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For Wordpress try : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/canonical/
also look at Yoast's Wordpress SEO plugin referenced on that page - I love it!
and for the duplicate content caused by the dymanic content on the pinnacle cart you can use the Google Webmasters tool to tell the Google to ignore certain parameters - go to Site configuration - Settings - Parameter handling and add the variables you wish to ignore to this list.
Have you actually created duplicate product pages (under different categories) - which is how it sounds to me?
Or do you have the facility within your ecommerce package to display a single product across multiple categories?
(I have ecommerce stores powered by Interspire and they allow the product - www.mydomain.com/products/product-123.html to be contained in multiple categories So you can drill down and find this single product page under 2 or more categories - without the need to create duplicate product pages.)
If you use the rel=canonical tags, only the page/s the canonical link points to will get indexed (if you have created the duplicate products) - is this what you want?
How do you decide which product remains in the index if you use the canonical tag?
Can all of the duplicate pages be dropped from the index without causing too much of a problem - based on your current architecture?
Are you currently getting penalised or indexed for the duplicate pages?
It would be good if you could map it out step by step (as it is setup now) and then clearly state your goal i.e. We currently have www.shopdomain.com/category-TWO/identicalproduct1 and www.shopdomain.com/category-TWO/identicalproduct1 and we only need to index www.shopdomain.com/category-ONE/identicalproduct1?
Let's see if we can't get you some solid pointers to resolve this.
A pleasure Wayne! (If you get stuck with the web hosting issue I'm sure we can arrange a whip round for you! ;o)
Blimey! How tight are her purse strings ;o)
As you could get away with next to no space for this if you are happy to redirect using just a .htaccess file you are going to need a very small hosting package if you chose that method.
I think I would specifically request it by email and explain why it is required and the detriment of NOT having it and ask her in the email if she can approve the purchase - essentially make her say 'YES, not problem' (and get the problem sorted quickly) or 'NO, not happening' (and leave the ball in her court - when people kick off in the top offices!)
If you are tasked to do a job (and expected to do it well!) then you can't be denied the tools you need to carry out the task - without someone else putting their neck on the block (in writing!)
If there anything preventing you from moving site B into an environment where you can control it and 301 ing it from there?
EDIT: Ahh, it looks like you consider that as your best option currently - based on the comments right at the end of your post?
Migrating Site B into an environment you can control as you wish makes perfect sense to me and create all the 301s to your new Site A when migration is complete - you should be able to do this pretty seamlessly - as you don't need to worry about the bulk of the site itself - just a change of nameserver and point it to a server that contains your already mapped out 301'd .htaccess file?
What are your intentions here? Do you intend to leave both sites running? Can you give us more information on the sites? Are they aged domains, is one/any/both of them currently attracting any inbound links, are they ranking? What is the purpose of the duplicate content?
Are you looking to redirect traffic from one of the sites to the other using 301 redirect?
Or do you want both sites visible - using the Canonical link tag?
(I am concerned that you say you 'cannot edit the tag'? Do you not have full Admin access to either site?
There are dedicated Canonical management plugins for Wordpress (if you have access to the wp-admin area)
You are going to need some admin priviledges to make any alterations to the site so that you can correct this.
Let us know a bit more please!
These articles may be useful as they provide detailed best practice info on redirects:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66359
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-block-redirect-or-canonical
Check out this article on redirects
Yoast works well alongside Genesis - as StudioPress were gracious enough to allow a dedicated SEO plugin take over from their built in offering.
I have done a lot with Interspire's Shopping Cart (which is the self hosted version of www.BigCommerce.com)
This has a review feature built in - and the REVIEWS appear directly under the product that is reviewed. Admin can control and edit reviews too (as you will have to approve them manually - which is a very sensible idea.)
Hopefully your users will leave reviews which are rich in related keywords - and I am sure that some shameless owners probably manufacture their own reviews just to gain a bit of additional on page keyword content - tskk tssk!
