Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
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The company I work for is based in Quebec, Canada. We've always been working with our .com site (english content only), which ranks top 3 in Google.com and Google.ca for all the searches we need.
We've been ordered by a government agency to have a bilingual (french/english) version of our site (this is a local thing), and a corporate decision was made to have the Canadian web site completely separated from the .com, as a .ca site.
So, now, a .com site all in english and a .ca site in french and english. Both have exactly the same content (besides the translation).
Numbers over the past year show us that 24% of the referred traffic to our .com site comes from Canada, and that 11% of the referred traffic comes from google.ca.
This is my question:
Am I right in assuming that since it's a .ca site, Google.ca will favour it over the .com, and that the 11% of traffic will eventually shift from .com to .ca? It is my understanting that regional flavours of Google will give more importance to sites of its region.
Thank you all!
You have an interesting test case - it would be interesting to hear back from you every so often about the shift in traffic. I don't expect that your .com will ever lose all traffic from Canada however, even if the English content is an exact duplicate between the two sites. Today's algo includes too many off-page factors for the results to be so rigid.
These search engines, I tell ya!
Linking a .ca to a .com with same content
[webmasterworld.com...]
Duplicate Content on Localised Search
[webmasterworld.com...]
Tell Google Your Site's Location with Webmaster Tools
[webmasterworld.com...]
In theory, whatever your results on .com , when they are redirected to .ca they should be stonger, since there will be less competition in the google.ca SERP's and they should maintain in the .com SERP's.
Sites with different language content are also likely to be seen as completely different.
BUT ..... this isn't a perfect Google World and we have noticed Google behaving differently when we have regionalised listings, seperated from a main .com site, and sometimes it is a disaster. Anyone considering this strategy, ought to be careful , and if a lot of revenue depends on it, probably they shouldn't do it at all.
Things to consider ar risk are :
- traffic may drop or not exist on the new site for anything from 3 months to 18 months while Google's filters test your trust [ who knows definitively what all the elements of this are! ]
- strength of backlinks may be diminished in the 301 redirect, now or in the future.
- Google's interpretation of duplicate content may be different or more complex than we or they convey. In theory this is straight forward, but I'm seeing the handling of duplicate content anything but straight forward.
- Common template elements and common content which is linked may be a cause of Google interpreting these as common sites
Until Google provides a verifiable explanation with flags and warnings in it's Webmaster Tools that can allow a webmaster to confidently manage such changes, I'd be very careful.
But at least, everyone seems to think there could be a potential risk. I'll bring that to my Fearless Leaders, and see how they take it.
Thank you all!
1.) Leave the .com as is, but noindex,follow the English version on the .ca, so there is no question the new site is being created for visitors, not as a 'more chances to rank' duplicate of the current .com.
2.) I would not post the English content on the .ca, but cross link the .com and .ca for different language versions.
Example:
On the .com --- For the French version of example.com visit example.ca
On the .ca --- For the English version of example.ca visit example.com
Justin
