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1stly Google might notice some hacked pages and flag them as potentially harmful. But your main problem is these: potental client will most likely not come back if they tried once and failed google might have tried to access a page and had looong loading times or a server error when trying to load a page when a client loads a page and the server is under a DoS or simular attack the server will slow down and the page load speed will do the same resulting in bad loading speeds. All of the above and more that I probably forgot will harm your SEO efforts and end user experience, harming trust. some of the above you should be able to see in GWT and GA. in particular the loadtimes and HTTP error codes, bounce rates ex.

Ralph, I would not suggest "switching" to uk but adding uk. A web page written for UK English will look differently then a page written for US English. Words such as "center" vs "centre", references to London vs references to Washington, monetary units, systems of measurement "miles" vs "kilometers", etc. If you want to improve your UK rankings, offer a UK section of your site, adjust your articles specifically for the UK and obtain links from the UK pointed to this part of your site. If you perform these steps properly you will definitely improve your UK rankings. I'm trying to weigh up whether it is worth the effort of changing it. Only you can answer that question. It depends on how many pages are involved, the quality of your content and your site's profitability.

Hi Yumi Thanks for your reply but i'm looking for the percentage of users that use google.ie in ireland over google.com and the same for google.co.uk v google.com in the UK rather than any specific keywords I'm doing some research on International SEO and whther we go for multiple ccTLDs or a single generic TLD and the usage is going to help with the decision. jason

Perfect, thank you both for your help.

The other implication that most international sites have is the way they handle content and different languages.  You don't want to also create duplicate content issues of your site by increasing your content exponentially using either machine or user generated translations.  We of course, always prefer user generated translations. Another thing to check out is a post on the SEOMoz blog about handling duplicate content.  The area I specifically wanted to point out is the Link rel=alternate section http://www.example.com/path" /> This can be used to tell search engines that those pieces of content are just translated versions of another piece of content so there is no confusion.

I doubt you will ever find any decent resource in English about doing SEO in Russia. At least I've never seen one. Normally, a big part of the content on such a resource is user-contributed (like here on SEOMoz), and there's no reason for Russian users and seo-marketers to use English when they can write in their native language. Paid links are very popular in Russia. Buying and selling goes through www.sape.ru. This is a link exchange which is far more superior than its analogues in the English-speaking world. I've never done SEO in Russia (being a native Russian) but I know for sure that without paid links you will hardly get into the top-10 in Yandex. Especially if you sell on a competitive market. Disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of paid linking. Just reporting the things how they are in Russia. There are fiercely competitive markets, such as travelling, where you can consider yourself lucky if your travel agency gets into the third page of SERP even if you buy links on SAPE

Good question. Am curious about this as well. If the site is translated to the specific geographic area, with the exact same content as the original site, will Google recognize that the content is in a different language and treat it as such?

AUguides.com would probably be the best one of of the available you've listed.  i'd avoid anything with two letters together a la venueexplorer.com  that being said the trends right now are for short unique bit.ly bizzy.com etc.  you might go back to the drawing board but I dont see anything wrong with AUguides.com  if you brand it correctly you could have something special .

Google have written allot about this subject and cuffs debated it one of his vids, here is a few links: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPiALaxDr6E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

Here's a link to more info about geotargeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Also, for other search engines (like Bing), you'll want to set content-language.  Read more about how to do that here.

Thanks Ryan! The folder structure is what saved the site when one of our bigger sites went for local domains. THey were poorly maintained and in 6 months time they went under. What I will do is try the local domains on AdWords. I will use the canonical link element to try and pass any possible links the local sites might gather. The flag idea is great. We will refresh the design soon and we will have them in mind. In a way I will use AdWords to try and gather some natural links. At one point I might test the new domains on their own, once the have enoigh links. Stephen, I'm afraid I can't use the redirect in this case. That is, if I don't want to be lynched by a mob of angry web developers. However, your idea makes sense. I will give it a go on a smaller site and see what happens there. Thanks guys!

Any ideas and suggestions guys?

Google may, or may not, take into account the physical address but I know that the more discerning customer definitely does care. I recommend to all of my SEO customers to add their physical address, even if it is just a PO Box, as it furthers Google's stated aims of adding truth and transparency to the internet.

Thanks guys for the answers, but as I said before, Can't change the design hehehe thanks

Don't redirect, create a sub folder for English content.