You could also setup a forum for additional product discussions alongside the main ecommerce site and allow users to engage in product discussion - with some links to the associated products and incentivise users who submit product reviews and articles?
You say Wordpress - I say Yoast's Wordpress SEO - which will also generate Sitemaps - alongsite a LOT of other groovy SEO things!
Rand talks about URL shorteners and their effect on link juice etc here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-there-anyway-for-redirected-links-to-still-provide-seo-value - Very good info (as you would expect from the bearded one...)
Sounds like an essential plugin for seo. Also sounds look it should be standard issue with the package too - It seems a bit like they are selling you a car without a steering wheel :O(
If it is built into the framework - Genesis from StudioPress for example - it should turn itself off when it detects a dedicated SEO plugin - for other SEO plugins I would deactivate them first to prevent conflicts. Yoast's plugin will manage everything you need including a great sitemap generator - which works well where others fail (in heavily modified wordpress installs such as Appthemes Classipress for example.)
Okay. After re-reading the question (with my eyes open this time) I understand that the fact that no link jiuce will be passed to Site A (from Site B) is not an issue, rather you don't want to lose the existing link equity when you switch Site B back on and then 301 redirect Site A to Site B?
So, with that in mind - there is no specified 'acceptable' time limit attached to a 302 redirect, so you should be able to redirect without fear of being penalised, regardless of duration.
This is mentioned elsewhere on SEOMoz here: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/9994/302-redirect-timeframe
This is an interesting read however: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/007233.html - just to keep things edgy ;o)
use the rel=canonical on the main page/s to show that they are the original/source/master page of the content.
See this helpful guide:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not
Don't forget you can also tell Googlebot to ignore certain URL parameters to prevent them being indexed and treated as duplicate content.
"If your site uses URL parameters, some of the parameters may be unnecessary for page navigation. Asking Google to ignore these parameters can reduce duplicate content in Google's index and make the site more crawlable."
This is done through Google.com/Webmasters - Your Domain - Dashboard - Settings - Parameter Handling.
Don't 302 in this case. Infact, don't 302 if at all possible as it passes ZERO link juice - 301 for this and get 90%+ link juice passed on. It does sound counter intuitive - certainly based on the titles MOVED PERMANENTLY etc but it is the best practice in this instance.
A 301 Redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.
A 302 Redirect is a temporary redirect and passes 0% of link juice (ranking power) and in most cases should not be used. The Internet runs on a protocol called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which dictates how URLs work. It has two major versions, 1.0 and 1.1. In the first version 302 referred to the status code 'Moved Temporarily'. This was changed in version 1.1 to mean 'Found'.
Extract from
1. Create 301 redirects from any of the old pages to their equivalent new pages - this tells Google that old content has moved from www.abcdomain.com/page1.html to www.abcdomain.com/category1/page1.html for example. Do that for every page. If there isn't an exact match for the old page - redirect it to an equivalent page where possible. (You can get a wordpress plugin to manage your 301 redirects - if you want to manage/monitor them - but modifying the .htaccess file is better.
You might want to create a spreadsheet or list based on an existing sitemap perhaps of the old url structure and the new one and cross reference them and mark each one as redirected as you create your 301 list for the htaccess file.
2. Resubmitting a new xml sitemap in Google.com/Webmasters may help the changes get picked up a little quicker.
3. Advise the client that 301 redirects can take a few weeks to properly kick in in terms of Google giving them back 90% of the authority they had previously - so you are likely to dip in the rankings for a bit - however, the better optimised site will eventually offset that and take it beyond where it was previously.
As previously stated this is because your Google Conversion Code isn't present in this page. This code is generated on the when you setup the Conversion Tracking - this code is then copied and pasted into the appropriate page and will look something like:
<script type="text/javascript">// script>
<script src="[http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js](view-source:http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js)" type="text/javascript">
script>
<p><noscript>
noscript>p>
Just seen another post on here that references this tool - which uses the SEOMoz API http://seogadget.co.uk/anchor-text-tool/index.php - Will export straight to a CSV too. Looks pretty good!
