Duplicating content on a different TLD based on location

[Calockwoody]

Hello,

I have two sites, uk.mybusiness.com and ie.mybusiness.com which are very similar in subject matter the only difference is location.
They are eCommerce sites, which for the most part are selling the same products.

I want to know if posting news stories from our uk. domain on the ie. domain (with some minor changes) is going to impact either site negatively?

[adder]

Hi,
Great topic; and a controversial one, too.

Technically, there are a few pieces of evidence in favour of your eCommerce setup.

Firstly, if you read the recent copy of Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, you will find that they no longer mention the term "duplicate content" at all. They do mention "copied content" by which, I'm sure, they mean maliciously copied content.

I'm assuming you've added both properties to your Search Console and set UK/Eire country targeting via Search Traffic -> International Targeting

Secondly, a few prominent Googlers (e.g. Andrey Lipattsev) have implied that people are worrying too much about the duplicate content penalty. Hands up everyone who can prove they have suffered from a duplicate content penalty recently (no hands?)

It seems, when Google stumbles upon duplicate content, is able to choose the best result to show to a user based on where he's located and based on presumed relevance. Wait, relevance?

So, I think your main problem is not whether Google will come and slap you. It is a question of whether your UK users and Eire users will find the same news stories relevant. And you know what, the answer in most cases is "no".

There will be general industry stories that apply to a global audience however if it's a B2C eCommerce site and you've done your "buyer persona" research, you will need to tailor your news stories to see any positive ROI from the money/time you put into producing content.

[phranque]

You wouldn't have to do anything if you were using cctlds instead of subdomains.

In your case you could use the link rel alternate hreflang to distinguish the regional variations:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077 [support.google.com]

[Calockwoody]

Thanks adder, I think that's exactly the answer I needed.
We do actually have quite a lot of content that is applicable to our customers in Ireland and I think this is due to the nature of our niche.