Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Umlaut in domain
-
Hi,
My client wants to expand it's business to Germany and logically we need a domain name to match. We've found a great one and regsiterd several variants to it.
However I just found out that in Germany it is possible (while here it's not) to register a domain with an umlaut. My question is: will google assign more value to:
schädlinge.de than schadlinge.de when users search for schädlinge?
If yes, how large will the difference be? (I will use an umlaut in the title etc)
Kind regards,
Jason. -
Thanks for your response,
the new domain name will be purchased and used exclusively for the German store. I will try to obtain both with and without the umlaut, but the first only if responsibly priced.
(since the domain is just for ranking purposes) -
If you are mostly targeting Netherlands than buy a .NL extension not DE. Secure both if expanding.
I would prefer with the amlaut if it is a German site being targeted in Germany, so it is better because people typing into google.de will be using the amlaut and this is the proper spelling for this word. That is assuming you can get a domain name with amlaut characters registered.
Will it make a big difference in rankings, probably not much so if it's a matter of getting a available domain name for cheap or paying a lot of money to purchase it off of a seller I would go with the cheaper route.
You can also look for a alternative domain name that has schädlinge with the amlaut in it and is available.
You will of course be using the amlaut in the site content and can use it in directory and filenames as well so you're still showing Google and the user what they want to see.
Use the word with the amlaut in the title tag and the meta description.
-
I'm currently targeting Google Netherlands. Germany would be the expansion territory. It's a webshop that is going to offer it's products trough a separate German version of the dutch store.
could you please explain why it makes sense to purchase the schädlinge.de domain? (because it's registered by a domain farm and will probably be expensive)
I did find when searching for German terms with the umlaut, domains without them included score excellent (usually top 3.) This to me, would make sense since it was not always possible (even in Germany) to register domains with the umlaut included.
-
Jason
Yes, that changes. If you are targeting / going to target google.de eventually, it makes complete sense to acquire schädlinge.de.
I checked ranking data on Google.de for both schädlinge and schadlinge and what's interesting is that "schadlinge" is actually considered a mis-spell of schädlinge.
Are you currently only targeting Google US or other countries other then Germany?
-
Hi Nakul,
thanks for your swift reply. I don't quite understand your reasoning. Let me first clairfy that since the buisiness expands to Germany, we are looking to target google.de
I did find google understands my intent but searching for schädlinge or schadlinge yield in different results. The domain name is supposed to give a boost in rankings for en exact match with the searched keyword.
Could you please further clarify?
Thanks
-
Based on the SERPS in Google US for your keyword, it looks like you don't need it. Just using it in the page title should be enough. Further, if you do need it at a later date, you could technically have an inner page like schadlinge.de/red-schädlinge if needed and so on.
https://www.google.com/search?q=schadlinge
I hope this helps.
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
-
Lost ranking after domain switch
I recently migrated from https://whitefusemedia.com to https://whitefuse.com. The website URL structure and content remained the same and I followed all the best practice guidance regarding checks on the new domain and appropriate 301 redirects. I have seen traffic drop by about 50% and the traffic that is still coming through is mainly coming through links still listed by Google under the old domain (https://whitefusemedia.com). Is this normal? Should I expect to see this bounce back, or is there anything I can do now to regain the rankings?
Technical SEO | | wfm-uk0 -
Tool to Generate All the URLs on a Domain
Hi all, I've been using xml-sitemaps.com for a while to generate a list of all the URLs that exist on a domain. However, this tool only works for websites with under 500 URLs on a domain. The paid tool doesn't offer what we are looking for either. I'm hoping someone can help with a recommendation. We're looking for a tool that can: Crawl, and list, all the indexed URLs on a domain, including .pdf and .doc files (ideally in a .xls or .txt file) Crawl multiple domains with unlimited URLs (we have 5 websites with 500+ URLs on them) Seems pretty simple, but we haven't been able to find something that isn't tailored toward management of a single domain or that can crawl a huge volume of content.
Technical SEO | | timfrick0 -
Handling Multiple Restaurants Under One Domain
We are working with a client that has 2 different restaurants. One has been established since 1938, the other was opened in late 2012. Currently, each site has its own domain name. From a marketing/branding perspective, we would like to make the customers [web visitors] of the established restaurant aware of the sister restaurant. To accomplish this, we are thinking about creating a landing page that links to each restaurant. To do this, we would need to purchase a brand new URL, and then place each restaurant in a separate sub folder of the new URL. The other thought is to have each site accessed from the main new URL [within sub folders] and also point each existing URL to the appropriate sub folder for each restaurant. We know there are some branding and marketing hurdles with this approach that we need to think through/work out. But, we are not sure how this would impact their SEO––and assume it will not be good. Any thoughts on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | thinkcreativegroup0 -
Block Domain in robots.txt
Hi. We had some URLs that were indexed in Google from a www1-subdomain. We have now disabled the URLs (returning a 404 - for other reasons we cannot do a redirect from www1 to www) and blocked via robots.txt. But the amount of indexed pages keeps increasing (for 2 weeks now). Unfortunately, I cannot install Webmaster Tools for this subdomain to tell Google to back off... Any ideas why this could be and whether it's normal? I can send you more domain infos by personal message if you want to have a look at it.
Technical SEO | | zeepartner0 -
How to increase your Domain Authority
Hi Guys, Can someone please provide some pointers on how to best increase your Domain Authority?? Thanks Gareth
Technical SEO | | GAZ090 -
Beating a keyword Domain
Has anyone here managed to beat a keyword/exact match domain to top spot? I am currently second and wondering if it is worth the time and effort to knock it off the top spot. How hard is it to get these very annoyingly favoured domains off 1st? Any help and advice much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Subdomain and Domain Rankings
I have read here that domain names with keywords might add a boost to your search rank For instance using a completely inane example monkey-fights.com might get a boost compared to mfl.com (monkey fighting league) when searching for "monkey fights" There seems to be a hot debate as to how much bonus the first domain might get over the second, but leaving that aside for the moment. Question 1. Would monkey-fights.mfl.com get the same kind of bonus as a root domain bonus? Question 2. If the answer to 1 above was yes would a 301 redirect from the suddomain URL to root domain URL retain that bonus I was just thinking on how hard it is to get root domains these days that are not either being squatted on etc. and if this might be a way to get the same bonus, or maybe subdomains are less bonus prone and so it would be a waste of time Thanks
Technical SEO | | bThere0 -
Using hyphenated sub-domains or non-hyphenated sub-domains? What is the question! I Any takers?
For our corporate business level domain, we are exploring using a hyphenated sub-domain foir a project. Something like www.go-figure.extreme.com I thought from a user perspective it seems cluttered. The domain length might also be an issue with the new Algorithm big G has launched in recent past. I know with past experience, hyphenated domains usually take longer to index, as they are used by spammers more frequently and can take longer to get out of the supplementary index. Our company site has over 90 million viewers / year, so our brand is well established and traffic isn't an issue. This is for a corporate level project and I didn't have the answer! Will this work? anyone have any experience testing this. Any thoughts will help! Thanks, Rob
Technical SEO | | RobMay0