Impact of .us vs .com on SEO rankings?
-
Our website is hosted on www.discovered.us. I have 2 questions:
1: we have had regular feedback a .us domain is negative in SEO and in conversion (customers don't like it). We are thinking of changing domain to: www.dscvrd.com.
Any insights on the impact on our rankings (if any) if we do this?2: we are focusing our SEO global / USA first but conversions in UK are better. We currently do not have multi-language SEO setup. What would the impact be of implementing www.discovered.co.uk on SEO in UK?
Thanks!
Gijsbert
-
If you change your domain then expect your rankings and traffic to drop significantly for at least a short period of time (a few months is likely). You'll need to set up 301 redirects from the old domain to the new, pointing to relevant replacement URLs on the new domain; .us/how-to-redirect => .com/how-to-redirect
The .us domain will help focus on a US market, though a .com will also do the same. The differences is a .com is also international, so users from the UK, France, etc may still feel comfortable dealing with a .com domain, but may not with a .us one.
The most important thing in terms of SEO is the users' experience in finding the answer to their query; too many people focus on using '-' in their URL in order to get the perfect, keyword rich domain, but Google actually looks for the speed and efficiency in which you can answer a query for "easier routes from IL to KY".
.com, .net, .org. They're all pretty much the same in terms of value; they're all TLDs. The key difference in them is how your users react to them; a charity/public service website may see better results by using a .org for example, but a multinational corporation would likely only settle for .com or .net.
-
Thanks James.
Is there any research or data to support this?
For us, it would mean implementing dscvrd.com for the USA market. Quite a change and want to make sure this is the best way to go.
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
-
Title Too Long - Seo importance
Hey; What do you think Title Too Long for Seo importance my site adress almost all page Title Too Long warning is showing http://prntscr.com/ndykgw from many sites this way, how much difference does this order make?
Local Website Optimization | | mesutcandan0 -
Raise in ranking but drop in visibility, also question about wordpress themed SEO
Hello,
Local Website Optimization | | SharonEKG
my first question is, i started working in August on a website for furniture repair and services that is a local business and who ever setup the website and did the SEO before me implanted the front page content and many other pages in the theme itself, we got Yoast premium and i mostly get bad rank of the page both from Yoast and Moz im guessing because it is simply cant find the links and content that is on the page since it is in the theme code. should i recommend the company to do a makeover and move everything to the actual wordpress page?
Also many changes has been made to the website, too many to track and i have seen in the past month an continues drop lower and lower of our visibility, but yet in the past week and half huge jump in some rankings. some of them are for hard to rank keywords, a jump of sometime 20/30+ up the ranks.
since i dont have a track of all the changes has been made, is there a way to know what cause it? Also one last question,
i have implemented google tag manager and been configuring it for the past month and now i have finally getting close to track all metrics we would like to track, i have removed all google analytics codes that i knew of and managed to find through search through the theme and plugins but yet when i fire up tag assistant it shows two codes the tag manager and analytics, i know it could interfear each other or give false/double readings. is there a way to track it and remove it? i have went through all theme files.. and cant find it.. Thanks!0 -
What is the best way to differentiate and optimize two similar websites's SEO?
What is the best way to differentiate and optimize two similar websites's SEO, having in mind that they do not produce content?
Local Website Optimization | | EmmaGeorge0 -
An attorney left my clients firm and we still rank well for her name
We've taken down the attorney's official page. Should we redirect her old page to the home page? Do a custom 404? I'm sure there's a best practice here but I'm blanking.
Local Website Optimization | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Rank Tracking URLs from specific locations
Hi, i'm trying to report on the ranks of my local landing page URLs within my website. What is the best way of seeing this data from certain locations around the UK? For example - I have a landing page that is targeting London. How can I see how that ranks in the SERPs from various locations within the Greater London area? Can this be done accurately on MOZ or SEMrush? I would like to see how other people track their local pages for ranking locally. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | SeoSheikh0 -
How can I see if my users are coming from google.com or google.ca?
Got a local search question for you here. Google will automatically redirect most users to their country's google product of choice - google.ca if you're in Canada. However, I'm seeing a ton of organic traffic to our website that is ranking poorly in Google.ca, but ranking well on Google.com. This is a local HVAC business in Alberta. Is there a way to see the amount of traffic coming from Google.com as opposed to Google.ca in analytics?
Local Website Optimization | | brettmandoes0 -
Local SEO for Multiple Locations - Is this the best approach?
Hi everyone! I previously have worked with single-location companies, and am now working for a company that is continuously growing and adding new locations. We are a financial institution that currently has 12 locations, and we should have 15+ locations by year-end 2017. Seeing as we have all of these locations, I thought the following approach would be the best for increasing our presence in local search. Our primary keyword is "credit union in location". Our search traffic has increased heavily over last year, but is down from the beginning of the year. I've gone through and done the following: Freshened up the content on the main website Created pages for each of our locations around April-end Attributed these location page URLs to our Google My Business locations Verified each location Wrote unique content for each page Our primary keyword rankings seem to fluctuate weekly. My next steps are to get our web design company to add the following: Structured Data on all location pages The ability to change SEO title and meta descriptions on location pages Sitemap (there is none currently, and I've been fighting them to get one added because it isn't needed.) I also plan on utilizing Moz Local to manage our local listings. After this is done I plan on finding ways for us to build links for each location, like the chambers of commerce in each city and local partnerships. Is this the best approach for our overall goal, and should I continue? Is there anything I should change about our current approach? I appreciate the help!
Local Website Optimization | | PelicanStateCU0 -
Can to many 301 redirects damage my Ecommerce Site - SEO Issue
Hello All, I have an eCommerce website doing online hire. We operate from a large number of locations (100 approx) and my 100 or so categories have individual locations pages against them example - Carpet Cleaners (category) www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
carpet cleaner hire Manchester www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners/Manchester
carpet cleaner hire london
carpet cleaner hire Liverpool patio heater (category)
patio heater hire Manchester
patio heater hire London
patio heater hire Liverpool And so on..... I have unique content for some of these pages but given that my site had 40,000 odd urls, I do have a large amount of thin/duplicate content and it's financially not possible to get unique
content written for every single page for all my locations and categories. Historically, I used to rank very well for these location pages although this year, things have dropped off and recently , I was hit with the Panda 4.0 update which i understand targets thin content. Therefore what I am int he process of doing is reducing the number of locations I want to rank for and have pages for thus allowing me to achieve both a higher percentage of unique content over duplicate/thin content on the whole site and only concerntrate on a handful of locations which I can realistically get unique content written for. My questions are as follows. By reducing the number of locations, my website will currently 301 redirect these location page i have been dropping back to it's parent category.
e.g carpet cleaner hire Liverpool page - Will redirect back to the parent Carpet cleaner hire Page. Given that I have nearly 100 categories to do , this will mean site will generate thousands of 301 redirects when I reduce down to a handful of locations per category. The alternative Is that I can 404 those pages ?... What do yout think I should do ?.. Will it harm me by having so many 301's . It's essentially the same page with a location name in it redirecting back to the parent. Some of these do have unqiue content but most dont ?. My other question is - On a some of these categories with location pages, I currently rank very well for locally although there is no real traffic for these location based keywords (using keyword planner). Shall I bin them or keep them? Lastly , Once I have reduced the number of location pages , I will still have thin content until , I can get the unique content written for them. Should I remove these pages until that point of leave them as it is? It will take a few months
to get all the site with unique content. Once complete, I should be able to reduce my site down from 40,000 odd pages to say 5,000 pages Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks
Pete0