Would other TLDs (Top Level Domains) be helpful?
-
Hi,
I have a website geared towards an international crowd. It is written in English on the .com TLD. We are currently having it translated to Japanese on the .jp TLD and to French on the .fr TLD. Is getting a TLD for each country/translation a good way to go? Not only in terms of SEO, but is this the best way to get found in these other countries?
Second questions: Would getting TLDs in other English speaking countries do any good? Like .com.au or .com.nz or .ca? Again, both in terms of SEO and reach for users in those countries.
Last question, since I'm not going to change the content much (or any...) for the other English TLDs, how should I go about them? 301 redirect to the .com website? Show same content without a redirect? Other idea?
Thank you in advance!
-Elad
-
Yes but still not as good as promoting the one site.
You seem to like the local idea, so go with that, if at some stage you think its the wrong stratigy, you can always stop promoting all, and concentrate on the .com only -
Oh... but the proverbial rabit hole goes even deeper
If I have local sites, with better local search results, I have more local linking opertunities. Since these landing pages will be linking to the main .com site, this will also be giving some link juice to the main site. So these links not only boost the local results, but also boost .com site, no?
-
Yes it will, but when you have so many sites, how to get the links.
Getting quality links is hard.What is best, getting 100 quality links each for 5 sites, or 500 qualitty links for 1 site, i think the latter.
so we have a trade off, more links, or the benifit of local?
Toss a coin
-
As with any landing pages, you should always be testing. So, test the localized pages. Create a landing page that is .com.au and test it against a .com (both identical in every other way) and see how each converts.
With your snippet showing .com.au versus .com, you could likely test the does the .au improve your chances with Google.com.auYou can PM me when you have results as I would be very interested in them.
-
Thank you for the detailed reply!
We are an Internet only business. We will not be taking advantage of Places and localized listings, etc.
I agree with your customer acquisition perspective, given a choice, I would opt to first visit a local site.
In terms of cost, it will be negligible. The cost of these domains is less than 10$/yr. and all our English content is done in-house, so it's bought and paid for anyway.
But still, would localized landing pages, with just several pages (or maybe even just one) of content and links to the main site hurt the main site in any way or render the localized domain useless?
I'm currently leaning towards giving it a try, I just don't want to end up shooting myself in the foot.
-
As to the English translation to French, Japanese, Spanish, etc. this does not count as duplicate content in the eyes of google. From Google webmaster blog:
What isn't duplicate content?
Though we do offer a handy translation utility, our algorithms won't view the same article written in English and Spanish as duplicate content. Similarly, you shouldn't worry about occasional snippets (quotes and otherwise) being flagged as duplicate content.So, in my opinion you are going the right direction. The question about having a different TLD for each English speaking country assuming the content is different, I would think that it would depend on the benefit you derive from localization beyond having Places locations should you include bricks and mortar sites in your business model. If the cost in time and money is such that it is very small, then it probably helps to localize the TLD. (If not from an SEO perspective, potentially from a customer acquisition perspective.) My opinion is that if I have a site that is .AU and another that is .com and appears to be U.S., I am more likely to buy from the one where I live. So, for me, the US site is preferable as a consumer.
Without weighing the costs involved, I do not think you can make a determination of value for the other country specific TLD's.
-
It's a moderately competitive industry, but most sites are global and don't make any local effort. On-Page SEO is very powerful even for the global site. I'm guessing the local site will have even more weight put in the on-page factors. The questions is, will having a .com.au site give me an advantage with searches on google.com.au, for example.
-
That will get you around the duplicate content problem, but how about seo for so many sites, are you in a commpeditive industry?
-
For languages other than English, I would opt for a local domain, and I agree that it should not be a problem. As for TLDs for English speaking countries, I would still like to have a local TLD. I was thinking of maybe making a local landing page for the TLD, which gives some country specific content, and links to the .com site for further information and registration. Any thoughts on that?
-
This is a hard one, going local is always better, global is hard, but haveing duplicate content is not going to help, if you use a 301 or canoical tags only one site is going to rank.
