SEO issues with IP based content delivery

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Devaki,

Are you still deciding what to do here, or have you gone ahead and made a decision? Let us know if we can help you out anymore, or tell us what your decision was -- we'd be interested to hear what choice was made and how it's worked out.

Thanks!

[Hurf]

I say keep them separate. The ccTLD (.co.uk - clearly shows geographic relevance) - now the .com, which is a global TLD can be targeted/biased to the USA by using theGeographic target in Google Webmasters (the .co.uk is already set to UK and cannot be set to point to another country - only 'unlisted'.)

Furthermore, I wouldn't want to lose any benefits of the aged and established .co.uk by merging it with the .com. You will never get 100% of the link juice back with 301 redirects - maybe 90% at best and after some weeks have passed and then when you consider you are already well establised with your .co.uk site you would be mad to mess with it without VERY GOOD REASON!

Can't you just not restrict shipping to the US on the UK site? I have 2 ecommerce sites setup this way (one.co.uk and one .com - (which operates on a dropship basis only - as we are UK based)

With regards to the duplicate content issue - I would look at the fact that Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com have hundreds of thousands of product pages with the same/VERY similar content (descriptions etc) - and last time I check they were ranking pretty well ;o) - without the need to block users from certain locations - (they do of course pickup your IP address instead and SUGGEST(with a big flag and arrows that you visit the UK site instead when you select Amazon.com site from the UK) - They still restrict shipping of certain items should you persist and try and order anyway.

Your prices will also differ between £ and $ - as will the converted price - another clear indication that this isn't an attempt to get 2 bites of the cherry.

I would also move the .com site to a US based server too - as this helps with ranking anyway (server/website speed and location are factors)

Maybe bung a flag in your header graphics to further denote your geo-targeting?

Changing the spelling of UK/US variants is sensible anyway - though difficult to research initially - I spent some time battling between ize and ise!

Keep the .Co.Uk and .Com separate - state that you do not ship to the US from the UK site - restrict purchases accordingly (by shipping address). That should make it clear enough - hope that helps!

[lonniea]

Personally i would simply redirect your visitors to the proper web site associated through their IP address.  There a few of server side tools or plugins if you're using a blog to change the entire sites title and body content to reflect the differences between sites at a click of a button.

affportal.com has many such tools and insights to help you with this.

hope this helps.

[Stefan-Thorpe]

If you keep the two sites separate would you will be penalized by Google for having duplicate content? if this is the case how should you deal with this?

[Khem_Raj7]

So, you mean to say that being in a same industry, I can copy the whole content of any UK website and then can restrict UK people from accessing my website, as my target audience is in US.

Please advice

[Khem_Raj7]

I would suggest to run only one web site and then use the visitors IP address to insert relevant content into the site. So the web site content will change according to where the visitor comes from.

Creating multiple domains in same language with identical content might attract penalty.

Or else, do whatever you're thinking but ensure to keep the content unique, even if you're using IP delivery.

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[KeriMorgret]

Hi Khem,

This question is over a year old. Your best bet is to start a new thread with just this question. Thanks!

[Khem_Raj7]

Oh yeah!

Thanks keri, I really din't check the date

[SEOLocal92]

Well what i would do its very simple, just have it all in one site and block ip's from user in the US to UK and the other way around.

so you have on your site 2 flags US and UK and if a user from a UK try to go to US site you show a message that  that this products not available that say " this option not available from your location" (i am not a copy writer so use your own words) or just block the prices for ip from a different country.

hope that help

[danatanseo]

Great response and I agree with Big. Large e-commerce sites with thousands of SKUs that often only have tiny difference from one product to the next are bound to have many similar product descriptions. Yes, Amazon is a perfect example. Google is smart enoug to know if what you are doing with your two sites is "an attempt to get 2 bites of the cherry." It's pretty clear that you are trying to serve the most appropriate content to the most appropriate audience. Content management would be easier with everything all on one site, but with the history of these sites, it's probably best to keep them as they are. INow, if you had two domains in either the US or UK that had all the same identical product pages, that would be an issue.

[vbestic]

You have the option to show different content depending on users location. If you use PHP on your site you can use PHP GEOIP functions.

You can get your site personalised by country here: http://www.maxmind.com/en/geolocation_landing

[BlueprintMarketing]

normally I would have said keep only one site but in understanding what you've said you need to differentiate the sites substantially not just wording. Brandon differently to be different the whole reason the customer wants them not be the same is because the audience is not the same I'm from Germany I do understand the difference between being pitch something in Germany and in the United States where I am now and I do notice my own behavior patterns to those I'm far more likely to buy something with the .de as I know which German I know there will be no issues when I'm in the United States I am far more likely to purchase something with the .com TDL as I know I will not have problems hopefully. Differentiate the sites is much as you can one of them sounds like the US site should be rewritten.

I hope I've helped you,

Thomas Von Zickell

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Just a thought as well to add to what everyone else said.  Make sure you go into your Google webmasters and tell Google what country you want them to rank up for. I have had odd instances when a site with a co.uk extension will still rank up in the US for terms even though I don't want it to.  So I advise you to set them.

Have a nice day.