.co.uk domain for US market??
-
I have a client in the UK with a very successful .co.uk domain.
He has also chosen to enter other markets by translating the website into different languages and acquiring the appropriate domains. So he has a .fr and a .de for example.
He wants a larger presence in the US market. The question is - Does he acquire the .com and ensure all pages are very different to the UK variant ( a lot of work) or is it more appropriate to use the .co.uk domain and (for example) acquire more US links to the site in order to increase its universal/US appeal in the eyes of Google?
-
Eyepaq,
You do have a point (and thanks for pointing out how it's CTR that is affected and not buying behavior). That said, I do not think the drop would be anywhere close to even 20% given you are switching to a .com. The world is used to .com's. What would be affecting it initially would be the movement of link juice, but he is not going to drop right away with the old domain even with the 301. So, organically he will see some diminution likely, but I doubt a lot.
Again, all of this MUST be weighed. There will be trade-offs. He must decide with the client what the tradeoffs are they want to achieve their goals.
Best,
-
Sorry, but had to take care of clients.
1. Again, not that they don't want to purchase from, just there would seem to be a hesitation to click on it vs a .com.
2. What risk is there in a 301? First, you mention throwing away years of work, how? The loss of link juice for a 301 is generally said to be 1 to 10%. However, my experience is and I have done more than a few on sites from 25 page professional practices to 800+ page ecommerce sites (I have not done a massive ecommerce site but would without worry as long as I was clear as to what I was doing and why.) With the sites I have done I have NEVER lost even 2% of the link juice. It usually takes a couple of months for all to transfer and that could present a problem if the site is going to dip for a month and lose some revenue. (Remember, all alternatives have costs so you have to measure each and look at modifications - e.g. if you are going to fall a bit in rankings as 301 works, you might increase PPC). As to domain age, the last one I did was 10 year old domain and the client is quite happy to be getting more customers.
3. You would not need subdomains. The best thing I can do for you is to direct you to an expert with a recent blog here on the moz. Gianluca Fiorelli lays it out brilliantly in International SEO: Dropping the Dust.
Understand, with any of what you are doing, experience will help and you might consider getting assistance and working with someone while looking over their shoulder.
Hope this helps,
Robert
-
Good point eyepaq. Ta
-
One add-on point: if you 301 redirect the co.uk to dot com your client might lose on CTR in the UK as english folks like anywhere else (well maybe France is making an exceptions as tehy only buy from Fr domains
are feeling more friendly towards regional domains (on most of the verticals).
-
Thats really helpful - thanks Robert.
Can I make a few points?
1. I understand totally your initial point about the desire of Americans NOT to purchase from a .co.uk site.
2. "What if instead, you acquire the .com ......, 301 redirect from the .co.uk to the .com" Interesting question. Would I take the risk of recommending this to a client? Would HE take the risk? It feels like throwing away years of work. Plus, there would be a loss of 'link-juice' via a 301. Makes me very nervous with a 7 year-old domain.
3. Unclear on the usage of the "rel=alternate hreflang="x" " coding. Am I correct in saying that (if we went with the .com) we could have sub-domains for each of the US, Australia, etc - and that the content could be identical? But this tagging would avoid any Google penalty?
Thanks
-
Yes, It was crossed out by Google WMT, the rel=alternate hreflang="x" replaced the use of canonicalization to fix the problem. Some say it was because people were having too much problem with the canonical. Not matter, this is an easy solution IMO.
Best,
-
Very interesting Robert. The link you provided has a section that talks about "Annotating pages as substantially similar content" - the aspect particularly pertinent to my dilemma/question. Unfortunately that section has been crossed out. Does your recommendation/suggestion remain the same?
Regards
Ian
-
Dr. Ian
Great question. The first hurdle I see with a desire to be in the US using a .co.uk site is one of perception from the searcher/customer more than one of ranking with Google. While it is talked about more with some other countries, people here still look at the .uk and ponder it. I will tell you I have quite a multi cultural family(Syrian wife, son born in Paris, etc.) and when searching personally for a product, the idea of purchasing from a .uk vs a .us site is part of the decision. Not from a quality/etc pov, but what about the shipping? (I think that before digging into the site.)
Now, when you say, "acquire the .com and insure all the pages are very different to the UK site (a lot of work)...", I would ask why does it need to be "very different" and why does it need to be a "lot" of work? What if instead, you acquire the .com or other gTLD, 301 redirect from the .co.uk to the .com, and have a single English language site that is out of the UK? Then, for pages that are more US with US $, etc. you could use rel=alternate hreflang="x" to distinguish for Google. Because all are used to the generic TLD, you do not have the perception issue. (You would need to do a 301 redirect to the new domain to maintain link juice, etc.). This would also allow you to use same for Australia, etc. as the site grows.
