Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I only have one struggling site. I've never experienced it before and I don't know what's wrong. I've been trying to identify what's different with this site compared with others and I have a new theory I want to run by you all!
The site used to be hosted as example.com for about four months and we got about 1,500+ links in the opening stages. Then, the example.co.uk version became available and we bought it and transferred the site over using a 301 redirect which took hold quite quickly.
BUT -- the .com site has whois privacy with Moniker whilst the .co.uk site displays our actual contact information.
Could a 301 redirect of 1,500+ inbound links from a site that bears different whois information to the final site cause a penalty?
Thanks
Mike
You "fixed" what wasnt broken IMO ..
I would also go back to the .com ..put the .co.uk in a drawer ..safe ..and wait for the previous good results to regenerate ..
UK customers really dont care if you are a .com or a .co.uk ..( plus anyone anywhere in the world can get one ..it has all the usefullness of a bicycle for a fish ..except to the reg companies who sell it ..) ..many will not agree with me ..mainly through misplaced patriotism ..after all it is their "country TLD"..except it isnt I can get one from here ..and you can buy one from anywhere no matter where you are based ..it is as open to abuse as .biz ..it's fallback for those who missed the .com ..but if you have the .com redirecting to .co.uk IMO is shooting yourself in the foot regardless of privacy mismatch issues.
it has all the usefullness of a bicycle for a fish
Leosghost, you're incorrect about the relevancy of .co.uk for the geo-targetting of Google.co.uk results, they work really well and more often than not can outrank their .com competitors and many UK companies are now preferring to promote their .co.uk names.
search engines ( google in particular ) geo-target according to ( amongst other criteria ) .co.uk or .fr etc ..citizens of the countries ( with the possible exceptions of .de and .ru ..don't care as much ) ..for example ..how many US targeted websites would/ do prefer the .us over the .com ..
and how many would redirect 1500 inbounds from the .com to the .us ?
I have 301 redirected many sites over the years without issue with different whois data and not run into problems - but I have never done it with a domain that had privacy protection.
Why not remove the privacy protection on the .com and see what happens if there is nothing to loose?
BUT -- the .com site has whois privacy
What was the reason for this?
why on earth did you redirect?
Because Google was ranking the .com in the top 10 on Google.com but around number 250 on Google.co.uk (my target search engine). Once I redirected to the .co.uk version we attained top 10 results on Google.co.uk within a couple of weeks.
As Huskypup said:
Leosghost, you're incorrect about the relevancy of .co.uk for the geo-targetting of Google.co.uk results, they work really well and more often than not can outrank their .com competitors and many UK companies are now preferring to promote their .co.uk names.
I would also go back to the .com ..put the .co.uk in a drawer ..safe ..and wait for the previous good results to regenerate
Obviously we did not sit and do nothing once we redirected. We now have 2,500+ links pointing directly to the .co.uk's pages, that's on top of the 1500 redirected from the old TLD.
BUT -- the .com site has whois privacyWhat was the reason for this?
Fed up of spam to the contact address and thought this was an easy way round it.
[edited by: tedster at 10:29 pm (utc) on June 3, 2009]
