Changing from .com to .com.au

[creativeground]

Hi All, we are looking for some guidance please, if at all possible. We have .com domain (the domain is older than 10 years), we have been using it for 2 years. We also have .com.au version of the domain (the domain is 2 years old, pointing to the .com domain) and isn't being used. We are an Australian based company. Our question is, should we be using .com.au instead of .com and if so, how would you advise going about doing the change over without having huge SEO impact on our business (negatively). We are on the home page for most of the searches we have optimized for, but we are always below the .com.au's - which is why we are considering the possibility of the move? Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated

[creativeground]

Thank you for your feed back. Sorry for timely response I am inundated with work and have had an ill 2 two year old and Telsta line outage ( Aussie service provider ).
I have chosen to stay with the .com mainly because I am starting to get weekly responses from google searches and actually just closed a big deal from someone who found us on google. So if it works don't to change it. I do agree with focusing on local links, which is what I have been doing over the past 4 - 6 weeks and it has increase our local ranking lately. Going to focus on that and build on local linking. According to Moz Search Visibility in the past two weeks we have had a higher visibility result than our competitors. As far as my international search result go that's an added bonus but not our main focus.
All our hard work on SEO for our website seems to be paying off now. So going to stay with the .com than risk the move.
Thank you.

[gfiorelli1]

I see that you already decided to stick with the .com domain.

It's fine, albeit a conservative choice, even though I would have started considering more seriously the idea of migrating to a .com.au domain name if - as you say - you're struggling vs those ccTlds domains, which outrank you even if objective factors (link profile, DA, PA) are better in your case.

I say it because of the lift effect a ccTld may mean: given parity of pondered factor, one ranking signal improved can provide you a big positive change.

However, I agree with you that migrating your domain may be a risk because of all the things that can go wrong during a migration.

Therefore, look at others geotargeting signals. For instance, look at from where your backlinks are coming. You say you have clients from all over the world, therefore I suspect that you target the global market also when creating the link profile of your site, and considered less important earning links from local websites or sites targeting your region.

Maybe you should start targeting more also those sites, so to give a clear geotargeting sitgnal to Google.

Obviously, this is a generic suggestion, as I don't know that much about your site and niche, but remember: international SEO is not just about domain terminations and geo-targeting in Search Console, but also many others signals, being the origin of inbound links one of the most relevant ones.

[creativeground]

Hi Verve,
Sorry haven't responded straight away. My two year has been very ill and consumed all of my time. Firstly thank you for your response.

My answer to John above would pretty much the same to yours so not going to copy paste.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I think .com is worth sticking with because of current ranking I have had three leads in the last two days from my rankings, but I do believe I am falling short one top spots because of the .com / .au difference. After a lot of consideration, pro's vs cons I think its best to stick with the .com changing to .com.au I think will have to much of a negative ranking response and may take 6 months to a year to recover.
Thank you again for taking the time to response. Enjoy the rest of your week!

[creativeground]

Hi John,
Sorry haven't responded straight away. My two year has been very ill and consumed all of my time. Firstly thank you for your response.

I'm in the top three - eight for most searches and when using location specific ( Gold Coast ) then we are number one, two or three. It just seems we fighting against .com.au domain rather than design quality or content source for the top spots.
We do have clients in Canada, UK, Saudi, South Africa & China but our focus is the Australian market, everything else is a bonus.
I have given it sooo much thought and I keep believing .com is the one to stick with but I am left with the .com.au doubt over ranking top positioning within Australia.
Thank you.

[Verve-Innovation]

HI Kevin,

I also agree with what John said above. " depends on how you set up the .com."

In summary, there are no TLDs ( Top Level Domain .com. .org etc ) that Google finds preferential to others; they are all treated equally in rankings. There are some geo-specific TLDs ( Like yours ) that Google will default to a specific country and use that as an indicator that the website is more important in a specific geographic region. But all TLDs are treated equally.

Ref: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/googles-handling-of-new-top-level.html

If you think your ranking is due to .com? then you need have clear competitors analysis metrics before switching from .com to .com.au . But For sure it will have impact.

[ClaytonJ]

It depends on your customer and how you set up the .com.

Have you selected an geo-targeting for your website? This article could be of assistance https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

Also is your customer based solely in Australia? If your customer is only Australia based it maybe worth considering a change. Need more data. ie is Australia, the State or town in the Title visible on each search?

Also for the sites ranking above you - need more competitive analysis, than .au as the possible cause. Worthy discussion.