In this way, you could have duplicate or near duplicate pages, have a single site, and grow rankings on both sides of the pond.
Hope this helps,
Robert
edit to add GWMT link
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
-
I am based in the UK. I want to appeal to a UK and US market. One of my keywords is 'generalised' which gets way more traffic in my keyword phrase when spelt with a z and not an s. What do I do?
Hi folks. I am based in the UK. I am about to launch a new blog, and I want to appeal to the UK and US markets. One of my primary keywords is 'generalised', which gets way more traffic (as seen using Moz's keyword tool) in my keyword phrase when spelt with a z and not an s. What do I do? Any guidance would be great. I note this has been discussed before, but seemingly without a conclusion. I would really appreciate any help you can provide.
International SEO | | Nobody16165422281340 -
High domain authority for shady link directories
Hi there, First of, I'm new to the moz community and I love it already! So much to learn and to do for getting better and better at SEO. Really helpful! Okay, my question. If I analyze (top 5) sites with the open site explorer some of them have a link profile consisting just of link directories. How come they rank so high with just link directories backing them up? The directories often are just ongoing lists of links without any form of content. But the authorities of the directories (page and domain) are often between 40-60 or even above! How come they get such high authority? And do I have to use them for my linking profile or will it hurt me? On moz I learned not to use those directories because it's quality > quantity these days. But it almost seems as if this is not true because only half of the top positions in my keyword-market actually make use of more then just link directories. I must say that I operate in the Dutch markets so maybe different rules apply in the Netherlands? Thanks in advance and kind regards, Luuk van Dongen
International SEO | | VanDongenOnline1 -
Ranking UK company in Google.com
Hi all, I have a UK client with a .com domain, hosted on a US server, but the physical business premises is based in the UK. Their product is a really great product and available for export to the US. I want to rank them higher in the US, more specifically Google.com. I've helped them rank very well organically in the UK (google.co.uk) for some great terms, however they rank almost nowhere in google.com (gl=us) for the same terms, for example: In Google.co.uk they rank #3 for the key-phrase.
International SEO | | seowoody
In Google.com they rank #90 for the same key-phrase. I've got them some great US focused links with PR coverage including MSN Cars, nydailynews.com etc. I just wondered if there was any one "golden ticket" for boosting US rankings? I've read that a physical business premises located in the US helps a lot. Can anyone confirm this and if so, would a rented PO box in the US help? The site has great social signals too, growing twitter following and many FB likes/shares etc. Any other tips/advice? Thanks in advance,
Cheers,
Woody 🙂0 -
Researching (and launching a site within) a foreign language market
Morning peeps, A client wants to clone their website for a foreign language market, obviously swapping all English content for whichever language/market they're looking to target. Any advice on how to research a foreign market (when I only speak English), or perhaps any pitfalls to look out for or advice you might have with a launch like this? thanks
International SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Geo Targeting SEO Techniques for Google UK
I'm starting a new SEO project whereby I'll be targeting UK search engines only such as Google.co.uk, (I'm from the states) and I'm gathering all the information I can get on this topic Obviously, I got a CO.UK TLD, and hosting/IP is UK based, but can anyone shed light on other techniques that has worked for you, Besides of the above here is some advice I picked up so far; Regional directory listings,
International SEO | | Plorex
Inbound and outbound inks from/to UK based websites,
Geographic targeting in Google webmaster tools,
British slang... What else is there?
Much appreciated0 -
Am I doing this right? Same website, content and similar domains.
I have 5 sites with the same exact content. I have a separate webmastertool for each one and I have targeted them to each country on WebMastertools? Iam I missing something or did I do it right.Thankswww.abc.com (USA)www.abc.com.ar (argentina)www.abc.com.mx (mexico)www.abc.com.co (colombia)
International SEO | | M_80 -
SEO in the UK
Will soon be starting to do SEO for a client in the UK and wondered if there was anything I should do differently for what I do in the United States?
International SEO | | hwade0 -
Ranking well in Google US but not showing up in UK
Hi, We are trying to position a specific site for a big sport event that will be played at the end of May. We only care about Google UK. It had no relevant content until last week. The site is a almost a year old but we just started to get links for it (all from the UK). They worked so fast: we were in page 2 of SERPs in the UK within a few days. But suddenly the site has disappeared and we're not even in top 100 anymore. However, we are ranking extremely well in the US (first page for the keywords we wanted to rank for). The site is a .com and it's hosted in Wordpress.com (with a custom URL). I understand that that can be a problem, but we have already told Google that our business is in the UK through Webmaster Tools. I guess that with time and more UK links, Google would ultimately understand that our focus is the UK audience, but unfortunately we have no time and we can't wait due to the date of the sport event. What do you think that we can do to rank well in the UK and not in the US as fast as possible? Thanks!
International SEO | | jorgediaz0