Splitting a site into 2 international sites
-
Hi all,
I have a client that currently has a .com domain that ranks in both the US and the UK for various search terms. They have identified a need to provide different information for UK and US visitors which will require 2 versions of all pages. If we set up a .co.uk domain and keep the .com obviously that will be a brand new UK site which will have zero rankings.
Any suggestions as to the best way to introduce this second version of the content without losing UK rankings?
Thanks
-
Thanks - that helps.
-
Hi Dan,
Is there a reason you want to go for a .co.uk? Why not just add the UK content into a /uk/ version of the site and set HREFLANG to handle the different international pages? That way you don't lose any rankings and all you are doing is moving content around on a current domain.
No need to take it to another site.
Here is some good reading that will help you setup the site and make sure you don't miss anything:
- https://moz.com/blog/the-international-seo-checklist
- https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-internationalisation
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
The fact that is is on the same domain doesn't matter because HREFLANG will tell Google which content is for which country.
-Andy
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
-
Question regarding international SEO
Hi there, I have a question regarding international SEO and the APAC region in particular. We currently have a website extension .com and offer our content in English. However, we notice that our website hardly ranks in Google in the APAC region, while one of the main languages in that region is also English. I figure one way would be to set up .com/sg/ (or .com/au/ or .com/nz/), but then the content would still be in English. So wouldn't that be counted as duplicate content? Does anyone have experience in improving website rankings for various English-speaking countries, without creating duplicate content? Thanks in advance for your help!
International SEO | | Billywig0 -
Is this approach of returning different content depending on IP beneficial for international SEO?
I've decided to use sub folders for my site, and from everything I've read online it seems I shouldn't change the page content depending on IP, yet I know of a successful well funded site that hires full time SEO staff that does just that, and I'm wondering whether they know something I don’t which is helping their SEO. From everything I've read online this is the format I think I should use: mysite.com/us/red-wigs mysite.com/gb/red-wigs mysite.com/red-wigs does not exist This is the format the other site is using: othersite.com/red-wigs (from US IP address) othersite.com/red-wigs (from UK IP address) othersite.com/gb/red-wigs The content on othersite.com/red-wigs is identical to othersite.com/gb/red-wigs when loading from a UK IP address, and a lot of URLs without /gb/ are being returned when searching google. The benefit I can think of that they are gaining is US pages which are being returned for UK based searches will return the correct content. Are their any other gains to this approach? I'm concerned that if I use this approach for different languages then the radically differing content of othersite.com/red-wigs depending on the location of the crawler might confuse google - also generally changing content depending on IP seems to be recommended against. Thanks
International SEO | | Mickooo0 -
US site vs New Canadian site for Brand
Hi Everyone, My company decided to create a Canadian site for Canadian customers. How do I slowly transition the US site for ranking in Google.ca? I was thinking of using robots.txt to block Google.Ca from crawling the US site? Can anyone provide some advice oh how this should be managed? Thank you!
International SEO | | JMSCC0 -
International SEO errors
Hello, In a muddle here. A website has a .co.uk and a .com version. They want to target the UK market and the USA market respectively. The content for the UK version has been localised for the UK audience (e.g. spellings etc) but the content is the same in both sites. There are errors in .co.uk version in webmaster tools : International Targeting | Language > 'en' - no return tags__URLs for your site and alternate URLs in 'en' that do not have return tags.**Q 1) What does this mean?**I can see that both the .com and .co.uk version has only this in place:**2) Should they actually have respectively?**3) Do they also need rel=canonical from the .co.uk to the .comAny help would be appreciated.
International SEO | | AL123al0 -
Site Ranking in all countries except USA
Hello, I have a site www.apdermatology.com in is ranking #1 for
International SEO | | element8design
"Dermatologist Chelsea Mi" "Dermatologist Chelsea Michigan" In Google in Canada, UK, Australia, Etc.. But in the USA it is on the 4th+ Page, it has been this way for weeks if not months. And does not seem to come up. I originally thought maybe that google was penalizing the site although, it comes up in all other counties. Does anyone have any recommendations how to resolve this, or what the problem may be? Thanks.0 -
Is International Geotargeting with Duplicate Content Effective?
A company located in Canada is currently targeting Canada through the geotargeting setting in Google Webmaster Tools. Google.ca rankings are good, but Google.com rankings are not. The company would like to gain more traction for US people using google.com. The idea on the table is to set up a subfolder www.domain.com/us/ and use WMT to designate this version for the US. Here's the kicker: the content is exactly the same. Will Google consider the US version duplicate content? Is this an effective way to target US and Canada at the same time? Is it better to forget a duplicate US site altogether and use the "unlisted" setting in WMT?
International SEO | | AliveWired0 -
Site with multiple languages
We are building a Joomla site for a customer that has an USA division and a South American division (english and spanish). The products and services are the same. I am trying to understand the best posible way to architect the site. 1- Do I create 1 site with duplicate pages in different languages? Does Google recognize that it is duplicate content if different languages are used? 2- Do I create seperate sub domains for each language? 3- Should I just use Google translate to translate the pages as required? The problem here is that each site has a different geographic target. any other alternatives?
International SEO | | brantwadz0 -
I need suggestions. We're helping a big journal to improve their external links, even though they've a site with over 10 million monthly visits, their external links are week. Any suggestions?
Please let us know where we can find information on how to improve external links for a very big journal site. Thanks.
International SEO | | carloscontinua0