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
-
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Tags for Multi-Regional Website English Language Only having URL Parameters
Dear friends, We have a multi-regional website in English language only having the country selector on the top of each page and it adds countrycode parameters on each url. Website is built in Magento 1.8 and having 1 store with multiple store views. There is no default store set in Magento as I discussed with developer. Content is same for all the countries and only currency is changed. In navigation there are urls without url parameters but when we change store from any page it add parameters in the url for same page hence there are total 7 URLs. 6 URLs for each page (with country parameters) and 1 master url (without parameters) and making content duplicity. We have implemented hreflang tags on each page with url parameters but for canonical we have implemented master page url as per navigation without url parameters Example on this page. I think this is correct for master page but we should use URL parameters in canonical tags for each counry url too and there should be only 1 canonical tag on each country page url. Currently all the country urls are having master page canoncial tag as per the example. Please correct me if I am wrong and **in this case what has to be done for master page? **as google is indexing the pages without parameters too. We are also using GEOIP redirection for each store with country IP detection and for rest of the countries which are not listed on the website we are redirecting to USA store. Earlier it was 301 but we changed it to 302. Hreflang tags are showing errors in SEMRush due to redirection but in GWT it's OK for some pages it's showing no return tags only. Should I use **x-default tags for hreflang and country selector only on home page like this or should I remove the redirection? **However some of the website like this using redirection but header check tool doesn't show the redirection for this and for our website it shows 302 redirection. Sorry for the long post but looking for your support, please.
International SEO | | spjain810 -
Hreflang for bilingual website in the same region/location
Hi everyone, got a quick question concerning the hreflang tag. I have a website with 2 different language versions targeting to the same region(Reason: The area is bilingual however not everyone speaks the other language fluently) Question:
International SEO | | ennovators
Can I use hreflang in that case like: Many thanks in advance0 -
Country subfolders showing as sitelinks in Google, country targeting for home page no longer working
Hi There, Just wondering if you can help. Our site has 3 region versions (General .com, /ie/ for Ireland and /gb/ for UK), each submitted to Google Webmaster Tools as seperate sites with hreflang tags in the head section of all pages. Google was showing the correct results for a few weeks, but I resubmitted the home pages with slight text changes last week and something strange happened, though it may have been coincidental timing. When we search for the brand name in google.ie or google.co.uk, the .com now shows as the main site, where the sitelinks still show the correct country versions. However, the country subdirectories are now appearing as sitelinks, which is likely causing the problem. I have demoted these on GWT, but unsure as to whether that will work and it seems to take a while for sitelink demotion to work. Has anyone had anything similar happen? I thought perhaps it was a markup issue breaking the head section so that Google can no longer see the hreflangs pointing to each other as alternates. I checked the source code in w3 validator and it doesn't show any errors. Anyway, any help would be much appreciated - and thanks to anyone who gets back, it's a tricky type of issue to troubleshoot. Thanks, Ro
International SEO | | romh0 -
How do I get a UK website to rank in Dubai?
We are trying to get a UK-based children's furniture website to rank in Dubai. We have had a couple of orders from wealthy expats in Dubai and it seems to be the correct target market. Does anyone have any specific knowledge of this area? We are promoting the same website as for the UK market. Also does anyone know any user behaviour stats on expatriates using search engines? Do they carry on using the version of Google they are used to, or do most change to the local version of Google? Thanks in advance
International SEO | | Wagada0 -
SEO for .com vs. .com.au websites
I have a new client from Australia who has a website on a .com.au domain. He has the same domain name registered for .com. Example: exampledomain.com.au, and exampledomain.com He started with the .com.au site for a product he offers in Australia. He's bringing the same product to the U.S. (it's a medical device product) and wants us to build a site for it and point to the .com. Right now, he has what appears is the same site showing on the .com as on the .com.au. So both domains are pointing to the same host, but there are separate sections or directories within the hosting account for each website - and the content is exactly the same. Would this be viewed as duplicate content by Google? What's the best way to structure or build the new site on the .com to get the best SEO in the USA, maintain the .au version and not have the websites compete or be viewed as having duplicate content? Thanks, Greg
International SEO | | gregelwell0 -
Spanglish? Picking keywords for an English website with a Spanish speaking search demographic
I'm putting together meta data for an English website whose target search demographic is the Hispanic market. The website has a Spanish translation as well. When I entered the website into the Google Adwords keyword tool to begin doing keyword research, all keywords returned to me were in Spanish. I am unsure if the meta data keywords I'm preparing for the page should be in Spanish despite the fact that I am preparing the meta data for the English version. Moreover, should there be any mixed Spanish English (Spanglish?) keywords as users might be searching under the English search but in Spanish or with queries that are partially in Spanish?
International SEO | | IMM0 -
IP Redirection vs. cloaking: no clear directives from Google
Hi there, Here is our situation:we need to force an IP Redirection for our US users to www.domain.com and at the same time we have different country-specific subfolders with thei own language such as www.domain.com/fr. Our fear is that by forcing an IP redirection for US IP, we will prevent googlebot (which has an US IP) from crawling our country-specific subfolders. I didn't find any clear directives from Google representatives on that matter. In this video Matt Cutts says it's always better to show Googlebot the same content as your users http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw&noredirect=1, but on the other hand in that other video he says "Google basically crawls from one IP address range worldwide because (they) have one index worldwide. (They) don't build different indices, one for each country". This seems a contradiction to me... Thank you for your help !! Matteo
International SEO | | H-FARM0 -
Country specific domains pointing to a .com site
Hello, I am new to seo so please be easy if this happens to be a "silly" question. My company has a .com site. We are expanding into global markets, focusing on specific countries right now. General question: Would I be penalized for duplicate content if I purchased country-specific domains and pointed them to the .com site? Thanks, Jim
International SEO | | jimmer0