co.uk for other countries

[MMM]

thinking of a website which is 70% UK focused. 2 domain options:
co.uk - i assume it has some benefit for ranking in UK.
com - better for other geos.

does co.uk rank at all in US for example?
is the benefit in uk worth loosing the traffic from other geos?

any comments welcome

[Sherlock]

Go for both and split it geographically (by geo redirect and submitting in webmaster tools, where you can mark priority website for any country), if the keyword.com and keyword.co.uk is the same.

Outside of UK it is not just about ranks that will be worse to much worse. It is about losing the CTR from Google. US people will not click on co.uk as they do not call soccer "football".

[BestNetent]

I think if you creating the enlish version of the website on .uk - it will be focused on google in uk and drop positions down for other english speaking search comparing to .com website. Com is more international in my eyes and UK will be more local on GB + IE.

[Former Member 14]

When I ran .au Domains, Google set the GEO as Australia - had no option to change GEO.

Where as a .com you have the choice to not set a preferred GEO, or you can set a GEO to your desired traffic location.

The same goes with my co.nz domains, they're set to NZ and I can't change that option.

[Sherlock]

Correct, with co.uk it is I think the same as with .au.

The way is to use hreflang="en-GB" on .co.uk site and all others on .com site. https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/182192?hl=en

Watch out using .co.uk for more than GB, e.g. GB & IE (Site level: If your site has a generic top-level domain (for example, .com, .org, or .eu), specify your site's target locale using the International Targeting report. Don’t use this tool if your site targets more than a single country. For example, it would make sense to set the target as Canada for a site about restaurants in Montreal; it would not make sense to set the target as Canada if it also targets French speakers in France, Canada, and Mali.)

[MMM]

Go for both and split it geographically (by geo redirect and submitting in webmaster tools, where you can mark priority website for any country), if the keyword.com and keyword.co.uk is the same.

Outside of UK it is not just about ranks that will be worse to much worse. It is about losing the CTR from Google. US people will not click on co.uk as they do not call soccer "football".

True.
question in this regards: am i loosing some of site authority by splitting? and mainly - you think i am gaining something in terms of ranking in UK.
As it's pretty much creating two sites - not fully sure it's worth it.

P.S. actually one more thing - for the .com option i thought about the co.uk is taken. wonder if it's a deal breaker even if i go with 1 site.

[Sherlock]

I am nearly sure you do not lose anything. It is advice from Google. You can only gain something, by better structure of your project. You should for sure gain something from the 30%. How much is a question.
The websites (content of both domains) can be identical. They even should be identical IMO.
The cost is only the extra domain. Both domains can be connected to the same backend.

[MMM]

Thanks Sherlock,

you mean also same server or to somehow have co.uk in uk and the other in US with CDN?

thinking also to try Google servers. wonder how they work.

[Sherlock]

I thought the same server, then it would cost literally just the reg fee. But the CDN way for sure is better.

Google crawls on default everything from US, but I think if you tell him that some content is UK, they will crawl it from UK and index it in UK version.

But even if you do not use cdn and for example host UK content in USA or the other way around, Google will swallow it.

[MMM]

Will probably place in US and pass the global one through CDN.
Now need to figure out how i geotarget the Global version to show different tables in CA/USA and such without it effecting the UK one.

[MMM]

Thinking about the issues it generates. For example with similar db the images will show one url on both sites. not sure how to avoid all that.

[Former Member 14]

Why not just use a subdomain: uk.yourdomain.com


main domain: link rel="canonical" href="hxxps://yourdomain.com/ (hreflang used for US/CA)
(subdomain): link rel="canonical" href="hxxps://uk.yourdomain.com/ (hreflang en-GB)

Wouldn't have to concern yourself with GEO IP filtering, or any other issue which you may not be savvy with, or confident.

[MMM]

Why not just use a subdomain: uk.yourdomain.com

Thought about it as well. But isn't subdomain is as is different domain?
Not sure what's the difference (i mean in terms of tech setting and such) between uk.domain to domain.co.uk?

if the same then i would assume having co.uk might be better than uk. subdomain.

[Former Member 14]

Thought about it as well. But isn't subdomain is as is different domain?
Not sure what's the difference (i mean in terms of tech setting and such) between uk.domain to domain.co.uk?

if the same then i would assume having co.uk might be better than uk. subdomain.

