Is the same content posted under different international TLDs a problem?

[ChristianMKTG]

Dear all,

I have a site which owns .be, .cn, .biz, .com.mx, .de, .us, .info, .net, .org  and all run from the same server and have no difference in content i.e. .com.mx/our-services is the same as .com/our-services

Google webmaster help created a video that said multiple international TLDs, same content 'should be ok' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo - however, I would like confirmation from practitioners!

What is the best practice in this case? Considering none of the content is customised, should I create root level redirects to our .com, or leave as is?

Thanks!

Christian

watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

[SL_SEM]

Most responses I have seen for similiar questions is to redirect the country based TLDs to folders based on the country name, but that is usually if you have translations available.

If the content is exactly the same and not translated I would probably just redirect to the .com domain. This TLD gets the most respect, and most users know it regardless of country. Also if you use 301's it will help consolidate your link popularity under the one domain name for people who don't actually check your link and just link to you with example.de instead of example.com.

This way once you do put up translations (Which you should be doing if you get lots of international users) then you can switch the redirect to the appropriate folder at that point and still have your links consolidated.

Just my 2 cents

[Mattbyo]

Here is my two cents and take it for what it's worth.  We took a .com site written in English and hosted in the U.S., duplicated the website content but redesigned the website.  The duplicated content and new design was then hosted in Germany hoping to target UK and English searches in Europe, the website was a complete flop.  We then took the duplicate content and had a professional translation service convert the exact content on the U.S. website to German and updated the new site and it started performing very well.  We took the same approach in France and our other target markets; however, it didn't work in the UK.