Create new subdir on .com for UK seo purposes

Corporate restrictions >>>>>

[johnser]

Hi People. Hope you all had a lovely Xmas & NY's break :)

I've a PR7 client .com site with 6000+ links. Unfortunately they want their .co.uk promoted. Its also PR7 but with only 400 links.

The top 3 sites in the SERPs for the competitive phrases are PR9 & each with 10,000+ links.

To get anyway close, what I'm planning on is creating a subdirectory such as www.foo.com/UK/ (This will simply dulicate the home page of www.foo.co.uk)

In addition, all links from www.foo.com/UK/ will point to www.foo.co.uk

If I was to create a new subdirectory in this way, I figure I'm taking advantage of the .com's 6,000 links. Am I correct? (Note the new subdir. will only have an index page)

If I get both the .com & the .co.uk sites high in the SERPs, any problems you can forsee re duplicate content?

Thx in advance.
John

[hakre]

you mean because of the 'mother' page linking to the child and then google might think, the child is more worthy?

won'te think so, because it's then as worthy as a 10.000 part of the mother page, because of that much links.

[johnser]

Thanks for your reply hakre.

Its not that its "more worthy" but as Google guesses the PR of a new page, I thought that a new 2nd level page down from the root could take advantage of the many links to the home page.

Anyone know if I'm right?
Thx
J

[bluecorr]

Wouldn't that be extrapolated PR (guessed) and not real? Same with for example yahoo.com/dirwhatever/ would have PR9 but if it doesn't have it's own inbound links, it's worthless. Am I wrong?

[glengara]

*This will simply dulicate the home page of www.foo.co.uk*
How do you plan to solve the dupe content problem?
Could have a bearing if any benefit willl accrue to the .co.uk from the .com.

[johnser]

Thats right Bluecorr, it would be guessed but is "guessed" PR less important than "real"?

If the subdirectory does not have its own direct inbound links, then can I still get it to rank well with a high PR?

Glengara, re: dupe content, I'm not expecting .co.uk to benefit from the .com. (However the links on the .com/UK/ page will point to the .co.uk)

If you've 2 very different sites both with high PR and lots of different inbound links, will the page (or even the whole site?) with the lower PR get dumped? I could always modify the content on the .com/uk/ but would prefer not to....

[bluecorr]

>>Thats right Bluecorr, it would be guessed but is "guessed" PR less important than "real"?

I've been wondering about that for some time. It would be too easy for guessed PR to be more important than real PR. I reckon :)

<added>

[edited by: bluecorr at 12:38 pm (utc) on Jan. 9, 2003]

[unknownsoldier]

I would advise ensuring that

www.foo.com/uk/index.html - has unique content rather than duplicate.

This page will benefit from the PR of www.foo.com especially if it is linked from the home page.

if your then linking to:

www.foo.co.uk

which is a separate site they will still both be treated as separate sites. I cant imagine this site getting dumped for making these changes.

Ensure that:

www.foo.com/uk/index.html

and

www.foo.co.uk/index.html

Are different pages to prevent any negative repercussions.

[glengara]

*I'm not expecting .co.uk to benefit from the .com.*
I'm confused now, I thought that was the object of the exercise?

[johnser]

Thanks all for your help - Sorry if anyones lost!

The reason I'm working on the .com/uk/ bit is to get the company name at the top of the SERPs.

Ideally I only want to work on the .co.uk but I'm not going to be able to compete with the top rankings which are all massive .coms with the small no. of links the .co.uk has.

Really I suppose I want the .com/uk/ bit to act as a rather large doorway page. Any links clicked on the page & you arrive at the appropriate .co.uk internal page.

My hope is to have the following URLs at the top of the SERPs:

foo.com
foo.com/uk/
foo.co.uk
foo.co.uk/page1.htm

So....will my .com/uk/ be able to take advantage of the large no. of links to .com/index.htm?

[unknownsoldier]

So....will my .com/uk/ be able to take advantage of the large no. of links to .com/index.htm?

Yes, so long as they linked together, the PR should spread like butter.

[johnser]

Thx unknownsoldier. Anyone else agree/disagree?

[mack]

it may be more use to move the entire site to the same server and have all uk based content in domain.com/uk then use htaccess redirects to send users who access .co.uk site to the .com/uk location.

even yahoo do something similar with uk.yahoo.com

[johnser]

Thx Mack - Size of the company and its offline promotion of the .co.uk URL means thats a non-runner though :(

<Sorry - I meant offline promotion of VARIOUS .co.uk mini-site URLs>.

(Also, am not allowed configure .com in that way)