Subdomain vs subdomain with ccTLD

[jay.raman]

Hi,

We are about to launch a subdomain and I am not sure about which subdomain will benefit us the most:

• location.brand.com
• location.brand.co.uk

Before I continue I must point out that unfortunately subfolders are not an option (sorry, hard to explain).

Things to consider:

• Brand.com is a global site with very high domain authority, DA = 95+
• Brand.co.uk has no content and simply redirects to brand.com
• Our product is hotels so local search is important and the local (national) market accounts for a good majority of the market.

According to the following post if we were to go for location.brand.com we would benefit from ‘some’ amount of inherited domain authority but would loose out on Geo target bonus. If we went for location.brand.co.uk we would benefit significantly from Geo target bonus but would loose out completely on inherited domain authority

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview

I was more inclined to go for location.brand.co.uk as our SEO agency advised that we will not benefit from the domain authority as we will be considered a new domain. However, after looking into it further I am finding it hard to decide because if we could capitalize on brand.com and inheriting part of its domain authority then it could help our seo efforts significantly.

Thanks!!

[AlanMosley]

If you go with brand.co.uk, you do not have to worry about duplicate content, google allows for simullar sites that are in different tlds. but i would make sure thet you have the correct regional data like date formats, currency and that sort of thing.

Maybe that is the clincher

[jay.raman]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for your response and a very valid point. Duplicate content wont be a big issue as brand.com is very light on content for each location so the sub domain will have a lot of new content (and some re-written content).

Good tip on the regional data. Will make sure we implement this.