Indeed Ryan! If it helps I just stood up in the office and clapped and cheered Xenu's efforts quite loudly - thankfully my colleagues know me well enough to ignore my 'quirky' behaviour ;o)
Okay. I'm a convert! Looks quick and simple! Works well - just export to a TAB separated file and open with excel. I was so impresed I voted for this one instead of my recommendation! :O)
Take a look at the free Firefox Addon DownThemAll https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/
Themeforest - Good templates - offten more visually 'cutting edge' support levels can vary though - have used this too and been very pleased with results.
Thesis is, for the most part, an excellent template. It frustrates me that Thesis insists on 'controlling' the SEO parameters, rather than allowing this to be done by a dedicated SEO plugin - like Yoast's Wordpress SEO plugin. I have to say the Thesis developer, Chris Pearson, has publicly announced (on twitter) it will be a 'cold day in hell' before he allows a plugin to control the SEO (See: http://yoast.com/themes-plugins-seo/ )
Frankly this 'Jobsian' attitude toward the various preferences/requirements of the Thesis user - drove me away from it...
(There is a compromise of sorts I found here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/thesis-vs-yoast-wordpress-seo-plugin )
Overall Thesis is inded an excellent framework, but this issue is too big to be completely overlooked.
okay - that is rather pants!
Need to shout and stamp until they fix it! :O)
Having your products physically displayed under the main products link is not an issue. They will still be seen and indexed by the search engines.
if you are using the permalink settings to tidy your urls - be sure to set the permalink structure up so the URLs display a short - tidy URL - by using /%category%/%postname% or just /%postname% and dont place the product links deep down in subcategories www.domain.com/products/product-type/product-sub-type/product-namexyz/
Don't forget to look at the Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/ - I now consider this essential in every wordress installation (unless I am using Thesis framework - as Thesis will not support it :O(
www.studiopress.com - excellent templates and support is first class!
EDIT: These all support WP 3.0 and are SEO friendly too! (They have modified the SEO functionality)
However, the framework also allows you to run Yoast Wordpress SEO - which is generally considered the best SEO plugin for WP. http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/
I had a very similar problem with my own site disappearing from the SERPS, but showing as it should on any other PCs (that I hadn't previously used.)
The problem then related to Google's personalised search. Essentially, I had accidentally deleted my site and prevented it showing up in personalised search - though it still worked in any other browser that wasn't displaying my personalised results. ( See this article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-test-lets-users-vote-add-and-delete-sites-in-serps/6031/ )
To remove personalised search take a look at: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54048
This sounds to be a likely suspect for the issue you are having.
Personalised Search can also provide false results as you are seeing personalised results, based on your search history, activity and preferences, rather than the non-personalised results as they actually appear without personalised bias in the SERPS.
You can see your web history settings here: https://www.google.com/history/
Hope that helps!
Barry's URL for Flagfox is screwy - should be : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flagfox/
My recollection is that you can do this redirect page bu page under IIS Admin (inetmgr) as follows:
1. Browse the website you want to do the redirect for.
2. In the right
pane, right click on the file you want to redirect, and click "Properties"
3. Under the "File" tab, hit the radio selection "A redirection to a URL"
4. Put the target in the "Redirect to" textarea.
5. Make sure "The exact
URL entered above" and "A permanent redirection for this resource"
I don't have IIS installed locally otherwise I would test this for you - but this method is referenced in a few places as above.
Let me know if this helps you!
I have attached a YouTube video below as a visual walkthrough - I am not the creator, just the ermm, locator? ;o)
This might help:
"If you have an ASP.NET web application site, and you place a text file named "app_offline.htm" in the root of the site, all requests to that website will redirect to that app_offline.htm file. Basically, if you need to take an entire ASP.NET site offline, you can place some nice message in that file. Then, any new requests to a URL, any URL, in that website will redirect to that file allowing you to do maintenance to the site, upgrades, or whatever. It is not really a redirect though. ASP.NET essentially shuts down the site, unloads it from the server, and stops processing any requests to that site. That is, until you delete the app_offline.htm file - then things will continue as normal and your ASP.NET site will load up and start serving requests again.
