Link juice passing from a .org.uk link to a .org/uk websites
-
Hi all,
A client I am working on had a CMS built in recently which has resulted in all their canonicals tags being taken off the website, and as such the same page with both a .org/uk and .org.uk/uk domain have appeared in the search results and I am wondering what your guys take is on the best cause of action.
For further background: Historically they have always used .org.uk/uk (not sure why) for their UK website and used .org/xxx for other countries (they also have a .org splashpage FYI). Having seen the .org/uk pages, and knowing they have to choose one to avoid duplication, they would like to move their uk website to the .org/uk domain to fit in with the rest of the divisions. However due to the historical use of .org.uk/uk their backlink profile contains links to both the .org.uk and .org domains.
My question then: would a canonical tag on all the .org.uk/uk pages pointing to the .org/uk pages be strong enough to pass on link juice to the .org/uk pages (from all links pointing to .org.uk) or would a 301 redirect be required in this instance, or indeed would it be best to stay with the .org.uk/uk domain?
Thanks,
Diana
-
I would absolutely use 301s in this case as the client is, in essence, picking a new URL. Switching from .uk/uk to .org/uk could Have unintended consequences for your rankings, but this could be offset by an international bump upwards. Without knowing your traffic, it's difficult to codify the potential issues of keeping or leaving the .uk TLD.
However, it's always fun To make statements after A disclaimer, so to steal Google's own PPC targeting terminology:
- People in, searching for, or viewing pages about your targeted location <-- May go down.
- People in your targeted location <-- May go down.
- People searching for or viewing pages about your targeted location <-- May go up.
At the very least, I would be sure that regional targeting is set to within WMT to ensure that Google knows your target region, based on your audience.
-
Would a canonical tag on all the .org.uk/uk pages pointing to the .org/uk pages be strong enough to pass on link juice to the .org/uk pages (from all links pointing to .org.uk)
Canonical tags DO NOT pass link juice, they are separate pages in their own right and you are asking Google to consider using your recommendation not merging pages.
Would a 301 redirect be required in this instance?
Yes, unless for some reason you would like to have two copies of the same site available? I am pretty sure that you would not.
Indeed would it be best to stay with the .org.uk/uk domain?
Now that is a more tricky question. Google loves localized top level domains. If it is a .uk it knows your target market is the UK and ranks you in Google.co.uk as a priority. Moving to a .org will take that away. Do you have each folder setup in Webmaster Tools under a different "Geographic target" in "Site Settings"?
You will be best to do this if you have not. Where is your server hosted? If not in the UK this can also have a big effect on the site when moving to a more generic top level domain away from a localized one.
Hope that helps to shed some light on the matter
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
-
Does a similar CMS fabric/theme used by 2 colleagues, cause SEO issues?
Does using the same CMS fabric/theme with substantially different content for each website but the same business address (on google places and the websites) cause SEO issues? For example: 2 colleagues with somewhat similar services located at the same business addresses desire to use the same CMS fabric /theme but will have different content on the sites. Will this hurt their SEO / should they use a different website skin/theme?
Web Design | | toti5880 -
Advice on estate agent website SEO next steps
Hi everyone, I have been working on the SEO for this website for a while now and have had a good amount of success increasing the traffic and rankings. However our main hurdle is improving conversions on the actual website - we want to encourage more people to book a valuation. Does anybody have any suggestions on how we can improve this? The website is www.richardkendall.co.uk Thank you
Web Design | | sophiecrosby970 -
FTP hacked - links build...
Hi guys, our ftp got hacked a few days ago and the person uploaded a bunch of html pages with links to fake rolex websites. They also build a ton of links to the urls they had created in the image folder on our site with very spammy keyword anchor texts all in line of the same fake watches. What do you recommend as a plan of action? Make a list of all the backlinks and upload them in the Google disavow tool? Obviously i have already deleted the pages they were linking to and secured our ftp. Looking forward to your advice 🙂
Web Design | | Immanuel0 -
Too many Internal Links: A good thing or bad thing?
According to Moz i have over 500 links on some pages, GWT says about 400 with most (90%) having about 210 links. When I eyeball the site it should have no more than 30 to 40, but my web agency tells me its because the way the CMS works (DotNetNuke) that all pages are linked via the top navigation. Does this mean that my internal linking strategy is flawed before i even start to consider which pages I want to have more links to? Our site www.over50choices.co.uk was rebranded & moved to the new CMS in June 2013. Should i be concerned or is this OK? Ash
Web Design | | AshShep10 -
How will it affect my site if i link to a site with adult content?
We are currently working on creating 2 sites for a company, one with no adult content, one with adult content. Will it affect the non adult content site if i link to the other one in terms of Google and being blocked by some internet providers.
Web Design | | MattWheatcroft0 -
Is it OK to 301 Redirect http://homepage.com to http://blog.homepage.com?
I don't have a homepage built yet, and I suspect that my blog will be my primary SEO draw in the long term, so I'd like to do a 301 redirect (for the techies, I'm doing it in Django with http.HttpResponsePermanentRedirect ) I just wanted to confirm that this wouldn't cause any problems as Google gets used to my page (it's only been up for a few days) Thanks! -matt
Web Design | | 49wetnoodles0 -
Number of links per page?
I'm confused by the number of links that we should put on a page. Our site has a high domain authority but SEOmoz tool and others, plus Google WMT suggests much much less than other sites have - look at Dailymail.co.uk or the Huff post site for example. our site is www.worldtravelguide.net and I'm thinking specifically about the /destinations and each continent like /europe Our site has thousands of pages, trying to create an effective internal linking structure with the limitation of 150 or so links is nearly impossible and ends up with too many navigational pages. We were hit hard by Panda (even though all our content is original, professionally written frequently updated) in favour of bigger brands and considering Google suggests that sites should be designed for users and not SEO these two ideals conflict. Does anyone have any data on what the link limit is? Any other tips or observations would be gratefully received. Thanks, John
Web Design | | JohnFinlayson0 -
Footer Links for Design Shops - Do They Help or Hurt?
I work on SEO for a number of clients at our agency, including our in-house SEO for our own website. I use Open Site Explorer all the time to analyze my competition in the SERPs and try to gain links from this insight. However, I've noticed a number of agencies and design shops that place a link in the footer of websites they've designed and created. For example "Site design by ABC Agency (hyperlinked to the agency's home page). Or I've seen small logos or graphics that link to the designer's site and use the "alt tag" to get stronger anchor text. From a design perspective, I don't care for this, but as a SEO...I can see why. We've designed a number of websites and have more in the pipeline, but have not used this tactic before. It seems like an irrelevant link from a content/user standpoint, however, it seems to work for a lot of agencies and design shops. Any input from the SEOmoz community would be great. Is it a short-lived strategy? Does it help or hurt your link-building and "rapport" with Google, Bing, Yahoo? Thanks everyone.
Web Design | | PHDL0