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.
How To Rank A UK Website On Google.com (US)
-
Hi, I've done some research on this but couldn't find any definitive answer I can trust!
We have a client who resides in the UK. They have '.com' domain, hosted on a UK server, using UK spelling.
Their business objective for this year is to expand in the USA, including the opening of a warehouse over there.
They are wanting us to rank their website on both Google.co.uk and Google.com (North America); besides changing the geolocation settings in GWT's, and building links from .com websites is there anything else we can do to increase their visibility on Google.com?
Many thanks in advance, appreciated!
Lee. -
That's the answer I was hoping for, thanks Tom!
-
Tom,
This is very well stated. Thanks
Best
-
It certainly used to be a bigger factor. And the annoying thing is that Google still has older videos up saying as much.
However, with so many new TLDs, server locations and CDNs in particular, I think the impact of server location has diminished quite a lot. For example, on my UK sites I always try and use UK servers. However, I often use cloudflare on them, which will be either US or Central Europe based. It hasn't affected their performance. Google alludes to this:
“Server location (through the IP address of the server) is frequently near your users. However, some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure; so, we try not to rely on the server location alone.”
So I wouldn't say a server's location will hinder a website's ability to rank in a certain country. The only way that it might would be related to speed. Obviously, the further away your user is from your server, the slower the website's response might be, and speed is considered to be a ranking factor. However, if you get any decent hosting solution, the speed difference would also be negligible.
-
Sorry Tom, forgot to ask.. will the fact that the website is hosted on a UK server (having a UK IP address) hinder the performance of the US campaign?
We could move it over to a US server however this may effect the (currently very good) UK rankings.
Thanks in advance, Lee.
-
No problem Lee!
This is also a good article from SearchEngineLand on international SEO, including some pros and cons on different approaches.
-
Many thanks Tom, great answer!
Yes, the client would like to rank in both UK and US.. so your suggestions sound ideal, and pretty easy to implement.
I'll read Aleyda's article tonight, sounds interesting.
Thanks again Tom, much appreciated.
Lee.
-
Hi Lee
Would I be right in saying that the client would like to rank in both UK and US?
If so, this is possible. What I would recommend is to create a new geo-location subfolder for the US site. Something as simple as website.com/us/ would do.
From there, you would set up the US subfolder as basically its own website. That starts with adding the right kind of hreflang schema code for the subfolder.
There is a fantastic guide here on Moz by Aleyda Solis on how to set up an international SEO structure. You can find it here.
This hreflang generator tool, also from Aleyda, can help you generate the right code to add to the subfolder.
From there, as mentioned you're basically treating the subfolder as it's own individual site. That means you can build new links to it, you should have unique content within it, and you can even set up its own individual GWT account - meaning you can set the geolocation settings in there too.
The benefit of this approach is that it would allow your client to keep the current site as-is, and not jeopardise it, while also setting up a site for the US audience. Of course, you could do exactly the same thing on a new TLD - but that might be difficult as you're using the .com already (and besides, I like global sites using a .com /country/ subfolder setup)
Hope this helps, let me know if you'd like anything clarified.
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
-
Is it worth maintaining multiple international websites
Hi I work for a British company which has two well established websites - a .co.Uk for the UK, and a .com for the US and rest of the world (in language directories). The Uk site is hosted in the Uk, the .com in US. The websites do reasonable well in Google on both sides of the Atlantic. The company is a small but quite well known brand. The company is now thinking of redirecting the .co.Uk to the .com as it would be cheaper to maintain. What would you advise? Thanks.
International SEO | | fdl4712_aol.com2 -
International SEO - how likely is it autoredirect via IP Address will impact rankings?
Hello, We're looking to internationalise our site so that US visitors will see the US branded version while everyone else will see the global version (currently at .com). This question specifically is about location-based auto-redirects. The literature I've read (including Google) recommends against auto-redirection: "Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language. These redirections could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site." Insofar as I understand it the theory goes as follows. Google crawls mainly from the US Auto-redirecting by US IP to the US domain will also redirect the Googlebot crawlers Because of this the crawlers will only see the US site / domain and not original .com website Crawlers can't index what they can't see Drop in rankings for the original site However, one of my colleagues has pointed out to me a company which does use auto-redirects. If a user is in the UK and type in their website they will be redirected to the UK version of the site, US will be US etc. I have checked their rankings and they are still ranking highly for relevant terms. I have been asked why they have been able to do this without impacting their visibility. Any ideas? Given their success have the risks of auto-redirecting have been overstated? How can we ensure US visitors land on the correct internationalised domain without auto-redirects in place? Looking forward to your thoughts on this as well as your experiences. Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Problems with the google cache version of different domains.
