Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?
-
Hi all
Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables
My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ.The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ
The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site.
The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?
-
Hi again
If you want to focus more on the Australian site and the NZ site isn't where you want to place efforts, then you can redirect it - but I would URL map it properly so that pages on the NZ site find their corresponding pages on the AUS site.
But that is ultimately up to you to decide - if the return is not there and you want to focus on one site, then redirect and make sure all pages find their new home. I would also update relevant citations and back links.
I would personally optimize both and put efforts in if you think potential is there - it's just a better user experience - especially for different regions, local search, and audiences.
Hope this helps!
-
I do agree with Patrick,
This always seems to come up in conversations and I try to sway people against this method.
Sure it may work on a small scale, and I have tried this method myself. But the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.
One final (and big) point to that I would like to reiterate. If you really intend to own and run multiple domains and get these sites to show up in the search results, you will have to double your SEO work”… Another good point. Simply ranking on a keyword really does no good when you can do the same on your own site with minimal effort.
-
Thanks mate! What I forgot to mention I guess is that I have not updated the NZ site in a while as main focus is on Aus as that drives 90% of traffic/searches. So I guess the question is do i sacrifice NZ site now for the sake of beefing up visibility and traffic of .com.au one which is a LOT more comprehensive
-
Hi there
I would keep both if you serve two separate regions - that way you can build content and have sites directed to that target audience.
I would take a look at hreflang tags for Google and language tags for Bing. You are also able to country target for both Google and Bing Webmaster Tools if you have separate profiles set up for your sites (which you should!) You should also look into local citations for these websites - I like Whitespark, and it works for both Australia and New Zealand.
Another couple resources for your to check out:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)
5 Dos and Don'ts of International SEO (Moz)There is a lot of information here but it will definitely help you. If you have two regions that you do business for and have unique value to add to each, then I suggest keeping both variations and making a targeted marketing strategy for both - this will help you rather than redirecting your New Zealand audience to an Australian site where it's targeted to Austrailians.
That's my two cents - I hope this all helps! Good luck!
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
-
Redirecting Ecommerce Site
Hi I'm working on a big site migration I'm setting up redirects for all the old categories to point to the new ones. I'm doing this based on relevancy, the categories don't match up exactly but I've tried to redirect to the most relevant alternative. Would this be the right approach?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Referring domain issues
Our website (blahblah).org has 32 other domains pointing to it all from the same I.P address. These domains including the one in question, were all purchased by the website owner, who has inadvertently created duplicate content and on most of these domains. Some of these referring domains have 301's, some don't - but it appears they have all been de-indexed by Google. I'm somewhat out of my depth here (most of what I've said above has come from an agency who said we should address this before being slapped by Google). However I need to explain to my line manage the actual issues in more detail and the repercussions - any anyone please offer advice please? I'm happy to use the agency, or another - but would like some second opinions if possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LJHopkins0 -
Why domain authority increase
Hi all Our domian authority has increased from 39 to 42 last week. We have been improving our metadata and removing bad backlinks recently. Is there any other reason or updates last week that would have resulted in this increase? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gavinr
Gavin0 -
Redirect aspx files to a different path structure on a different domain using a different server-side language?
Without getting into the debate/discussion about which server-side language should or should not be used, I am faced with the reality of moving an old ASP.NET site to a Coldfusion one with a different domain and different folder structure. Example: www.thissite.com/animals/lion.aspx --> www.thatsite.com/animals/africa/lion.cfm What is the best way to redirect individual .aspx pages to their .cfm counterparts keeping in mind that, in many cases, the folder paths will be different? If it would mean less work, I am hoping this can be done at the server level (IIS 6) rather than modifying the code on each now-defunct page. And on a related note, how long should any redirects be kept in place? My apologies if this has been answered in this forum in the past, but I did do a lot of searching first (both here and elsewhere) before posting this query.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hamackey0 -
Should I 301 a penalized domain to another domains subfolder?
I have a niche domain seems to have been hit by Penguin. It had very good rankings before the update, and I think at least a good part of the penalty might be due to overoptimized anchor text. So here is the question; If I decide to take this site down, should I 301 the entire domain to a relevant sub-folder of another site? i.e comtemporaryfurniture.com to domain.com/category/modern-furniture.html Will the penalty get passed onto the new domain? If the penalty is partly due to anchor text, then pointing it to another site's subfolder would mean the tartget URL has more varied anchor text and could boost rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Evaluate the value of domain
We have a chance to purchase a domain with our main KW dot net. We are already a competitor for this KW in its other variations. This domain is currently being used as a re-direct to another site. What are the risks associated with changing domain names and how to best evaluate if this domain will even help us win that KW in Google results?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | devonkrusich0 -
How long should a domain redirect take?
Hi, I know that this is a 'How long is a piece of string?' type question but at what point should the ranking value of site A pass over to site B following a domain 301 redirect? I have shifted a domain over to a new URL, same hosting server, same IP address. I haven't made any URL changes or any content changes other than to change the site logo to match the new domain name. Domain B is basically an exact clone of domain A. I have redirected Domain A to domain B using the following line at the top of the .htaccess file:- Redirect 301 / http://www.newdomain.com/ I have submitted a sitemap for the new domain via google webmaster tools. It looks like the original domain as been completely indexed by google following the redirect as all rankings have been dropped from the results and there are no results for a site:olddomain.com search. Surely the rankings should have switched over at this point? Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0 -
Redirecting Powerful Domains
What do you do if you have a client that never implemented a 301 redirect on their domain? For example here are the OSE stats for the URLs; http://url.com PA: 48 DA: 50 LRD: 65 TL: 1,084 FB: 178 FB: 14 T:5 http://www.url.com PA: 51 DA: 50 LRD: 165 TL: 2,271 FB: 178 FB: 14 T:5 G+1:3 My first instincts are to redirect the first one to the second one, but is it too late for that? Will that screw up all of their established stats? Any input or examples of past experiences with this would be great.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0