Are NON French companies allowed to own domains in France?
-
Hi,
I was wondering if any one knows if the French government has changed it's stance in recent years to the ownership of domains in their country. My understanding is that it can be pretty difficult to own a domain there if you do not reside there. In the past I have had people register domains using their passport as identification to prove their domicile in that country.
We like many others have sites with .com/fr etc. and we do have one domain that is a .fr and seriously out performs the .com version.
Many thanks for any input on this question.
David
*** UPDATE - Sorry no need for a response, I've just been informed that businesses who are located in a Member State of the European Union (EU) are allowed to own .fr domains which the French government needs to comply with.
Best,
David
-
Thanks Gary for coming back on this one. - nice suggestion.
We ended up buying the domain in France.
Many thanks,
David
-
For countries where it is not possible, I would suggest if you must have the domain, a cheap virtual office is an option to take. This way you have an address in that country to use. Not many people know about this option.
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
-
Any practical examples of ranking 1 domain in multiple countries?
Hi, I've done a fair amount of research on international SEO including here on MOZ but was hoping some fellow Mozzers might have some practical examples of how they have got 1 domain to rank in multiple countries, ideally US & UK. Im possibly looking at getting a high authority domain which ranks great on US into the UK engines. I want to keep to the 1 domain to benefit from the high authority and for logistical reasons. Thanks in advance, Andy
International SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
Huge spike in referral traffic from international domains
We have recently experienced a huge spike in referral traffic from .fr domains (we are in the UK). They all lead to our 404 page. Its been going on for the last 3 days, and its still happening with about 20 visitors browsing the site from these domains at any one time, staying approx 3-7 seconds and then bouncing. The top domain appears to be a parked page. We cant see any obvious links or ads coming from any of these .fr domains and they are quite irrelevant to our sites industry anyway, which leads me to believe these may not be real visitors. Any advice on what may be causing this? And how to stop it? Needless to say none of these referrals have converted.
International SEO | | Silkstream0 -
Same domain with different google effect seo ?
I have a domain www.abc.com for US market. Now i want to sell same services in Australia. I am thinking to buy www.abc.com.au . Because i think i will get rank more faster for .au in Australia because of .au . What do you guys suggest ?
International SEO | | afycon0 -
Does anyone know where to find recently expired domains?
The title says it all. Is there anywhere I can find domains that are recently expired and back on the market? I'm thinking if the domain name is a good enough match and has had a reasonable authority that it may be worth buying and using in the correct environment...
International SEO | | Gordon_Hall0 -
Is .in domain affecting international traffic inflow to my site?
My holiday website http://seekandhide.in/ was completed and went live in Feb 2012. Last month I got 83% traffic from India and 3-5% each from USA and UK. The rest is a mixed bag from other countries. This is largely the trend since the last 3-4 months. I want to attract more organic traffic from UK and rest of Europe. My SEO consultant says that with a .in domain that will be difficult. My website currently features unique holiday properties in India that typically attract European tourists so I don't think it is a product issue. But both website visits and sales enquiries remain primarily Indian even though total number of visitors have increased gradually over the last 6 months.. My queries are 1. Is it only the .in domain that's affecting inflow of international traffic? 2. Is there anything that I can do to offset it? 3. I own seekandhide.co.uk too. Is there something I can do with that site without building a whole different website there? If I shift completely to .co.uk, I will have the same issue of being geographically limited and end up losing Indian traffic. 4. Is there something else that is not ok on the site that I am missing? 5. Advice that I get from a lot of consultants is to buy seekandhideindia.com but I plan to add international properties in a couple of years so that name would limit my appeal. Thanks in advance! Sudha
International SEO | | Sudha_Mathew0 -
Chinese domain offered for sale!! Very suspicious
We have been approached by a company offering us a chinese domain we would like to own, they are based in China but provide no company information and only their escrow account for us to transfer the funds. My first reaction is to run a mile but we have been asked to see if we can secure it from these people any urgent advice would be greatly appreciated as we have never done a transaction like this as the overseas domains are a new venture for us. Any guidance really appreciated.
International SEO | | loopylu030 -
Does publishing your physical company address increase your Google Trust?
The question is in the title: Does publishing your physical company address increase your Google Trust? I.e. on the contact page of the website, providing a physical address. The address would match the WHOIS entry for the domain, and allow customers to contact you via post.
International SEO | | Peter2640 -
Do non-english(localized) URLs help Local SEO and user experience?
Hi Everyone, This question is about URL best practice for multilingual websites. We have www.example.com in English and we are building the exact replica of English site in German www.example.de. On the Geman site, we are considering to translate some portions of the URLs for example last folder and file name as seen below: example.de/folder1-in-english/folder2-in-english/folder3-in-german/filename-in-german.html Is this a good idea? Will this help SEO and user experience both? or the mixed languagues in URL will confuse the users? Google guidelines say that this should be ok. Would love to get feedback from SEOMOZ community! Thanks, Supriya.
International SEO | | Amjath0