I would think that duplicate content in anther lingo is usefull and should not be a problem, but in english it would.
Maybe a site for each lingo, not country
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
-
Help! Choosing a domain for a European sub-brand when working as a partner in North America
Background: Let's say there's a European company ABC.com, they have some presence in the US already for a lot of product brands in a certain space (let's say they make widgets). ABC Co gets 1,600 searches a month and all of that volume centers around the widgets they are known for. ABC Co purchases a company that makes gears, let's call it Gears Inc (gears.com). Gears Inc. was known for making gears in Europe, but their brand is not known in the US (search volume 0). Ideally, I would keep the Gears Inc. brand and build up the presence in the US, separating it from ABC Co. ABC Co wants to maintain their brand and eliminate Gears Inc. But we've received permission to keep the Gears brand for bringing that product to the US ... we will have an uphill battle building up the brand recognition, but at least it won't get lost in what ABC Co is already known for in the US. (ie: we don't want calls for widgets). Domain Situation: ABC Co. has redirected gears.com (DA 1) to a subdomain: {gearmakers}.abcco.com (DA 66) ... they have agreed to place a landing page under that 301 that links to the regional domains (theirs in the EU and ours in the US/North America). They are unwilling to let us use or purchase gears.com OR 301 gears.com directly to our domain. What we're trying to do: build Gears Inc. as a recognizable brand when someone searches "gears inc", this domain would rank first create a simple "brand domain" that a less-tech-savvy users could easily navigate to needs to have recognition in US, Canada and Mexico
International SEO | | mkretsinger
I don't know if this helps or provides anything more? The question is what do we use as our domain name? Any feedback is appreciated!0 -
Multiple Domains Appearing in SERP - 1 .com, 1 ccTLD
Our global domain and our US ccTLD domain both appear for brand searches in the US. How do I recommend to our Tech team to fix this, as it skews our Organic traffic numbers between the two domains? The brand is Sportradar. (Sportradar.com / Sportradar.us )
International SEO | | mitchell-moz0 -
Google Analytics - whats best way to set up to track users on geotargeted sub folders & tlds ?
Hi ive got a client site just about to launch into 2 new territories (German Germany & Turkish Turkey) The existing/main site is in English & targets English keyword usage globally via domain.com and is not geotargeted in anyway. Analytics is set up for this on domain.com and tracking accurately and GWT is set up too. Now we have added a Turkish language site via a subfolder (domain.com/tr/) & the German site (domsain.com/de/) BUT this German subfolder will be domain mapped to a TLD (domain.de) eventually.. So what's best way to configure/set up Google Analytics to track users so can view the international sub-sites as individual sites etc ? (& GWT for that matter) ? Also after doing this i will be setting up in Moz Anlytics as separate campaigns so how do you set up so only draws in the Analytics data specific to these sub-folders ? All Best Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
2 Domains, 2 Languages, but 1 WP Install?
I've got a case who wants to have one english website at one domain targeting Hawaii/ USA (bodywellnesshawaii.com) and a spanish speaking one (bodywellnesschile.cl) targeting Chile/ South America. What's the best way to go about this? Just clone the current bodywellnesshawaii.com site, translate it and have it live on a separate WP install? OR Is there a way in which we can use just one WP install with multi language and have each language live on separate domains? Not sure whether that's even possible, but it would be easier to add content/ maintain... Either one better for SEO? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | stephanwb0 -
Use country-specific domains or stick to already strong .com domain?
We run an online store with the majority of our customers coming from 4 different European countries. The site is accessible through TLD's of all of these countries. However our .com domain currently has the most links pointing to it and the highest domain authority. Unfortunately, we are unable to tell through which TLD visitors reach our site. The niche is rather competetive, and therefore I am unsure whether it would be worth it to solely use our .com domain for the English language, and try to rank for each of the seperate languages with its own country-specific domain. **Question/discussion: **Will it be worth the costs and time to spent to build links for the country specific domains in these countries, or should we focus on making our .com domain stronger and use it for all countries? I'm aware of the benefits of ranking with a domain in the country the user is in. Note: We have major duplicate content issues at this moment, due the content being available in different languages, on a handful of domains. On each domain, users can view the site in different languages. In addition, the language indication in the url is not very clear (?lang=x) so I believe this should be improved to make it easier for search engines to tell which language is presented. If I choose to use a different language for each TLD, then the language flag in the navigation on the site will point to a different domain, so each language is hosted on 1 domain and there is no more duplicate content. However, I'm afraid this will lead to lower rankings, as the (strong) .com domain will no longer host the content in different languages.
