I am launching an international site. what is the best domain strategy
-
Hi Guys,
I am launching a site across the US, UK and UAE. Do I go **test.com/uk test.com/us test.com/UAE -- **or do I go us.Test.com UAe.test.com us.test.com? Which is best for SEO?
-
Suggesting subfolders without considering the peculiarities of the site jusrt because it's a "best practice" is not the ideal thing to do. Even if subfolders have sure advantages, their use can be not technically affordable or even good for effectiveness.
-
As always, it depends.
Is your site an ecommerce site with thousand hundreds if not more products. Or a news site? Then, maybe, the best thing to do should be using country code level domains, because - apart better for geotargeting - the technical maintaining of three complete ecommerce/news sites under in a subfolder system is not the most agile (especially if the site is custom made).
If the case if the one described above, but the ccTLDs are not available, then subdomains can be an alternative.
If your site is not an very technically complex ecommerce or news site, then use subfolders, but consider, if you see that one of the subfolders has very good metrics (sessions, conversions) to move it to a ccTLDs in the middle/long term.
-
There are positives and negatives to using different strategies. Moz's education section has three articles on international SEO: International SEO, Hreflang, and CcTLDs. I'd suggest going through them and also reading any further resources that they cite.
Good luck!
-
Also, if we want to target GCC countries with arabic content, what domain strategy should we apply..
We already have www.tcf-me.com (for english) and www.tcf-me.ae for arabic (But now we not only want to target UAE (Ae) but the entire GCC..
-
Figen we are in the same situation asking the same questions..
How do you tackle duplicate content?
-
Use sub domain (Etc. us.domain.com - fr.domain.com - de.domain.com) if your site will be different languages .
if your site will be only english use this : domain/us - domain/uk .
Be careful about duplicate content
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
-
Want to know Best Method to fix keyword cannibalization issue?
I have a website that has been experiencing keyword cannibalization issue since last 2-3 months. We have one main key search term to bring our website TOP ranking, but we have been seeing our website’s 2 different pages ranking strangely sometime for 1st page& sometime for 2nd page that one main key search term. As e.g.:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Aman_123
our main key search term 1st page rank sometime instead 2nd page
our main key search term 2nd page rank sometime instead page I am looking for best solution here to get this fixed..0 -
Why is this site not being punished!?
I guess this is the usual reaction to a seeing a domain rank above your own website is "They must be cheating"! However... in this case I feel more than justified. The website is aircon247.com they rank top 3 in the UK for "air conditioning" and other quite generic terms in the industry. I'm interested to know your thoughts and what (if any) action should be taken. Here are many of the links that I think contravene the Google Guidelines : Spammy Article Submissions with Inorganic Anchor Text: http://www.furniturearcade.com/decorative-furniture/decorative-accessories-lamps/ http://www.sys-con.com/node/2308271 http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/imagine-a-world-without-air-conditioning-units-7-112555 http://www.retail-digital.com/press_releases/appliances/diy-air-conditioning-installation-options http://www.livingwithwhite.com/three-fun-uses-for-antique-grates-and-floor-registers/ http://www.mcrjk2008.com/2009/04/best-air-conditioning-ever.html http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/comfort-your-business-needs-1682737.htm http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/diy-air-conditioning-installation-options-1677015.htm http://www.housetohome.co.uk/topical-advice/531054/regulating-your-home-environment http://homeklondike.com/2011/01/10/country-style-bedroom-design-ideas/ http://professorshouse.com/Building-a-house/Plumbing-Heating/Articles/Energy-Efficient-Air-Conditioners/ http://www.greenscenedebate.com/2009/04/take-good-luck-at-air-conditioning.html#.URzEmh17L5w http://www.harlynn.com/2009/04/wanna-chill-out.html http://www.loveshaven.com/2009/04/we-are-all-so-excited-for-my-sisters.html http://asiwaspassing.com/2009/05/ Spammy Links in External Website Footers / Side Bars with Inorganic Anchor Text: http://www.w-int.com/ http://www.g-dir.com/home/gardening/ http://www.s-dir.com/ http://www.sefdir.org/popular-listings.html http://www.ribcast.com/ http://rapidcoolsite.com/Home.html http://www.index-guide.org/ http://e-dir.org/ http://www.singaporerealestate.info/blog/?s=%27the+solitaire+call%27 http://www.onlinepureherbs.com/acidity.htm http://erostours.com/cheap-flights-Chicago.html http://www.search-way.com/ http://koolergazi.persianblog.ir/ Blog Spam Inorganic Anchor Text: http://edcel.net/2009/05/ http://www.bluehatseo.com/quick-answers-1-link-building/ Spammy (Link exchange etc.) Directories: http://ireland.accommodationforstudents.com/info/reciprocal_links_ad.asp http://baliscript.net/barter-links.php http://www.abacushosting.ca/linx.php http://www.whelphelper.com/links.php http://www.spectramedi.com/links_shopping.htm https://www.midwayautosupply.com/linkexchange.aspx? http://artsellart.com/links.html http://www.linkalizer.com/directory/39-1/ http://dogdir.com/region/NA.php http://www.easyezinearticles.com/ezineresources/Outsourcing.htm http://www.patchhomeinspections.com/Links.html http://autoharpusa.com/index.html?p=10 http://www.baliscript.net/webdesign-links.php
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | trickshotric0 -
Are expired domains for Godaddy backlinks already reset by googel ?
