Countries - Duplication Issues

[Paul78]

Hi there,

We have a .co.uk website which has been up and running for the past 5 years now and we have now decided because we have a big market in Ireland .ie we want to have a .ie website, the question is, is it ok just to replicate the .co.uk for the .ie website?

Are there duplication issues?

Kind Regards,

[AlanMosley]

Yes its ok, as long as they are different TLD'd

See Matt Cutts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

[katemorris]

Technically it is okay as long as you are TARGETING Ireland. If there is no reason to have an .ie content wise, if everything is exactly the same, it might not be worth it to you. The .co.uk is already set up and has links, doing the same for the same content on another domain is a lot of work. And the .co.uk is so close that it'll probably out rank it for some time because the content is exactly the same.

So if you do this, take the time to focus the site to the Irish. You might not change all the content, but if it doesn't need to be changed at all, you might just focus your efforts on the .co.uk site.