A super-cool side effect of this is that any files that are locked by the site, such as a database or other resources, are freed since the application domain has been unloaded from the server. This allows you to remove the locks from those files and replace them, without the need to do a full IISRESET, taking down other sites on the server. One thing to keep in mind with this file however, make sure you out enough content in it so it is larger than 512 bytes or IE will consider it a 404 and will display the 404 instead of the contents of your app_offline.htm file."
Some quick additional thoughts:
Choose a wordpress theme which works well with the Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin - as this is a very powerful and configurable plugin - generally considered to be the best plugin for SEO in Wordpress. Thesis framework for example is one that does NOT work well with Yoast's plugin.
I would look at the studiopress themes as they work well, offer a good degree of flexibility, they are well coded and the support and forums are excellent! http://www.studiopress.com/themes
Navigation elements are indeed very important. Quite simply make the most important pages accessible from the front page. The vast majority of my best ranking sites are created using wordpress along with Yoast's plugin and a great number use the studiopress themes among others, so this is a great start for any project that you wish to see perform well in the SERPS.
Don't fill the footer with hundreds of spammy/poor quality links - if it looks spammy to you - rest assured it will look spammy to Google too! To clarify, add links that assist the user navigate your site to the footer - links such as Terms & Conditions | Sitemap etc that don't need high visibility on the top of the page - also consider a return to the top of the page link if the site has long content pages.
Be sure to add a human readable sitemap (HTML) not just an XML sitemap for the Search Engines.
JQuery can work well for menus, but do remember that for the search engines to be able to index your website the link structure must be easily accessible without javascript or CSS via semantic HTML.
I might also consider re-creating the contents of any PDFs as web pages in their own right - and have the PDF version available as a download option - if this is feasible - as you gain another opportunity to show relevance within the content of your pages. Search Engines can read PDFs to a degree, but they are not as readable as regular HTML content.
Host in your own country where possible (and practical) as server response time and server location are SEO factors - though not hugely weighted.
However, as .Coms are considered global hosting the US AND UK site on the same US server wouldn't be of huge detriment (in terms of server response time again.) - if you only want to run one site and split the visitors between /US and /UK subfolders. Remember, you can use Google Webmaster Tools to create Geographic targeting for each sub folder (One for the US sub folder/sub directory and one for the UK for example.)
In a perfect world however I would want to see the sites hosted in the appropriate country as this does help to indicate your target audience (and the obvious server response times I keep mentioning.) Google does allow for those that host out of their own country, hence the geographic targeting option in google webmaster tools.
I think UK users do like to see .Co.Uk at the end of the domain - because they know that generally means they will sell (and ship) to UK users - but we also use global .com stores if re-directed to them (Ebuyer.com for instance.)
In terms of the ecommerce software, I would (and did) opt for another ecommerce solution altogether:
Interspire Shopping Cart is very good in terms of SEO (The URL structure, H1 tags, meta title, meta description etc are dealt with very well. We rank number one for a variety of terms using this as the ecommerce solution. (Note this is self hosting) There is a hosted version that interspire are beginning to favour - see www.Bigcommerce.com
Hope that helps!
This question has been raised here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/title-tag-on-sitemap-xml
You don't want a link to an XML sitemap - rather a HTML sitemap (as Ryan states)
You can use a tool like http://www.xml-sitemaps.com to generates sitemaps in both xml and html formats. HTML being the one to display on your website and the XML installed into the root directory www.skycandle.co.uk/sitemap.xml
I have generated one for you here for you to see - of course generate another if you want to change the parameters.