We have problems with the google cache version of different domains.
International SEO | | Humix
For the “.nl” domain we have an “.be” cache..
Enter “cache:www.dmlights.nl” in your browser to see this result. Following points are already adapted: Sitemap contains hreflang tag Sitemap is moved to the location www.dmlights.nl/sitemap.xml We checked the DNS configuration Changed the Content language in de response header to : Content-Language: nl-NL Removed the cache with webmastertools Resolved serverrequest errors. Can anyone provide a solution to fix this problem? Thanks, Pieter0 -
Multi Regional Website Best Practices
Hi there, I have a website that is targeting 3 countries AU/US & NZ. I have set up hreflang tags for each page on each of the site however I am having difficulties getting it work right. I read this article which was a great insight into the hreflang tags. https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights and as a result I have implemented hreflang tags in the following manner: When users access the root domain http://[website] it will redirect the user to their locale with a 302 redirect. I have a few questions:
International SEO | | nathanfranklin
1. When building my external link profiles, I'm not sure if I should be building link profiles for http://[website]/ or for the geo graphical pages (http://[website]/aus/ etc..). Note that the http://[website]/ is never used, it just issues a 302 to the actual geographical location. 2. It seems that the hreflang tags are not working correctly. Perhaps its the result of the 302 on the root page, but in google.com.au (using the link http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=au&pws=0&q=[branded search]) I would expect that I should see the search results for /aus/ given the fact that the hreflang tags are setup as en-au. Instead I am seeing the root domain page. Is that correct or should it be showing all the pages with /aus/. ALSO If I do a search in google thailand (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=th&pws=0&q=[branded search]) it returns the /aus/ version where it should be showing the /us/ using the x-default hreflang tag. In google webmaster tools I have setup 4 site profiles:
http://[website]/
http://[website]/us/
http://[website]/aus/ (Targeted to Australia)
http://[website]/nz/ (Targeted to New Zealand) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Nathan1 -
Are my translated pages damaging my ranking?
Hi there, I have a site in English but with duplicates in different languages. The first problem is that these translated versions of my site receive no ranking on google stars (while the english does) - why is this? The second problem is that SEOmoz counts the errors on my site and then duplicates this error count for all the translated versions of my site - meaning I have a huge amount of errors (too many on-page links). Add this to the fact that I use affilite ID´s to track different types of traffic to my site - so all page urls in english and other languages, with an affiliate id on the end of the url, count as an error. This means I have a huge amount of on page errors indicated by SEOmoz, plus no ranking for my translated pages - I think this is really harming my overall ranking and site trust. What are your opinions on this?
International SEO | | sparkit0 -
Geographic Target set up in Google webmaster tool
Hi, When i launched my web site 3 months ago ( I'm am very new to SEO) I have set up the geographical target section in Google webmaster tool for US. Now, I'm thinking to change it to some other geo target to see if i can get more traffic. However, recently few of my prompted keywords got really well in Google US ranking. Here are my Questions: if i will change the geo settings in webmaster tool will effect the ranking i already managed to achieve in US? In the list of all the countries in Google webmaster tools what does is mean "unlisted"? Can i select more than one country to target and if I can how? Thanks!! Raviv
International SEO | | Indiatravelz0 -
Website Translation
Hi All, I know its not an SEO question, but....................... Can anyone suggest a few good website translation "widgets" I would like to give those who are not fluent in English and option to choose another language in which to view the page text. Thank You!!!
International SEO | | APICDA0 -
Domain strategy for UK and USA
Hi Everyone, We have example.org.uk with 20K inbound links. We want to target the US as well as the UK. I would be interested to hear what approaches are best for SEO. For example is it better to keep our current domain and have subdirectories for USA for example. Or would it be better to register example.org and then use subdirectories. Or is it better to use different domains for each country? Any help with this much appreciated. Cheers
International SEO | | MarkChambers0