International SEO | | 1200wd0 -
Differents TLDs and same contents not a problem Matt Cutts says?
Matt Cutts says on this video that you can have the same content on different TLDs and there is no duplicate content for Google. Have someone try this experience? For example : same content on "mysite.fr" and "mysite.be". And for the visitors from Belgium, will they see into the SERPs "mysite.be" and for the visitors from France "mysite.fr"? Thank you for your answer guys. Jon watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo&feature=player_embedded
International SEO | | JonathanLeplang1 -
Targeting specific Geographic areas. Use 1 large.Com or several smaller country specific TLDs?
Hi, I have a small number of exact match domains, both country specific TLDs and also the Generic TLD dot com and dot net. They are: ExactMatch**.Com**
International SEO | | Hurf
ExactMatch**.Net** ExactMatch**.Co.Uk**
ExactMatch**.Ca**
ExactMatch**.Co.Nz**
ExactMatch**.Co.Za** We have already successfully launched our UK site using the exact match .co.uk and this is currently number 2 in the UK SERPS for the Google, Yahoo and Bing. They are/will be niche specific classified ad sites, which are Geographically targeted by country (to Engish speakers in the main) and each region is likely to have a minumum of 2,000 unique listings submitted over the course of a year of so. My question (FINALLY) is this: Am I better to build one large global site (will grow to approx. 12,000 listings) using EXACTMATCH.Com with .com - targeting US users and then geo-targeted sub directories (ExactMatch.Com/Nz etc) - each sub dir targeted to the matching geographic area in webmaster tools, or use the ccTLDs and host each site in the country with perhaps (each site growing to approx 2,000 listings) I could use the ccTLDs just for marketing/branding onlyand redirect these to the specific sub directory of the .com site? I am aware that there is one main ccTLD that I cannot get .Com.Au (as I am not a resident of Australia - and it is already in use.) so I was wondering if the single site with .Com/AU/ etc might help me better target that country? If I use each ccTLD as separate sites I suppose I could use the largely redundant .net to target Australia? Your thoughts and advice would be most welcome. Thanks! An additional bit of intormation (or two) the .com is circa 2004. The product advertised is a reasonably bulky (perhaps 6kgs boxed) physical product and therefore the seller is unlikely to want to ship globally - will this make them shy away from a global site - even one divided into global sub sections? FYI Seller can specify in their listing Will Ship To ....... I would be open to looking at using the front page of the .Com site as a page which visitors select the country they wish to buy/sell on. (IF it is the general consensus that it is better to create one large site.) Consider also please how the end user is likely to percieve the benefits to them of one LARGE SITE versus TARGETED SITE - I know the .Com would be divided into geographic sub directories, but I am not sure if they won't see an additinal benefit to the ccTLD - Does this add a degree of reassurance and relevance that a .com/ccTLD cannot provide? I suppose I am biased by the fact that ebay use ccTLDs? Thanks again - and please forgive my tone which may suggest I am playing devil's advocate here. I am very torn on this issue.0 -
Do non-english(localized) URLs help Local SEO and user experience?
Hi Everyone, This question is about URL best practice for multilingual websites. We have www.example.com in English and we are building the exact replica of English site in German www.example.de. On the Geman site, we are considering to translate some portions of the URLs for example last folder and file name as seen below: example.de/folder1-in-english/folder2-in-english/folder3-in-german/filename-in-german.html Is this a good idea? Will this help SEO and user experience both? or the mixed languagues in URL will confuse the users? Google guidelines say that this should be ok. Would love to get feedback from SEOMOZ community! Thanks, Supriya.
International SEO | | Amjath0