Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I am in the process of setting up a website with How to articles, guides and a community aiming at a global market.
The content is (will be) useful and aimed at all countries, as the content is aimed at all english speaking countries I want the site to appear and rank well in all English Speaking Google search engines (UK, USA, NZ, CA etc...) I want (hope) to because a leader in this content field in all countries...
My question is on the website setup:
1) Server Location - Will a dedicated server in the USA be OK or will I need a server/host in each target country ?
2) Domain - I am lucky to own all the Country Top Level Domains including the .com should I use the .com alone or each country domain pointing to the same content (Would this be a duplicate content issue ?) remember I want to target and do well in all English speaking countries...
3) I know I can Geo Target in Google Webmaster Tools and tell Google where to target my site, but can I target multiple countries ? Would this be a good setup ranking well across all the English Speaking Googles ?
Any input and ideas you guys could help me with would be great, look forward to your input...
Many Thanks in Advance,
Chris Brocklesby
I'd say just let the .com go with no targeting, then set up customized versions of the site for each country where you want a presence. At the very least, there are variants of the English language that are important if you want to reach other countries and build credibility.
Many Thanks
Chris
Many Thanks,
Chris
How are you doing ?
Since you are targeting users of multiple countries , as Tedster told .com is the only genuine choice with you.
1) Host the server in USA that would be fine.
2) Setting up multiple domains with almost same content ( i know with some variations in type of english) will not be a good idea to use. It will add up to your burden for managing the multiple sites , making changes and besides fear of SE duplicate content.
3) If you have relevant content the Google will show it up for any country user , although Google do specify that if you want your website to be for one country then Hosting it in that country is more useful as Google does take note of IP of host into consideration.
How are you looking to setup the website ? are you going to use some CMS?
What about other search engines such as yahoo, do they have geo targeting like Google?
Many Thanks,
Chris
I am in the process of setting up a website with How to articles, guides and a community aiming at a global market.
Since this would appear to be a brand new site then you are going to have to expect a slow climb through the SERPs unless your srticles are unique, very relevant to the subject matter and get picked-up by users and linked to freely.
Most of these types of sites have been around for several years now and Google already has most of them sussed for their applicable audiences...you, unfortunately, are probably going to go through that learning curve:-(
My understanding (hey I could have it wrong) is that multiple country domains all pointing to the same content is Ok, The searcher will only be presented with the content in there countries domain tld... ie if I search in Google UK for 'Water Bottle' the content from my site for 'Water Bottle' will be displayed under the .co.uk domain for a UK audience, yet if I did the same search in the USA it would be displayed in the results under the .com version of my domain...
I hope I am getting this right, Is this something new Google has introduced ?
Once again many thanks for everyone's input, any more views and comments would be great..
Chris
[googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com...]
Would love your input...
In fact Google even says there is not such thing as a duplicate content penalty its just a myth...
Actually what Google has been saying is that they don't penalize duplicate content, they penalize spam and their definition of spam is content that has the intent to manipulate search rankings.
So your question should really be is if what you are planning on doing with the multiple domains has the intent to manipulate search rankings.
Whether or not in reality Google can make an accurate determination of this is fodder for another thread.
I intend on having a content rich website hosted in the USA on a dedicated server, The content is useful to all Countries and I would like it to rank well in each country, of cause this will be a business and alone side the unique and useful content there will be a small selection of relevant adverts (not in your face) to complement the content providing a service to the readers...
Each country will have its own domain (co.uk,co.nz,com) pointing to the same content...
What I seem to understand from the Google video is that Google will only display the results from one of those domains, usaully the one in the country from which the search came (eg Google UK will display mydomain.co.uk and USA will display results from mydomain.com)... Do I have this right ?
Will Google count this as a spam website ?
I think a lot of people are creating spam and blaming the ensuing penalty on the duplicate content penalty. I think it's also funny that Google feels the need to tell people that there is no duplicate content penalty. To me this means that Google is getting a lot of questions about duplicate content from people who are overly worried, but I would guess the people who are actually spamming are not worried about duplicate content at all.
My opinion is that Google shouldn't count your network of web sites as an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. I have no idea if they will or not, though.
[edited by: dataguy at 5:57 pm (utc) on Sep. 28, 2009]
So you agree that there is a no Duplicate Content penalty ?
Per se, there is not however Google's algo will demote an identical page/site lower in the general .com SERPs and with a bit of luck will actually promote it within their respective geo-targeted SERPs.
That's in theory...it does work sometimes. I have some country targeted .tld sites which do rank above the .com sites yet appear much, much lower in the .coms. How this would pan out with a series of sites all to be launched at the same time I have no idea.
Mine have been added gradually over the past 15 years as each extension became economically viable to develop.
Are you considering having a completely different index/home page and contact page for each .tld extension?
Would you suggest any other setup for what I am trying to achieve?
Many Thanks
Chris
Differentiation between English language sites is important, and shouldn't be left just to a few token changes.
There is more information about country location in the Hot Topics [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's indexed page. You'll find some threads you should read and study in a section called "GEO-TARGETED SEARCH". Look also at the threads they reference.
I am planning on having a slightly different homepage(index) for each country tld,
I use the same template layout to continue the corporate identity however each country tld has different product lines available even IF similar/same products are available from each country.
Do you think a different contact page would be useful?
Again I use the same template layout doing the following:
example.com/contact.html lists all country contacts, e-mails, phone, fax and mobile numbers with postal addresses together with direct links to that country's tld site
example.tld/contact.html lists our head office plus that country's specific direct contact details as above.
In my lefthand side navigation I also include direct links to each country tld.
Google has never had any problem at understanding this and lists everything correctly in each Google.tld but, as I wrote earlier, this has been done over a number of years however it wouldn't surprise me if I have had a manual check to see all is above board.
I have actually registered some .tel names however, as yet, the referrals are...nearly zero even though they are correctly spidered and in the SERPs.
Hope that helps.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:15 pm (utc) on Sep. 29, 2009]
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Duplicate content and multiple site issues
[googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com...]
Their basically saying its OK but there is a trade off in linking and rank juice...
Moderator note: Changed reference to original source at Official Google Blog.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:54 pm (utc) on Sep. 30, 2009]
Whether you decide to get inbound links just to one '.com' domain or each TDL is up to you, but shouldn't be ignored.
Hope this helps.
Swede
Option 1
US server contains a new site on a new .com domain with a copy of the site aimed at the US market but essentially containing an exact copy (ex. pricing) of the UK site.
Option 2
Use a sub domain like us.site.co.uk and again as above. Would you Americans see the .co.uk and click it less?
I’d also like people’s opinions on detecting the user location and sending them to the most relevant site using IP databases, I’d obviously give the end user a choice to set their preference. The other option I guess is keep using the same domain but somehow serve data from different countries dependent on the location of the visitor, this will require a lot more work. The most important thing is for me not to have any of the UK search engine results compromised in anyway.
What would you guys do?
I'm not a fan of IP detection and redirection. There's too much potential for trouble, both for the user and for the search engine.
Anyway just passing on what I learn't...
Good Luck in your project...
Chris.
The current site has a lot of links and ranks really well as a UK site and get's some US traffic but it's not very competitive in in the US SERPs hence the reason I'm looking at a US server with a .com
