Related to [
webmasterworld.com...] but not quite the same.
We are building a site which which is essentially a social network with deeply integrated product listings, so consists of:
- a global community
- a mixture of global groups and local groups
- product listings which are local, but can include global reviews
- local product search
We have to decide whether to have one global site, along the lines of, say, goodreads/rotten tomatoes/foursquare/facebook,
or
separate local sites, along the lines of yelp/tripadvisor/amazon
Having read a lot of threads I feel that for SEO purposes, the local sites route is likely to work better in the long run, because
1. product pages and a lot of the UGC will be local
2. ccTLD is likely to get better click through, and will rank better in Google in relevant regions because it is local
3. It is much easier to host locally with a separate domain
4. Even within the community, we will want to show local content more prominently than non-local content
5. There is no need to display different content on the same URL in different regions
6. Technically it is simpler to integrate local product listings on a local domain
On the other hand, one global site could be better because:
1. the community will be global, and this is likely to be the most important part of the site for users.
2. Branding is easier with only one TLD
3. Technically it is likely to be simpler to maintain a consistent global community database with only one domain
4. All users sign up and log into one site, without the need for geo-redirection and/or region cookie setting
(I have ignored duplicate content issue because I don't think it matters, since Google will filter and display whichever domain it feels is more relevant.) We are likely to set up servers in all relevant regions either way, to improve performance.
Can anyone add any additional issues I have not thought of, and any opinions which option might be better and why?
