link juice from those pages will flow to your new domain. If you weren't redirecting those pages to begin with, that could be the cause of your rankings being so poor. In that case though, I would imagine the old site would be outranking the new ones?
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
-
Is it worth keeping a decades-old domain that's merely 301 redirecting to the main domain?
Hi fellow Moz SEOs, We have a bigger client who we just did an SEO Site Audit for, and it was discovered that they have several domain names that are simply 301 redirecting to their main domain name. One of their domains in particular is decades old, and the client is asking if there is any value in keeping it (and the others), or simply leaving them as-is. Considering the domain age, does anyone have any recommendations? Much appreciated, Zack Barton
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zack
Barton Interactive
(833) 442.6853 // office
(408) 910.7750 // mobile
https://bartoninteractive.com0 -
Has Anyone Encountered This Old Meta Tag and Know It's Past Function?
name="url" content="http://www.mysite.com/"> I've never personally seen it used until I saw a site using it this past weekend...I cannot find any old documentation on the purpose if this tag either.Any insights or direction would truly appreciated!Many thanks, T 😎
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | talexanderyano0 -
Can I know which keywords lost their top rankings on google a year ago if the client didn't checked the keyword rankings in his website?
Hi, Can I know which keywords lost their top rankings on google a year ago if the client didn't checked the keyword rankings in his website? Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut1 -
Site's pages has GA codes based on Tag Manager but in Screaming Frog, it is not recognized
Using Tag Assistant (Google Chrome add-on), we have found that the site's pages has GA codes. (also see screenshot 1) However, when we used Screaming Frog's filter feature -- Configuration > Custom > Search > Contain/Does Not Contain, (see screenshot 2) SF is displaying several URLs (maybe all) of the site under 'Does Not Contain' which means that in SF's crawl, the site's pages has no GA code. (see screenshot 3) What could be the problem why SF states that there is no GA code in the site's pages when in fact, there are codes based on Tag Assistant/Manager? Please give us steps/ways on how to fix this issue. Thanks! SgTovPf VQNOJMF RCtBibP
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
My .com ranks well in the US but not in the UK or other countries?
My companies is based in the US, but our customer base is 50% international. The majority of our international customers are from english speaking countries like the UK, AU, NZ, etc. We currently rank well for 2 of our industries core keywords in the US, but are not even on the radar in the UK or AU. I do generate international backlinks, although not as much as the US backlinks (approximately 25% intl, 75% US). Should I purchase localized urls like .co.uk or .com.au and point those at my .com? Any guidance the community could provide would be greatly appreciated?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | batchbook0 -
Is it a good strategy to create pages that are specific to different keywords to rank higher in SEO?
We have a main website and a local website. Would it be a right strategy to create new pages on the local website specific to rank for certain keywords in the non-branded space? Is creating new pages to rank for keywords the right approach? I
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FedExLocal0 -
Chinese Sites Linking With Bizarre Keywords Creating 404's
Just ran a link profile, and have noticed for the first time many spammy Chinese sites linking to my site with spammy keywords such as "Buy Nike" or "Get Viagra". Making matters worse, they're linking to pages that are creating 404's. Can anybody explain what's going on, and what I can do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
Rankings Drop since Humingbird - Could it be my link ratio between .co.uk / .com ?
Hi All, I have an UK tool hire eccomerce muliti location website with different locations pages for each category. My stratedgy has been to specialise on local search for each location as oppose to try and compete with highly competitive keywords on a national level. I do have some duplicate/ thin content issues on these location pages but I've been actively writting additional unique content on these pages to address this issue which also making sure my title tags, h1 , h2 tags etc are unique for each location along with having individual google local + pages etc etc. I have never previously been affected by any duplicate contents issues and always ranked first page (mainly top 5) for most of my local keywords). However, when google humingbird update came out , I suffered approx 25% drop in traffic and rankings. rom what I read , local search sites have suffered somewhat in this update and I did a link detox report to try and asterain toxic links etc. I found a few which I disavowled but I have had no manul penalty message in my GWT so I can only assume I was affected by an google algorithmic penalty. From looking at opensite explorer , I can see my link ratio for my .co.uk site shows 43% .com 37% .co.uk I am wondering if it could be this which has been the cause of my local rankings to fail ?. Has anyone else suffered the same as I am at my witts end as to what are the likely factors which could have caused such a drop ? Any tips, greatly appreciated. Happy to give my sites url if anyone would like to take a look ? thanks Sarah.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SarahCollins0