Does running 2 domains from the same website harm my seo efforts?

[joeprice]

Hi

I run a website which has 2 domains running from it. One domain has a .co.uk extension and shows products aimed at the UK market.  The other domain is a .com which shows products aimed at the US market.

As both domains run from the same website, the content is mostly identical APART from the product listings as they change depending upon whether you're in the UK or US.

My reason for doing is this mainly for paid search purposes as I can have a more accurate domain depending upon which country I target. Both sites are set to encourage the bots to index it, and in google WMT each domain is targeted to its specific country.

So, my questions are,

1. Is this set-up possibly damaging my SEO efforts for either or both websites?

2. If so, would setting one domain to no-index, improve SEO efforts for the other?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Cheers

Joe

[SimonCullum]

Hi Joe

A good question.  You'll find most of your answer in a video by Matt Cutts at Google  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

As you are running different Top Level Domains (TLDs) then chances are that your websites and content won't be classed as duplicate, however saying that, if they are both hosted in the same country, e.g. the UK, then potentially they could be classed as duplicate, with only one of them showing up in search results.

Your best bet would be to Host the .co.uk in the UK and the .com in the US. That way, it's more likely that neither site would be classed as duplicate.

Regards

Simon

[Gab-Goldenberg]

Do more to differentiate them insofar as it's possible. Interview people from different countries for the respective sites, for example.

[joeprice]

Thanks very much for the response Simon.

I have links between both .co.uk and .com websites on every page on my site so you can check products from either country perspective, therefore google WMT shows lots of backlinks from the alternative domain, do you think this could cause a problem as well?

Thanks

Joe

[SimonCullum]

You're welcome Joe.

Regarding those links that you mention;  they could potentially cause an issue such as link spamming, which can happen when two websites send each other a lot of reciprocal links.

(Simpler solution towards the end) ~ My advice would be to remove them and make it clear on the website that those on the UK site, in the US, can visit the US site and vice versa.

As some landing pages will no doubt be deep pages (i.e. not the homepage) perhaps a widget type of box in a prominent position would help to direct visitors to the other site if they are on the wrong site at the time.  EG. "If you're a visitor from the US then visit our site especially for our US customers" or such like.

With some clever coding (and use of nofollow for such links) you could get it to work that when clicked on, the visitor goes to the corresponding page on the other site.

Or alternatively, an easier solution, make sure that all those links are "nofollow" links so that search spiders don't follow them, reducing the risk of a penalty.

Regards

Simon

[joeprice]

Thanks again, a brilliant reply, and I'll action those suggestions immediately!

[SimonCullum]

Thank you, you're most welcome.