CcTLD not ranking in other country.

[bobjones]

I'm trying to rank a .im domain in Australia and having a hard time getting any traction at all. GWT won't let me geo-target the domain for Australia. It is currently set for Isle of Man.

Thinking of registering a .com.au (same domain isn't available, but I can get something close) and mirror the site completely.

I'd canonical all urls on the .com.au to the corresponding .im pages - would this make a difference?

Also, since the linkbuilding is being done for the .im domain - I think I'll have to start over on the .com.au domain.

Thoughts, tips and insight highly appreciated mozzers!

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Bob

Have you seen this answer to a similar question by Gianluca posted this year - http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-on-multinational-sites

I was going to give you some input on this but who better to answer this...

I have a website with two ccTLD that have the same content but are targeting their own countries - I haven't found issues with ranking myself and I think Google recognises that they are sites for the same country working in different markets and so are less bothered about duplicate content in my opinion.