Redirected traffic and SEO problem

[Andrea_howey]

Hi all,

I have a bit of a search engine predicament and I can't find the answer anywhere. It's a bit of a complicated one so please bear with me ...

I'm a Freelance Copywriter, I recently started the business, I've also recently moved to New Zealand. As such I'm looking for business back in the U.K. (As that's where my network is), but also locally, in NZ.

I've purchased both the .co.uk and .co.nz domain names (http://www.inspirecontent.co.uk and http://www.inspirecontent.co.nz)

The way that the domain provider / host has set these up is for one to redirect to another. Currently if someone visits www.inspirecontent.co.nz it redirects to the U.K. Site.

That's less than ideal for me, because I dont want NZ traffic (i.e potential leads) to think I'm a U.K. Based business.

my questions are as follows:

1. Will the redirect to the U.K. domain prevent me from appearing in NZ search (I.e if someone searches via google.co.nz) I'm really struggling to rank at the moment, I'm working on more content but if the redirect is a problem then I need to know about it so that I can find a work around.

2. Any suggestions on the best approach to the work around? It would be great if the URLs didn't change! So that you wind up from the U.K. on the U.K site, and if you're from NZ, you land on and stay on the NZ domain, but I'm not sure how to achieve that. One option, I think, would be to have two different websites, hosted separately, but I hear that duplicated content is bad for SEO?

Thanks all in advance

Kind regards

[RobCairns]

Hi Andrea,

To answer your questions:

1. The redirect you mention will impact your rankings for keywords that are locally based (New Zealand copywriter, for example) or for folks using specific search engines (google.co.uk/google.co.nz) which will identify your website according to relevancy (UK to UK, NZ to NZ). The redirect should probably point from your UK site to your NZ site, since your contacts in the UK can still find your site using google.co.uk, which will redirect them to your NZ site. Meanwhile, your NZ leads will be able to find your NZ site more easily if it is optimized for New Zealand. What that redirect is currently telling Google is that you moved from NZ to the UK, and are carrying forward your domain, which is essentially the opposite of what you have actually done.

2. There are a few ways to move forward:

a) You create 1 website which optimizes for both NZ and the UK. Create a "locations" page of sorts which optimizes the same keywords for different geographic areas. (i.e. have  a "New Zealand copywriter" page and a "United Kingdom copywriter" page). You can remove the redirect if you like, or keep it. This would be best utilized on whichever page currently has better rankings, although ideally you would use your NZ domain since that is where you are based. Not an ideal answer since keyword relevancy will be lacking for one country or the other depending on your choice of domain.

b) You cancel the redirect and optimize both websites. This is probably your best option but requires twice as much work. Duplicate content is an issue to some degree, but it won't really hurt you. Duplicate content is more of a "you won't gain any benefit from your content, but it won't hurt you" issue. You can use canonical tags to minimize the damage you do to your rankings for each site, or you can create unique content for both sites (this is your best case scenario). It would probably be best to separate your hosting (at least have these 2 sites on different servers) in order to avoid any cross-contamination if/when you conduct linkbuilding for your site.

In an ideal world, you create unique content for both sites. In a pinch, you duplicate your content from the site you plan to use most to the site you plan to use least, providing canonical tags for content on your main website.

There will be a lot of work on your plate when it comes to optimizing both sites, but that is the best way to move forward, in my opinion. I'm sure other Mozzers will have more to say on that.

Hope this helps and feel free to follow up with me if you need any more help!

Cheers,

Rob