Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Cyril.

Google released a webmaster blog post that covers this specific instance quite extensively:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html

But in summary; yes if the content is going to be largely the same then I'd suggest using the canonical tag to identify the .com as the original source. The advantage of this is you wont fall into any duplication issues within Googles algorithm, the disadvantage being that the sites containing the canonical tag may struggle to build up their own authority as you are essentially telling Google that the content is not their own, so some of the link juice should be credited elsewhere.

Have a read of the webmaster article, they go into a lot of detail about the issue which will hopefully guide your path.

Good luck.

David

Keri is right, if you are going to be using an identical strucure on your new site and all pages are going to be carried across, you can use this redirect that will just transfer the old domain URL's to the identical new one:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^olddomain.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.olddomain.com$
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

So the old url http://www.oldsite.com/best-red-shoes

Would automatically direct to http://www.newsite.com/best-red-shoes

Note; this is for an Apache server

David

Hi Alejandro,

Yep, it's the answer you don't want to hear...

The search bot will follow the same rules as everyone else, so if you geo-target dependent on location then Google will only see the content aimed at the bot location. And as you said, it's a very risky tactic to direct Google bot under different rules than users.

There was a perfect case study on such issues here on SeoMoz, you might not come up with the same answer as Paul but you need to look at the same considerations:

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/territory-sensitive-international-seo-a-case-study

Good luck!

David

Small world, I'm a lifelong Rovers fan. Give me a shout if you ever fancy catching up and chatting SEO (or the decay of BRFC).

info@davidingramdesign.co.uk

Cheers

David

Tell me about it, Lancashire born and bred

Hi David,

It depends how much money they are talking, but if they are considered the genuine voice of the industry then it might be worth while.

If you try look at it from a wider point of view than the pure link value of the press release, you can add up how much it's worth to you. If this magazine is going to get your name known throughout the entire industry, you will find it makes your outreach a lot easier in the future.

Also, don't be put off by a low PR/DA, if the industry is very niche then it's unlikely to ever get the big links needed to get the high metrics.

To put it this way; if you own THE number one worldwide blog for mackrel fishing in Eastern England, your site is still going to have a pretty low PR/DA as the mainstream sites that carry the weight aren't going to link to you.

If you're talking thousands then I'd say no, but if it's just more than you'd usually pay I'd say consider it.

Good luck

David

Sadly if you want to be really specific and get the maximum value, it will be a manual task.

Excel can be your friend here, and it would make quite a quick job of it.

If you didn't want to spend that much time on it, you could be a bit vaguer and do it at a folder level (e.g 301 all pages in /blog folder to the new /blog.html page), but you wouldn't be getting the full value from your old site.

Let me know if you want any help or advice.

Thanks,

David

Ah, I see where you are coming from.

There is room to manoeuvre with multi-national domains (.net etc), however it's when you go into specific country TLD's that you will struggle to pull UK rank.

I guess it depends how big a part of your marketing plan SEO is. Like I mentioned, it's certainly possible to rank one of these domains, but it is a uphill battle and if you're relying on SEO for income then I'd  recommend against.

From a branding perspective, I can see the potential benefit of one of these domains.

Thanks,

David

Hi,

Use a page level 301 redirect. So go through each page of your old site, and find the most relevant page to it on the new site, and 301 it across using the htaccess file.

This will give you the most benefit in terms of traffic and SEO, plus it will keep your users happy as they will be landing on a relevant page on the new site if they come through an external link or search result.

Good luck with the new site.

Thanks,

David

Hi John,

These issues do matter, but it's all down to your perception of 'big'. Changing the titles and the alt tags aren't going to send a site soaring to number one, but they will help as part of a focused SEO effort.

For the img tags; I wouldn't recommend simply adding the keywords into the alt tags. This looks spammy, and is no real help to anyone. Remember there are people out there who genuinely rely on these tags to enjoy a website. Make the alt tags contain genuine descriptions of the images, this will give a fuller and richer picture to the search engines, and it will help your visitors too. Win win.

In terms of how, just add alt="" to your tags. E.g:

Using the appropriate H1/H2 tags is a strong factor in terms of on-page relevence, but again these should be genuine editorial titles rather than keyword features solely for the search engines.

So yes, I would definitely say address these issues and tweak the site appropriately, but I would also recommend managing your clients expectations that these changes won't be the secret to success.

Thanks,

David

On the information you've given, I'd say the issue does come down to the .ie being crawled more regularly and given credit for being the original source.

It's worth testing this. Why don't you launch a new page on the .co.uk, wait until it's been indexed, and then launch the same page on the .ie site. This will confirm if it's simply an issue of the .ie being given crawl preference.

If this works, then there are ways of ensuring the .co.uk is indexed prior to the .ie going forward (that's if you really want to avoid using the canonical tag)

David

Hey,

I had this problem recently, turns out that linking root domains data is no longer available on the free API call.

