.US VS .COM TLD Domains
-
Hi there!
I have a spanish client who wants to enhance its online presence on the US. US is their most potential country.
Its ok to create a .US website (and geolocalizate in GWT to the USA) and a .COM domain for the rest of ther word (without orientation) with the same content?
Thank you so much.
Jabi
-
Thank you!
So, considering the new google markup, I think it shoul be right:
us.web.com/en for US users in English
web.com/en for everyone else in English
web.com/es for everyone in Spanish
-
Goolge resently released tga for doing this http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html
-
Update: The Google Webmaster Central update listed by Alan below is the format I would likely go with if you're going to have multilingual content.
In most situations I would do the .COM, and focus that on US as well as general international. I would us a subfolder such as /ca/ for Canada, /fr/ for France, etc.
If there's some weird quirk with the company, product, or distribution then I might change that, but that's definitely the minority of examples.
Recommended Reading:
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-international-versions-of-websites
-
As long as you have different TLD's you can get away with duplicate content. this is true for TLD's such as .co.uk and .com.au but not sure about .com. and .us as they may both be seen as US
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 -
How to handle different content on same domain internationally?
Dear community, I have encountered a unique situation and I am unsure as how to proceed, I have a U.S. based website for intentions of this question is www.musicstore.com. The customer has decided to offer their products up for sale internationally, however, has two business requirements, one is that his international presence differs with product offering and content then the domestic version and two, that they both live on the same domain of www.musicstore.com without any reference to offering a differing international presence. Many of his products are offered for purchase directly overseas, while not against his suppliers rules, it is frowned upon. All this said, now to my question. I'm currently running a Magento two website install. With GeoIP setting which version of www.musicstore.com is presented. Do I have to worry about different content being displayed on the same exact url even though the experience is completely location based? If it is a concern, any risks I should be concerned with. I could possibly do something along the lines of www.musicstore.com/in/ while this is not ideal for the customer, if it prevents many larger issues I'd steer the customer this way. I just want my customer to be able to sell his product internationally without upsetting his suppliers or making Google go, what does this site actually have. Hopefully I explained my question well enough for those who can help to understand. Please ask if you need any more information. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
International SEO | | swarming0 -
How to get EU visitors to .co.uk and US visitors to .com
Hi all Re: www.explanar.com and www.explanar.co.uk We have developed a website for the US and UK, with a shop on each. Each site has a network of countries they can export to. US sells and ships to US, South America, Caribbean and so on UK sells and ships to UK, Europe, and Africa, etc Currently, visitors from Germany (.de) searching for phrases "Explanar", or "golf swing trainer" get the .com (US) site. They cannot buy from this site, so we have added a message to tell them to go to the UK site (.co.uk, but what I really want is for the European visitors to find the UK site only. .com is the original URL, but with new content
International SEO | | Crumpled_Dog
.co.uk has just been set up In the long run, we will set up .de URLs with German language, and other countries will follow, but not all. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks
Scott0 -
For a website in portuguese what would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br
Hello We are a company with a website in several languages, one of them is portuguese. Our market is 2 times bigger in Brazil than in Portugal, but obviously Brazil has more potential in the future. In domain.com we have our main site in English. What would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br? In the first case, it means just portuguese, in the second Brazil but it is not geolocalized, and in the third, you are almost ignoring Portugal users... Duplicating content, doesn't seem to make sense... The content is basically international, so it is just the language that matters. Any help will be very much appreciated.
International SEO | | forex-websites0 -
How to Best Manage Multiple Domains?
Hi,
International SEO | | thealika
I am new here and this is my first question.
(so please excuse if my etiquette slightly off) I have just taken over the SEO work for a website in South Africa (.co.za) it is for an Attorney of immigration law, and naturally I would love to make it into a star on google. I have about 15 extra keyword domains at my disposal, 5 of them are parked and the rest are not doing anything at the moment. so my question is: what should I do with them to get the best SEO results for their keyword names? I was thinking to make a WordPress Multi Site, un-park the domains and create a separate site for each domain. Create a visually similar front page, but all the links head back over to the main site. Then work on optimising the SEO for each domain. (lengthy work but it's not too hard to rank in google.co.za) what do you think? I also heard that parking domains is a bad Idea, because google sees it as duplicate content; is that so? website:
www.migrationlawyers.co.za Parked domains:
MigrationLawyers.co.za
MigrationLawyer.co.za
MigrationLawyers.de
ImmigrationLaw.co.za
EmigrationLaw.co.za Keyword domains: Migration-Attorney.com
Migration-Lawyers.com
MigrationCounsel.co.za
ApplyForPermanentResidencesSouthAfrica.com
AvoidDeportationSouthAfrica.co.za
AvoidDeportationSouthAfrica.com
RetirementVisaSouthAfrica.com
SouthAfricanCitizenship.co.za
SouthAfricanPermits.co.za
StudyPermitSouthAfrica.co.za Thanks a lot,
Nikita0 -
Change domain from .es to .com
Hi all, we have a website with 2 domains name to point to it: -hacerfamilia.es -hacerfamilia.com We used to take .es like the default domain, so the .com redirected to the .es with a 301 header. But now we decided to change to .com because it is more international. So default domain would be .com. We made a multiple redirect to .es to .com with a simple htaccess rule, with a 301 header. The hosting it is the same, and the address too, for the two domains. Should we take any other steps? Thank you.
International SEO | | seoseoseos0 -
Multiple domains for one site / satellite domains
Hi, I know this has been asked a few times before but I want to clarify everything my own head. We've recently relaunched a website for a client that combined three existing sites into one. The new site is http://www.gowerpensions.com/ I've added 301 rewrite rules to the three old domains to to point to the correct page on the new website, i.e the old contact page goes to the new one, the about page to the new about page etc, etc. The old domains are thehorizonplan.com, horizonqrops.com and horizonqnups.com. I've informed Google Webmaster Tools of the change. The client also has several other domains such as horizonpensions.com and qnupscheme.com. Am I correct in thinking I should not park these domains on top of the gowerpensions.com website as this will be seen as duplicate content? I don't think there is anything linking to these domains. They might not even be listed in Google. With the thehorizonplan.com, horizonqrops.com and horizonqnups.com domains there are existing links to them, but will parking these on top of gowerpensions.com cause a problem, or should I keep my 301 redirects forever? Would a better strategy be to make microsites on all of the satellite domains that link to the main one to create more relevant links? If this is the case then I'd need to fix any third party links to the old horizon domains. I hope that makes sense. Thanks Ric
International SEO | | BWIRic0 -
SEO for Subdomains for different languages .com/fr, .com/es
Hi All, I was wondering how best to to approach optimisation of a site that exists on a single .com domain, but has different subfolders for different languages. The site is a .com and it has subfolders for French, Spanish, Russian and English. The business is situated in France and the vast majority of clients are French and English speakers. I've read that it's possible to geo target these subfolders using webmaster tools however I believe this is an inferior method of optimisation than having tld's. Just wondered if anyone had experience of htis and could provide any advice ? As they won't be rebuilding the site for another year or so I wondered if there were any quick wins? My second question is to do with how best to set these campaigns up within SEO Moz. would it be better to track at a subdomain or subfolder leverl (for different languages)? If someone could advise I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks, vantresca
International SEO | | vanvallejo0