Geo Targeting - Redirecting geo TLDs to geo subfolders?

[markov]

I am an Australian Web Designer. I have a Client that wants to establish multiple country specific websites to sell his core service. He has aquired the .com nd .com.au domains and also NZ and UK. I have read that it may be good practice to host all the websites on one domain? Thus the .com is the international TLD.

Should I use an reliable American Webhost as the top TLD and use subfolders for country specific websites - hence an AU folder would host the Australian website, a NZ folder the New Zealand website

For Example:
www.example.com
www.example/AU is the Australian Website
www.example/NZ is the New Zealand website
www.example/UK is the United Kingdom website

Thus if I type in www.example.com.au - I am directed to www.example/AU . This seems to be the way many large corporates work, i.e. Apple.com

Is this good in terms of SEO? Of course the other more widely seen view is to put separate websites on separate webhosts in their individual countries - but the management time for each individual website becomes an issue here.

And lastly - if hosting on one server is a good thing to do -I am also a little hazy how to setup this structure. Can someone explain in laymans terms how I may achieve this? On a Linux Server - do I upload my main website to the public_html folder and then create sub folders, such as /AU. And then place each specific country targeted websites inside each folder.

And then my biggest question of all is I ensure that when someone types in www.example.com.au that they are then sent to www.example/AU. Is this achieved some form of a domain manager and 301 redirects on each domain name? I don't really understand this part.

I would appreciate any of this forums SEO knowledge and time.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:42 am (utc) on April 24, 2008]
[edit reason] changed to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

markov - Just a quick answer, as it's late...

With regard to geo-targeting, Google looks at several factors... language, TLD, hosting location, inbound link sources, locally specific content (addresses, spelling, etc), and perhaps the Webmaster Tools location choice.

In terms of SEO strategy, you're suggesting going in a direction which would eliminate the bulk of the important distinctions. Since the language is the same in the US, AU, NZ, and UK... hosting on the same domain (no TLD distinction), on the same server would blur a lot of the signals that Google has available to decide if these are in fact legitimately geo-targeted pages. If the content is also the same for each of the country-specific sites, Google may just look at this as dupe content in different directories.

In the Hot Topics area at the top of the Google Search forum home page, there is a whole section on Geo-Targeted search, ultimately leading to several threads that immediately apply to what you're asking. I recommend looking at...

Re, among other things, the 301 idea...
Google Ranking and Country TLD
[webmasterworld.com...]

Re, among other things, English language site differentiation...
Linking a .ca to a .com with same content
[webmasterworld.com...]

Plus, others in Hot Topics Geo area.

[markov]

Hi Robert, Thanks very much for this reply. I have taken on board what you have said and read both of these posts. I suppose I am a little confused on this issue. How do companies such as Apple.com handle this? They do indeed apparently have very similar structures to the ones that I have mentioned. As a well known instance - www.apple.com is the international site and for the UK, www.apple.co.uk resolves to www.apple.com/UK - and www.apple.com.au resolves to www.apple.com/au/. By doing it this way - surely there may well be the advantage of not spreading link power or having one domain compete with the other? You are correct in saying that the distinctions between folders would be fewer - I would hope to tackle this by using Google Webmaster Tools and assigning the 'Geographic Target'. Each sub folder would have its own separate site added in the Google Webmaster Dashboard. I would then help each site by ensuring the inbound links are country specific.

I must emphasise that this is only my thoughts and I am NO seo expert - and I may be wrong. But it does seem to me that Google must be able to recognise the shortcomings of the duplicate content penalty - and by doing in this way - you are clearly setting out your structure in a well defined manner that can only help Google in correctly targeting location. By spreading your sites out over local countries and local hosts you not centralising your content and the real gains are for the Hosting Companies in each country.

A shaky point of view -but does it have some validity?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:06 am (utc) on April 25, 2008]
[edit reason] delinked url - added paragraph spacing [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

Hi markov - Again, please forgive a very rushed reply.

First, I suggest you read more threads on geo-targeting than those two. Again, take a look in Hot Topics. Also, read all the dupe content discussions in Hot Topics.

Secondly, don't assume because it's Apple that they've done things right.

www.apple.com.au resolves to www.apple.com/au/

Yes, via a 302 redirect, which isn't what most SEOs would recommend. It should be a 301... albeit Apple may well have their reasons. I just don't what they are.

Also, search for "apple" on google.com.au, web pages from Australia, and you'll see that Apple Corp doesn't rank. If you search for Apple on the web results, apple.com in the US comes up.

Google's algo isn't designed to make hosting multiple sites or iterations of a site simpler. In many cases, they use separation of servers as a sign of more likelihood of separate identity... a way of making spamming more difficult.

In geo-search, Google is looking for a genuine foreign presence. It doesn't want pages with duplicate content ranking on foreign serps pages if they don't belong there. Google is trying to serve the most appropriate content to the most appropriate geo audience.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:45 am (utc) on April 25, 2008]