You can see the updated available API calls here:

http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/13991153/URL%20Metrics%20API

The end column let's you know what's available for free.

I for one am disappointed that # of linking root domains data is no longer available.

David

That might be your answer then.

We're assuming the .co.uk should rank for the copy on those pages as it's the original source, however there is every chance that they picked up the .ie page first so that's why they are showing that (as they believe it was the original source).

If the .ie site was newly launched then it's likely that Google were still crawling your site regularly before they figured how often you update content and settling on an ongoing schedule.

If it was crawled before the .co.uk, which now seems likely, then that is the answer to the anomaly

David

Hi Gary,

It seems that when given that particular phrase, and no canonical source, Google is deciding the the .ie site is the best answer. This is probably based on freshness, although I would have expected Google to still opt for the original source.

Did this content change at all at the time of the .ie launch, or had it been established on the .co.uk for some time?

If this home page text is the only real issue and you're enjoying positive rankings in both .co.uk and .ie, there may be no need to rock the boat by making changes. It is bizarre, but it's not going to lose you any business.

In an ideal world you would have original content on both, or at least have the canonical tag in place. However it seems that Google is generally doing a good job of recognising the definition between the .co.uk & .ie sites, so I wouldn't let yourself lose any sleep of this anomaly.

David

Hi Malcolm,

It's not impossible to get a non-UK TLD ranking in the UK results, but it is difficult and I'm yet to see a case where it makes sense for a Webmaster to use an international TLD to target the UK SERP's.

The whole purpose of an international TLD is to deliver a website intended for a specific region, therefore it wouldn't make sense for Google to fill the UK results with sites that are intended for other countries.

The odd ones do make their way in there, but it wouldn't be an advisable business model.

What would be your reason behind wanting to use an internation domain to target the UK?

Thanks

David

I might get in trouble for saying it on here, but the Raven tools set has some very nice data visualation tools for GA, and they allow you to create white label PDF reports on it.

Definitely worth taking up the free trial for.

David

Hi Jennifer,

Using 301 redirects is the answer, and I wouldn't worry about any kind of penalty from Google for this (any kind of manual inspection would show that it's a legitimate business merger).

There won't be any harm in using a 301 redirect, however you will lose some link juice (exactly how much is unknown, but this unfortunately is an unavoidable consequence of moving sites).

I would advise installing 301 redirects on a page by page level to carry across the individual strength you've built up for each page of your site (and consequently the keywords associated). This makes it a much bigger job and involves a lot of strategy planning, but it will be worth it as it will carry the existing traffic and rankings across from the current sites.

So for example, rather than redirect the entire oldplantsite.nl domain to the newplantsite.nl homepage, go through each page and direct it to the most relevant page on the new site.

For example:

oldplantsite.nl/brazillian-rose-plant should redirect to the most relevant page on your new site, so something like newplantsite.nl/brazillian-plants

This will also be great for user experience too as they will always be landing on a page relevant to the link or search result they clicked to get to your new site.

In regards to the various other localised sites, this won't be an issue as long as you use the appropriate meta mark-up and Webmaster tools options.

Thanks,

David

Hi Gary,

This is one of the exact scenarios that the "rel= canonical" tag was created for; when there is a legitimate reason for duplicating content across pages or sites.

If you include this tag on the .ie site and thus indicate to Google that the UK page is the original source, this combined with the localised identification in Webmaster tools should restore the balance.

It's an odd one, as on paper the .co.uk should still be ranking, so it seems that Google has taken the .ie site as a fresher update of the content from the same source.

It's also worth checking if any changes have been made to robots.txt or htaccess, which would also explain the issues you're having.

Cheers

David

Hi Enrique,

Google don't give manual penalties for too many ads above the fold. Their manual penalities are for blatent violations of their webmaster guidlines, so things like buying links, cloaking or hidden text.

Although they recommend not putting too many ads above the fold from a user experience perspective, it's certainly not one of their terms and conditions and wouldn't be the cause of a penalty.

If you friend tried removing his ads and saw no recovery, it could be one of several issues:

• It might not have been the excessive ads that were causing his problem

• If it was the ads, he may not have removed them for long enough for the Panda update to be refreshed

One very important thing though; the ads above the fold issue and the Panda issue are the same thing.

It's the same algorithm update that is focused on user experience. It is nothing manual, and the only way to recover is to fix all the issues and wait for the refresh.

If you're fixing the site then that's a great start. With a bit of luck your new site will regain the rankings with your ads still in place, and then everyone is happy

Thanks,

David

Hi Kyle,

I feel for you, I've had similar discussions with people in the past and it can be a nightmare.

Realistically, the falling rankings should be all the convincing they need, however it seems like that's not enough for them.

From my experience, the key message to get through to people with the 'but we are getting links...' philosophy is that all links are not created equally.

Have you tried showing them the link profile of the industry leaders? If these contain genuine editorial links from relevant sources, it might be enough to convince them that good links to equal top rankings.

Good luck.

David