When does Google actual reset backlinks to a domain. If i am buying expired domains from godaddy action for linking purpose am i wasting my time.Also if that the case whats the point of buying expired domains with many links pointing to them. If the backlinks to the expired domain still show up under my Google webmaster tool window does that mean Google counts that link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ryguy870 -
Title Tag - Best Practices
I'm pretty new to seo but think I'm starting to get a decent grasp on it. One thing I'm really struggling with is how to organize the meta title tags on my website. I work in real estate and I'm noticing a lot of my local competitors that are ranking for the top keywords seem to using that particular keyword on every title tag within their website. An example would be www.paranych.com. Many of his internal pages have the word "Edmonton Real Estate" in the meta title tag, yet his home page is the page that is ranking for that particular keyword. It doesn't seem logical to have every one of my pages featuring the same keyword, but there are many examples within my industry of this working. Is the best practice with meta title tags to have your keyword on every title tag of your site or just the home page? Thx, Barry
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | patrickmilligan0 -
Methods for getting links to my site indexed?
What are the best practices for getting links to my site indexed in search engines. We have been creating content and acquiring backlinks for the last few months. They are not being found in the back link checkers or in the Open Site Explorer. What are the tricks of the trade for imporiving the time and indexing of these links? I have read about some RSS methods using wordpress sites but that seems a little shady and i am sure google is looking for that now. Look forward to your advice.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | devonkrusich0 -
Why doesn't Google find different domains - same content?
I have been slowly working to remove near duplicate content from my own website for different locals. Google seems to be doing noting to combat the duplicate content of one of my competitors showing up all over southern California. For Example: Your Local #1 Rancho Bernardo Pest Control Experts | 858-352 ... <cite>www.pestcontrolranchobernardo.com/</cite>CachedYou +1'd this publicly. UndoPest Control Rancho Bernardo Pros specializes in the eradication of all household pests including ants, roaches, etc. Call Today @ 858-352-7728. Your Local #1 Oceanside Pest Control Experts | 760-486-2807 ... <cite>www.pestcontrol-oceanside.info/</cite>CachedYou +1'd this publicly. UndoPest Control Oceanside Pros specializes in the eradication of all household pests including ants, roaches, etc. Call Today @ 760-486-2807. The competitor is getting high page 1 listing for massively duplicated content across web domains. Will Google find this black hat workmanship? Meanwhile, he's sucking up my business. Do the results of the competitor's success also speak to the possibility that Google does in fact rank based on the name of the url - something that gets debated all the time? Thanks for your insights. Gerry
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GerryWeitz0 -
Geotargeting a new domain without impacting traffic to existing domain
I had previously asked this as a 'private question' and couldn't make it a 'public question' automatically-- hence reposting it as a new question: We have an existing site, let's say www.xyz.com --- which attracts traffic from all over the world (including the US), though it's primary audience is the UK/ Europe. Most of this traffic is via organic search results on Google. Now, there is a business case to launch a US-centric website -- www.xyz.us, which will have most of its content from the original site (probably with some localization). Our goal is that on day 1 when the new site xyz.us is launched, we want all traffic originating from the US (and may be some other North American countries) to be directed to the .us domain instead of the .com domain. We don't want to lose any search engine traffic; equally importantly, we want this to be done in a manner that is seen by the search engines as a legitimate technique. What are the best options to do this such that the new .US site automatically inherits all of the traffic from the .com site on day 1, without either of these sites getting penalized in any form. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ontarget-media0 -
How can I make use of multiple domains to aid my SEO efforts?
About an year, the business I work for purchased 20+ domains: sendmoneyfromcanada.com sendmoneyfromaustralia.com sendmoneyfromtheuk.com sendmoneyfromireland.com The list goes on, but you can get the main idea. They thought that the domains can be useful to aid http://www.transfermate.com/ . I can set up a few micro sites on them, but from that point there will be no one to maintain them. And I'm, honestly, not too happy with hosting multiple sites on one IP and having them all link to the flagship. It is spammy and it does not bring any value to end users. I might be missing something, so my question is - Can I use these domains to boost my rankings, while avoiding any shady/spammy techniques? P.S. I had this Idea of auctioning the domains in order to cover for the domain registration fees.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Svetoslav0