UK company not ranking .com domain in UK
-
Hi,
we have a slight issue with our website. We have been proactively doing SEO for the past year, but we have run into a slight issue.
Our website is ranking for search terms everywhere except Our local area (UK)
We have tried creating separate sections of our site targeted just at the UK In search console. As well as targeting the whole site as UK preferred and setting the hreflang tags to en-GB.
Nothing seems to be working, any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
-
Darn. If you'd be willing to share the domain I'd be willing to do a full crawl of it and return the data to you. If there are no glaring technical errors then at least we'd know it was probably a combo of content issues and off-site popularity metrics which could be corrected over time
Up to you though. Seems complex though, like we should begin ruling stuff out
-
No it's not that i'm afraid. Thanks for your help though.
There's also no country targeting when you add a domain in the new version.
-
The targeting in Search Console isn't working for you very well right now as Google is overriding it. I might leave it in place but know that all it will really do, is limit the traffic you get from elsewhere. It does apparently push up your rankings in the location specified but only very, very marginally. Mainly it cuts traffic out from other locations, so based on that decide what's best for your site and business
It makes me wonder if you're working with the wrong search console property. Most sites are not currently on the domain-level search console property as it's currently annoying to set up (you need to edit DNS records or go through your host, instead of just uploading a file as it should be, as it has always been). This means you're probably working with non-domain level GSC (Google Search Console) properties
If that is true, you should have at least four registered (HTTP WWW, HTTPS WWW, HTTP non-WWW, HTTPS non-WWW). If you have always worked with a GSC property that references the site as beginning with "http://www." and then you move to HTTPS with WWW, and you still continue working with the old property, it won't do anything as it's the wrong one. When you change architecture you very often need to add a new GSC property to accommodate that. If that's true in your case it could be possible you've been making all the GSC changes in the wrong property to no effect, so do check that too
-
Hey,
Thanks for your response.
Are you saying that we should remove the country targeting that we have set in the search console?
The reason we're confident that there is a technical issue is because there are competitors with lower pagerank than us and far fewer links, that are ranking in #1 for relevant search terms.
Are there any particular things i should look for?
You are right in saying the majority of our backlinks are from overseas. But it's a catch 22, as our content is ranking elsewhere and not in the UK -
-
That can happen due to poor coding and misaligned hreflang tags, but more commonly happens due to a misaligned Digital PR strategy. In the absence of traffic data to dive into, Google will often look to popularity (link) metrics to decide whom it thinks should see a particular website. If lots of your links are from the USA and you are on a .com site then it might be pushing you up over there
Google's search console actually has a tool that forces a property / domain to rank only in a certain area. It doesn't move your rankings across though, it just nullifies any outside of the specified region (so either way you still have an uphill climb ahead of you, no magic bullets I am afraid)
I can only imagine it's having done something silly like building a UK site that lists prices in USD or something crazy like that. The sheer determination of Google to not rank you guys in the UK, should in the end point to an obvious and glaring error of some kind
It could be Digital PR related or to do with the structure of the site. Because Google seems adamant to rank you in the wrong area, I'd say it would be extremely likely to be a cascade of failures, converging to give you these unrelenting issues
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
-
Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?
Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh0 -
How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?
