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.
Help - .ie vs .co.uk in google uk
-
We have a website that for years has attracted a high level of organic searches and had a very high level of links. It has the .ie extension (Ireland) and did very well when competing in the niche market it is in on google.co.uk. We have the same domain name but in .co.uk format and basically redirected traffic to it when people typed in .co.uk instead. Since the latest panda update, we have noticed that the number of visits organically has dropped to a quarter of what it was and this is continuing to go down. We have also noticed that the .ie version is no longer listed in google and has been replaced by .co.uk. As we've never exchanged or submitted links for the .co.uk domain this means there are only links indexed in google.
Is there any way I can get google to re-index the site using the .ie domain rather than the .co.uk domain? I am hemorrhaging sales now and becoming a much more withdrawn person by the day!!!
PS - the .co.uk domain is set up as a domain alias in plesk with both .ie and .co.uk domain dns pointing to the the same IP address.
Kind Regards
Steve -
Hard to say without looking at everything in more detail Steven. Could be clutching at straws all day, but happy to have a chat in more detail if you want to get in touch.
I still suspect a penalty has happened that has knocked the .ie site off the radar.
Andy
-
Over 10 pages of google indexed pages I mean. Not 10. The site listed in WMT is the .ie one. I've never submitted, referenced or mentioned the .co.uk version for anything, it's always just been a redirect, so I can't understand why google has started using that one instead.
-
OK so from 3,600 indexed pages, after typing site:www.site.ie -inallurl:www.site.ie you see 10?
That seems to suggest that a lot of pages have been dropped from the primary to supplementary index and if that's the case, it it more than likely an algorithm update that has caused this.
So just to understand, which site in WMT has the geotag set to Ireland? But to be honest, that isn't really much of a problem and wouldn't have caused a loss in traffic.
-
Hi andy. On google.ie I'm getting over 10 pages plus listed. If I try the same on the uk version ( site:ie) I get the same results. If I try site and allinurl for domain.co.uk I get one page listed. I've gone on to webmaster tools in google and the domain geotag location is listed as Ireland, which I'd expect as its .ie. Is this the problem?
-
What do you see if you hop on Google.ie Steve? I am inclined to think that the problem is related to the fact Google has dropped the site from the SERPs for whatever reason, but always a little hard to see exactly what is going on from this end.
So you still see 3,600 pages when you do a site:?
Try this for me:
site:www.site.ie -inallurl:www.site.ie (replace domain both times with your own)
How many pages do you see then?
-
Hi Andy. Cheers for that.
The site is .ie but is hosted by us in the uk. The reason I'm asking about indexing, is that there are 3600 pages indexed for the .ie version of the site, but if I do the same (using site:) for the .co.uk version it shows 4. Which I think is the issue. Its as if Google overnight has decided because I'm in the UK and doing a search, it will only display the .co.uk version and nothing relating to the .ie version.
-
Hi Steve,
So just to be clear, is the .ie site hosted in Ireland or the UK? And this is the primary site with just a .co.uk pointing at it as a domain forward?
I don't think that Google would re-index the .co.uk as they know it's a forward but to err on the side of caution, remove the forward that is currently in place and concentrate on putting right any issues with with the .ie - I suspect duplication features heavily?
