Top Level Domains
-
Howdy Everyone,
I have a website that will span multiple countries. The content served will be different for each country. As such, I've acquired the top level domains for different countries.
I want to map the cop level domains (e.g. domain.co.uk) to uk.domain.com for development purposes (LinkedIn does this).
I'm curious to know whether this is adviseable and if mapping a country-specific TLD to a subdomain will maintain local SEO value.
Thanks!
-
Thanks guys, great insights!
- I do have multiple ccTLDs for the same site. The content for each, however, will be significantly different.
- By 'domain-mapping' I meant actually getting into the DNS records and mapping the ccTLD URL to a sub-domain
- Rel canonical redirect: I'm assuming that the .com.uk would be the canonical page? If this page is the canonical page, and the com/uk/ is the 'discounted' page, what happens if the rest of the site uses the .com/uk convention? (In other words, is it advisable to have this inconsistency [both from a usability, index point-of-view]?)
@Gary
I think this is a very interesting point. I agree with both of you that if I saw a billboard for domain.com/uk, I might think it to be slightly odd. However, I'm not sure if consistency trumps familiarity or not.
Further down the rabbit-hole:
I will have multiple languages (let's say en, fr, es). I want this to utilise sub-directories (I want to avoid super-fancy AJAX whatnot. I HATE Google's help page URLs, for instance).
domain.com/us/en/
domain.com/us/es/The idea here is that the site rank for multiple languages, within a country (without creating super-duper long URLs). Any ideas/tips?
Maybe a quick outline might help:
1 - Main (sort of a splash/navigation page)
1 - USA
1 - EN
2 - ES
2 - UK
1 - EN
3 - France
1 - FR
2 - EN
-
Gary has a point that considering offline marketing is important in many situations. Seeing .co.uk instead of /uk definitely gives a more local feel.
Great response anyway, to follow on from that:
If you want to use www.domain.co.uk in offline marketing then you may want to consider using a rel canonical redirect. It may be a bit more time consuming to set up (there are different ways you could go about doing this) but it may help from a conversion point of view. Probably minimal I admit, but people generally don't like being redirected.
Either way, I wouldn't worry about what domain they use as a linking source if your redirects are set up correctly.
-
I agree that directories would be a better way to organise your content.
I would aim to get people to use www.domain.com/uk etc. as a linking source, but potentially still use www.domain.co.uk in offline marketing and use 301 redirects to www.domain.com/uk. If that makes any sense?
The TLD will certainly have offline local value even if it doesnt have SEO benefit.
-
If I read your first paragraph right, you have multiple ccTLDs for the same company? That will make your SEO efforts a lot more difficult and is only really appropriate in rare cases (Amazon for instance).
To make your life a lot easier, I would suggest using directories instead. i.e. domain.com/us, domain.com/au, domain.com/uk as more PageRank passes from the root level to these directories than from root level to the subdomain. Then it comes down to geo-targeting.
To sum up:
Directories > Subdomains > Unique Domains (purely in terms of SEO).
When you say you want to map the top level domains, do you mean redirect domain.co.uk to uk.domain.com? afaik, redirecting .co.uk to uk.domain would not retain any local UK SEO value directly - other UK signals may come with the redirect though.
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
-
Old domain to new domain
Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website. I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Questions on switching domain name of my site
Hey guys, I purchased a domain name on May 1st and have been running my site on it since then. At the time when I added the domain name to the shopping cart, I felt that it was the best domain name a human could possibly come up with. But now, after two months, I am not so sure about it. And that means I am thinking of getting a new domain name and redirecting the old domain to the new one. Give that the domain is only two months old, there is not much to lose. However, my domain name does have some valuable backlinks, and has built some credibility in the eyes of search engines. According to MOZ Open Site Explorer, its Domain Authority is 10 and Page Authority (homepage) is 20. It's not much, but I fear that if I switch the domain name, I will reset the clock and the new domain name will have to earn the rankings from scratch That said, after searching this forum, I come across articles like this one from google and this 2012 article from MOZ that gave me some confidence. The MOZ article is from 2102, and there have been several changes since then. Is there an updated version of that article, or another legit article on the internet that you can point me to? As you can tell, I want to be more than sure that we don't take any hit during the migration process. Also want to mention that the site is on WordPress -- in case that is relevant. Thank you for your help.
Technical SEO | | deathbyseo0 -
Moving my domain to weebly
I am thinking of moving my html website to weebly. They offer a 301 redirect for my domain name. Is that ok for SEO?
Technical SEO | | bhsiao0 -
Keyword in Domain Name
Hello!My website is www.enchantingquotes.com. I also own the domain www.enchantingwallquotes.com,which forwards to my site. About 90% of my business comes from the keyword "wall quotes". Should I consider changing switching to the enchantingwallquotes.com domain and redirecting? And if I do, do I need to recreate the entire website or is there an easier way that I am overlooking? Thank you for any advise/insight!
Technical SEO | | eqgirl0 -
Does Domain Mapping Leak Link Juice?
Hi everyone As per previous posts, we are in the process of setting up a new sideline to the business and after taking great advice from you guys, we have bought a new domain - which is fuelsos.co.uk - To save on hosting fees, I have created a subdirectory on our main site at http://lockcity.co.uk/fuelsos/ which is in the process of being mapped to fuelsos.co.uk (will take affect in next 24hrs) My question is, am I leaking link juice from my main site doing this? or should I look at buying seperate hosting? Many thanks, Abi
Technical SEO | | LockCity0 -
Is the number at the top of google wrong
If I search a term, any term, Google states at the top 922,000 results (as an example). However, if you click the "O" in google at the bottom you can get the 2nd and 3rd and 4th page of results. Those numbers don't match. The result of my searches would show anywhere from 120-140 results, but the number at the top is in the tens of thousands if not millions. Am I missing something here? Shouldn't these numbers be the same?
Technical SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Changing preferred domain
My company has an international website, and because of a technical issue visitors in one of our main countries cannot visits the "www" version of our site. Currently, the www version is our preferred domain - and the non www redirects to that page. To solve this problem, I was thinking of proposing the following and would greatly appreciate any feedback! (Note: If you answered my www vs. non www question, thanks - this is a follow up) 1. Set non www site as the preferred version 2. Redirect from www to non www 3. Contact our current links and ask them to change to without “www” 4. Change canonical URLs to without “www”
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Are multiple links devalued on the same domain?
I'm in negotiations to get links placed on a popular blog with good stats. I'm allowed to pick older posts on the site, and I get to pick the anchor text. Is it best practice to diversify the links by having different keywords pointing to different pages or am I better off pointing as many links as I can at one page (varying anchor text)? Also, is it best to pick a more recent blog post, or is it ok to pick one from say, 2009?
Technical SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0