There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake"). About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain? Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smpomoryCRH0 -
Ranking and Deindexing Issues
Hi We have a website www.advanced-tuning.co.uk which has been suffering since Penguin 2 in terms of SERPS drops and indexing of pages. There are several issues which I believe are impacting on rankings and indexing/ pages being removed from the index. 1) Unnatural links. Been through Cemper and 2% of back links are toxic , 71% suspicious. There has been some auto link building undertaken by previous SEO’ers which has resulted in a lot of very poor quality back links - .pl forum member links etc. I put together a link disavow doc and have now seen Average Link Detox Risk drop to moderate from high. There still a few dodgy links but I’m working my way through these. 2) “thin” content – the site has a lot of auto generated manufacturer / model web pages e.g. http://advanced-tuning.co.uk/model/chevrolet-captiva-2-0-d-vcdi-150/ http://advanced-tuning.co.uk/model/bmw-116i-115/ these pages are internally linked to each other In addition there's a series of geographically targeted web pages which tbh don't seem to have been hit (yet) e.g. http://advanced-tuning.co.uk/location/engine-remapping-huddersfield/ My question is should I; a) Look to remove these manufacturer / model pages completely b) Invest time in generating suitable content for the service /location pages? c) Remove both types of content and concentrate on creating suitable content and links for the top level manufacturer web pages Also If i do remove the manufacturer / model pages is it worth me 301'ing the pages that are still indexed? Thanks in advance, Ade
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Door4seo0 -
Complementary Domain
Hi guys, I have the following situation I would like some help. Because my client is in Brazil, I will make up fictional names so it's easier to understand. My client is a shoe store whose domain is mangabeira.com. That is the brand name and will always be the main domain and reference of the website. We were offered the domain shoes.com. There is no intention of changing the brand name or anything, but there would be a redirect that would send the user who to mangabeira.com. My question is how much impact would that complementary domain do to my SEO performance and how that redirect must be handled. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LucasLopes0 -
Domain registered with US provider; hosted with UK - SEO effects?
My boss wants me to register a domain with a US company. However, most of our customers are in the UK. Though I would host any future website using a UK hosting provider, I don't know if registering the domain with a US provider would make any difference SEO-wise?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JacobFunnell0 -
301 Redirecting multiple domains to brand new domain
Hi guys, I have read quite a bit of stuff on 301 redirects after Penguin. Hoping someone could help me out. im looking at a way to do a legit 301 redirect without passing the penalty. I have acquired two businesses, business1 and business2, that both had websites that were hit by penguin. Ive anaylsed there backlinks and theres a lot of spammy forum links and comments and I was also informed they were both using buildmyrank. A side note, buiness2 only started using BMR after it noticed business1 have large amounts of high PR links. business1.com was ranking at position 1 till the penguin hit. Business2.com was ranking around page 2 I work in the same arena as these two businesses and didnt generate any business via the internet. When these 2 businesses failed (due to loss of rankings and traffic) i decided to take them over. What I am thinking of doing is 301'ing both business domains to my brand new, zero links, domain which will be the name of my new company. I will combine the content from both sites, around 1000 pages, in to the new one. So my question is, does 301'ing multiple domains, that target the same keywords, and operate in the same niche, look less "spammy" then 301'ing 1 domain? I'm trying to look at it in the eyes of google. It is a legit merging of businesses. Thanks for your help, really appreciate your time
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
Purchase a domain to gain its rank, Highlander-style?
(urls have been altered) We are KitchenApps.Com, your online portal for kitchen appliances. One of our biggest selling products is toasters, but despite SEO efforts, **KitchenApps.Com/toasters **ranks on page 6 for "toasters" and barely budges. One of our competitors, Kool-Kitcken-Apps.biz just tossed in the towel and sold his domain/site to our boss for the cheap. It's an old domain, but the URL isnt lovely. He's got content, but it aint pretty and of course, we sell differently than he does, have some different products, etc. BUT BUT BUT hold everything, he ranks on the first page, with his homepage, for "toasters" his best ranked keyword. A lot of sites have linked to his site for toasters, buying toasters, etc. Of course, the boss wants to just toss his content, and since his domain is different than company name (which is literally KitchenApps.Com) we should redirect Kool-Kitchen-Apps.biz to our SEO friendly KitchenApps.com/toasters url. He expects that will keep the same positioning, and we'll snag the toaster clicks. Can we expect to maintain the positioning on page #1?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico0 -
Recovery during domain migration
On average, how long does it takes to recover 80% of the rankings if two high authority domains are combined without chaging any content? I totally understand that each domain is different and search engines can treat them differently but if all the steps are followed to the T what are the chances?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ninjamarketer1