Andy
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
-
Help with facet URLs in Magento
Hi Guys, Wondering if I can get some technical help here... We have our site britishbraces.co.uk , built in Magento. As per eCommerce sites, we have paginated pages throughout. These have rel=next/prev implemented but not correctly ( as it is not in is it in ) - this fix is in process. Our canonicals are currently incorrect as far as I believe, as even when content is filtered, the canonical takes you back to the first page URL. For example, http://www.britishbraces.co.uk/braces/x-style.html?ajaxcatalog=true&brand=380&max=51.19&min=31.19 Canonical to... http://www.britishbraces.co.uk/braces/x-style.html Which I understand to be incorrect. As I want the coloured filtered pages to be indexed ( due to search volume for colour related queries ), but I don't want the price filtered pages to be indexed - I am unsure how to implement the solution? As I understand, because rel=next/prev implemented ( with no View All page ), the rel=canonical is not necessary as Google understands page 1 is the first page in the series. Therefore, once a user has filtered by colour, there should then be a canonical pointing to the coloured filter URL? ( e.g. /product/black ) But when a user filters by price, there should be noindex on those URLs ? Or can this be blocked in robots.txt prior? My head is a little confused here and I know we have an issue because our amount of indexed pages is increasing day by day but to no solution of the facet urls. Can anybody help - apologies in advance if I have confused the matter. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HappyJackJr0 -
Google Penalty Checker Tool
What is the best tool to check for the google penalty, What penalty hit the website. ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael.Leonard0 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Using a US CDN (Cloudflare) for a UK Site. Should I use a UK Based CDN as it says my server is based in USA
Hi All, We are a UK Company with Uk customers only and use CloudFlare CND. Our Site is hosted by a UK company with servers here but from looking online and checking where my site is hosted etc etc , some sites are telling me the name of our UK Hosted company and other sites are telling me my site is hosted in San Fran (USA) , where I presume the Cloudflare is based. I know Cloudflare has a couple of servers in the UK it uses but given all my customers are UK based ,I don't want this is affect rankings etc , as I thought it was a ranking benefit to be hosted in the country you are based. Is there any issue with this and should I change or is google clever enough to know so i shouldn't worry. thanks Pet
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Ranking on google but not Bing?
Any reason why I could be ranking for Google but not Bing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Microsites: Subdomain vs own domains
I am working on a travel site about a specific region, which includes information about lots of different topics, such as weddings, surfing etc. I was wondering whether its a good idea to register domains for each topic since it would enable me to build backlinks. I would basically keep the design more or less the same and implement a nofollow navigation bar to each microsite. e.g.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kinimod
weddingsbarcelona.com
surfingbarcelona.com or should I rather go with one domain and subfolders: barcelona.com/weddings
barcelona.com/surfing I guess the second option is how I would usually do it but I just wanted to see what are the pros/cons of both options. Many thanks!0 -
How does google recognize original content?
Well, we wrote our own product descriptions for 99% of the products we have. They are all descriptive, has at least 4 bullet points to show best features of the product without reading the all description. So instead using a manufacturer description, we spent $$$$ and worked with a copywriter and still doing the same thing whenever we add a new product to the website. However since we are using a product datafeed and send it to amazon and google, they use our product descriptions too. I always wait couple of days until google crawl our product pages before i send recently added products to amazon or google. I believe if google crawls our product page first, we will be the owner of the content? Am i right? If not i believe amazon is taking advantage of my original content. I am asking it because we are a relatively new ecommerce store (online since feb 1st) while we didn't have a lot of organic traffic in the past, i see that our organic traffic dropped like 50% in April, seems like it was effected latest google update. Since we never bought a link or did black hat link building. Actually we didn't do any link building activity until last month. So google thought that we have a shallow or duplicated content and dropped our rankings? I see that our organic traffic is improving very very slowly since then but basically it is like between 5%-10% of our current daily traffic. What do you guys think? You think all our original content effort is going to trash?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | serkie1 -
Google places keyword variations
Hi all, I have a site that is ranking #1 in Google Places for its main <city><keyword>search... but it does not rank for any of its basic keyword variations, which I find very confusing.</keyword></city> ie (just an example) Chicago Caterer (ranked #1 in google places)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | x2264983x
Chicago Caterers (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Company (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Companies (etc..) How can I secure a google places ranking for these simple keyword variations? Do I build links to the google plus page using that anchor text? Do I get citations that contain that keyword somewhere on the page? Do I optimize for these keyword variations on the actual website itself? (not the places listing). Obviously I don't stuff these keywords into the google places listing. Any help would be much appreciated!0