Why Is Google Indexing The .com.au site in USA searches, and not the .com site?

[Clockie]

Hi there,

We have 2 sites, one for Australia, and one for the USA.

We have set the geo targeting to each country, removed all references to Australia on the .com site (except for the image link linking back to our .com.au store), added a US address, changed spelling to US spelling, submitted sitemaps to Webmaster Tools.

Google has only just started indexing the .com US site, however, the .com.au Australia site shows up in a US search when you Google: http://www.google.com/ncr

We also have 2 blogs if that changes or helps anything at all.

Thanks

[MattAntonino]

The .com is stronger so it's being indexed.

You need to implement hreflang tags:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

You can test your hreflang code once it's implemented using this tool:

http://flang.dejanseo.com.au/

[grobro]

@Matt-POP

I guess you mean the *com.au is stronger

Leave it some time and try to earn some regional links.

[MattAntonino]

Ah yeah - I'm used to seeing it the other way with our AU clients. haha  They always start .com.au and then want to "go global."

Hreflang either way.

[Clockie]

Thanks Guys

Would we also need to do this with the blogs?

[MattAntonino]

Yes, if the content is duplicate and you're targeting users in two different locations you should.

[Clockie]

Ok great, thanks for that. Have just added those and tested, so now we play the waiting game

[katemorris]

I'm actually going to disagree. HREFLANG is for noting language changes on the same site. A .com site and a .com.au site are totally different sites. The .com.au site is stronger and will rank better for now. HREFLANG won't help much as they are geo-targeted sites, not one site that has translations.

You just need to focus on the promotion (read links and coverage) of the US site. As long as things are geo-targeted correctly, it's a matter of distinguishing the two sites and treating them as separate sites with different marketing plans and promotion plans.

[Clockie]

Thanks Kate,

Will adding HREFLANG hurt? I have noticed that the .com is indexed in the US now (before the hreflang) and is moving closer to the .com.au.

Cheers

[MattAntonino]

If the content is the same, use hreflang. I work in AU on US/AU sites all the time.  There are two components to hreflang - language AND location.  If we have different locations but the same content, I've used hreflang successfully to get the correct site to come up on the right version of Google many, many, many times.

The Google hreflang page says "with content translated or targeted to users in a certain region"

So it's acceptable to target region specifically with hreflang.

[Clockie]

Yep, the content is the same. Thanks Matt

[edward-may]

Hi Clockie, great question! I'm actually in the same boat! i wanted to ask a question to Matt since i see you mentioned you work alot with the AU and US domains!

I have 3 Top level domains CO.NZ , COM.AU AND COM (for USA)

I'm also wondering why my sites for AU and COM are not showing anything in the rankings, I launched in Nov of 2014 and have seen some good positive results for CO.NZ but not showing anything for the other two.  I have added the geo targeting in WMT for all sites, lang tags, and also CcTLDs.  Still not getting anything, is there perhaps something I'm doing wrong?

Appreciate your feedback!

[MattAntonino]

Hey Justin,

Very hard to say with the limited info you were able to give so far.  If the geo-targeting is done & hreflang is done correctly, the only thing you can really work on is building great content on the 3 sites and then building authority cough backlinks cough to the sites.  We tend to split the link building fairly evenly as we want them all to be seen as authority sites in their own right as well as in their own country.  I would also try to earn links from the correct country - so NZ backlinks to NZ, etc.

Make sure you're claiming your local listings where possible and building some simple citations to them as well just to reinforce the location-specific nature of these domains.

From there, it's really mainly just authority building.  We rank things like "gym wear" in 3 countries with 3 different domains on one multi-site Magento so it all definitely works.

[Clockie]

Hi Guys,

It's been a while, and the .com site is now showing directly underneath .com.au site in the USA. Is there a way for the .com.au site to be removed, or to not be indexed?

Thanks