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/details-www.skycandle.co.uk.html
Don't worry about the XML sitemap too much as these aren't essential on smaller sites if all the pages of your site are indexing OK - as they should be picked up without the need to direct Search Engines them if the site has a clearly navigable structure.
Take a look at these articles for additional info http://www.seomoz.org/blog/xml-sitemaps-guidelines-on-their-use
and
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/expert-advice-on-google-sitemaps-verify-but-dont-submit
Of course the HTML sitemap is a useful tool for quick naviagation of your site and will improve your visitors experience on your site.
The following searches bring up a few interesting results to get you started:
http://www.seomoz.org/pages/search_results?q=page+layout+and+seo
and
http://www.seomoz.org/pages/search_results?q=page+design+and+seo
with this specific article being favoured quite well - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-seo-side-of-design
Hope that helps
Yoast's plugin for Wordpress is excellent! (and I agree that custom Wordpress theme frameworks should allow SEO modification to be taken over by a dedicated SEO plugin such as Yoast's - if one is activated)
Personally however I think the SEO/SEF banter is a game of semantics - If you think of Search Engine Friendly URLS for example - these can be generated using Yoast's Wordpress SEO tool - so SEF and SEO are pretty much one and the same when it all boils down to it.
One of the things that every SEO worth their salt will do is recommend working toward making the project site Search Engine Friendly by promoting proper use of Schema and other SEF elements as part of their SEO strategy.
I say keep them separate. The ccTLD (.co.uk - clearly shows geographic relevance) - now the .com, which is a global TLD can be targeted/biased to the USA by using theGeographic target in Google Webmasters (the .co.uk is already set to UK and cannot be set to point to another country - only 'unlisted'.)
Furthermore, I wouldn't want to lose any benefits of the aged and established .co.uk by merging it with the .com. You will never get 100% of the link juice back with 301 redirects - maybe 90% at best and after some weeks have passed and then when you consider you are already well establised with your .co.uk site you would be mad to mess with it without VERY GOOD REASON!
Can't you just not restrict shipping to the US on the UK site? I have 2 ecommerce sites setup this way (one.co.uk and one .com - (which operates on a dropship basis only - as we are UK based)
With regards to the duplicate content issue - I would look at the fact that Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com have hundreds of thousands of product pages with the same/VERY similar content (descriptions etc) - and last time I check they were ranking pretty well ;o) - without the need to block users from certain locations - (they do of course pickup your IP address instead and SUGGEST(with a big flag and arrows that you visit the UK site instead when you select Amazon.com site from the UK) - They still restrict shipping of certain items should you persist and try and order anyway.
Your prices will also differ between £ and $ - as will the converted price - another clear indication that this isn't an attempt to get 2 bites of the cherry.
I would also move the .com site to a US based server too - as this helps with ranking anyway (server/website speed and location are factors)
Maybe bung a flag in your header graphics to further denote your geo-targeting?
Changing the spelling of UK/US variants is sensible anyway - though difficult to research initially - I spent some time battling between ize and ise!
Keep the .Co.Uk and .Com separate - state that you do not ship to the US from the UK site - restrict purchases accordingly (by shipping address). That should make it clear enough - hope that helps!
Yes. (Assuming by schema you mean Schema.org rather than the greek word for plan? ;o) As they allow you to show relevance to search engines - ultimately Google et al are definitely in the business of 'trying' to deliver relevant results to their searchers/customers.
See this article for more information - it's a good read.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/schemaorg-a-new-approach-to-structured-data-for-seo
You can also get these from Google Webmasters - http://www.google.com/webmasters/
If you don't have a GA account this is ESSENTIAL - So Sign up!
--
Do the same for Bing! http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/
and Yahoo Site Explorer http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
--
When you are the the HOME page - select your site by clicking the link under SITES
Click the + next to Your Site On The Web - then Links To Your Site
Then click More >>
Download ALL Links
and save the CSV file that contains a list of all external links to your site.
No follow links certainly don't hurt! Whilst they may not pass on any direct PR, they can still attract REAL click through traffic (maybe even REAL customers!) especially if the nofollow links are coming from related "quality sites with high page and domain authority of their own." - If these sites which feature your no follow links are indeed quality then they will attract traffic as a result - if your no follow links are present amongst the quality information on these sites it stands to reason that you can only benefit from those links.
No follows links also help to create LINK DIVERSITY which will improve appearance of any link building method you use - as it is expected that a number of your inbound links will be no follow links.
There are some who suspect that Google MAY take no follow links into consideration despite their clear statements to the contrary.
So in summary, if you can get no follow links from quality sites you should certainly do so as they will NOT harm your DA or ranking - at worst they would be neutral in this regard - but still pass additional traffic your way.
The 404 errors aside, which are certainly prime suspects for the drop - did the drop occur at the same time as a drop in your competitors rankings too? I recently noticed a 10 position drop for a major keyword and checked the Ranking History for that particular keyword and noticed that at all three of the competitors I initially submitted when I setup my campaign had all dropped an equal (or greater) number of positions for that particular keyword in the same week. Which would suggest to me that a change to Google algorithm has taken place and affected us all equally, rather than as a direct result of changes made to my website content or any temporary issues with the site which would prevent Search engines from crawing the site.
Whilst I am still suffering as a result of this drop it is good to see that it wasn't isolated to my site and therefore likely to be as a result of content changes or technical problems.
Definitely! You get the obvious HUGE SEO benefit mentioned previously - AND you are also improving the visitor experience - as they get all of the additional benefits that text gives you i.e the transcription can be read on low bandwidth connections, devices with no video support, downloaded to be read later, printed for reference, translated into other languages.
Be sure to give consideration to accessibility to disabled users too! A text transcription allows hearing impaired users to access your content - be mindful of the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act - Comliance with the dda is a legal requirement in the UK, From http://www.disability.gov.uk/dda/smefinal.html
What happens if I fail to make reasonable adjustments? You might be breaking the law. A disabled person can make a claim against a provider whose services are impossible or unreasonably difficult for him or her to access.)Additionally you can add links to other relevant pages within your site using the anchor text generated...
If your video content is longer than 15 minutes because it is genuinely good content then it is worth transcribing all of it. Don't forget you can omit any parts of the transcription that may not be that engaging.
Good Answer and a great article on your site too! Kudos!
Good stuff! It seems that this issue is tripping a few people up. If this turns out to be the definitive solution be sure to update this thread - I wont be able to sleep until I know I've truly earned my first Moz Points! ;o)
Yes. You will need to edit the header.php and replace the thesis <title>...</title> with
<title><?php wp_title(''); ?></title>
UPDATE: Okay, scrub that. Just looked at my thesis header.php and I can see it is created using hooks, rather than PHP directly in the header file.
Take a look at this URL discussion marked as RESOLVED on Wordpress.org forum http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-missing-meta-description-for-homepage Let us know how you get on with that.
Very insightful Ryan. I can see that the aged dot Com does add some additional weight along with the fact it is an exact match.
Maintenance is of course reduced if all of the sites are brought together - as are running costs.
The geographic redirection definitely makes things easier and quicker than forcing the user to select, as long as they have the ability to manually override the selection and choose the country they wish to see.
I was interested in your comment about some users preferring to do business with a .com site in certain circumstances. I think as long as I heavily emphasize the GEO location by using local currency payment options, spelling variations and flag in the header image I can go some way toward providing an increased feeling of relevance.
Thanks for your input.
Thanks for that Steve. I hear what you are saying. I like the thought of the extra width one site would create. However, I think one consideration (which has just occured to me) should also be how users feel about advertising on a larger global site - versus advertising on a site which caters for their country specifically. I suspect they may be more inclined to see their own ccTLD as better targeted to their prospective buyers? There is also the issue of shipping costs - as they will be advertising a physical product.
That said, each site will have a search by country/county/state/city search in place however, so I am in two minds about this - Hence my original question ;o)
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
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**
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.