A lot of casinos who were targeting the AU market (before the ban) places like Spin Palace Group, Fortune Lounge, Betway etc., etc., all have highly skilled SEO Departments. Anyone of these could have registered and used a .com.au.

Instead, they opted to use either au.casinoname.com or .eu, a couple used casinoname.com/au/, but it was mostly au.casinoname.com. These guys aren't fools, they know what works best. I personally have had success with EG - au.subdomain.com, too,

No disrespect or offense to you MMM... But, it's seems you skill set in this area is lacking. Hence, I'd go with what the BIG BOYS do...just sayin.

[MMM]

Hey Aussie,

Thank you and no worries - i appreciate the suggestion.
My skill set is definitely lacking but we are here to learn.

I am not fully familiar with AUS rules but possible that there are some restricoins to AU domains and such?
I can't say regarding SEO which is better - .au or au.site. I assumed the first as it's more clear for google but i might be wrong.

In my previous comment I just meant that these two options are the same from technical perspective as au.site is like separate domain. So i will need to offer similar solutions with either option.

Need to decide if it's worth the risk or just geo regularly and do site/uk or to take the risk and try something new.

[Sherlock]

A lot of casinos who were targeting the AU market (before the ban) places like Spin Palace Group, Fortune Lounge, Betway etc., etc., all have highly skilled SEO Departments. Anyone of these could have registered and used a .com.au.

Instead, they opted to use either au.casinoname.com or .eu, a couple used casinoname.com/au/, but it was mostly au.casinoname.com. These guys aren't fools, they know what works best. I personally have had success with EG - au.subdomain.com, too,

No disrespect or offense to you MMM... But, it's seems you skill set in this area is lacking. Hence, I'd go with what the BIG BOYS do...just sayin.

I guess at least part of the reason why they do it is a fear that Australia can always seize the national domain. This is why most gambling sites are on .com, which is defacto US. And also why US casinos are on non-dotcoms.

There are exceptions like in Europe small heavily regulated and taxed markets. Just look how is handling bet365 those markets or even better Unibet. They use ccTLDs (national domains) whenever they have licence like unibet.se, unibet.it, unibet.de, but otherwise they use third level domain, like de.unibet.com for Austria, Luxemburg etc. (Extreme https://pl.unibet-15.com/ or https://hu1.unibet.com/ where the governments already blcoked some third level domains, so they do subdomain hopping with no big harm, but imagine what if they put all marketing and SEO effort into unibet.pl and that would be seized!)

But Australia for outsiders is very unstable and using .au domain means that you are from the day hostage of Australian government.

.com.au would be otherwise much better.

[Sherlock]

Thinking about the issues it generates. For example with similar db the images will show one url on both sites. not sure how to avoid all that.

Well, I just got today email from google that my hreflang implementation is not correct.

But now imagine if you are the 3% who do it right Google algo will think you are the genius and reward you generously. For the 97% it will just ignore our idiocy.

[Former Member 14]

Well, I just got today email from google that my hreflang implementation is not correct.

That hreflang is for sure a tricky one. I'm usually pretty clued up and savvy with this type of stuff. EG - AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) got that sorted out, not long after Google announced it. Which, in the beginning (before everyone jumped on it), was earning me some nice (mostly unchallenged) SERP's.

Maybe a lot of the fails are due to cache issues and GEOIP plugins. FYI, GEOIP and cache plugins are notorious for not working together. Some of the more recent GEOIP plugins work with specific caches. But... if one is using WP with an array of plugins, there's always risk, they all wont play well together. And, by adding GEOIP to that mix (with it's cache issues), that just adds to the problem.

The other way around it, is to not use a cache for certain pages. But, that can be a catch 22.

[MMM]

The other way around it, is to not use a cache for certain pages. But, that can be a catch 22.

Yes indeed. Personally i've chosen a number of pages i geo and not cache but indeed the price is that they are slower so probably cost me rankings.

Regarding the site.au vs au.site.com - i read more and i would say that first option might be slightly better as it makes things clearer for Google to understand your intention.
Personally, i think google is smart enough to figure it without with correct setting but it's like more safe.

[PROFRBcom]

Well, I just got today email from google that my hreflang implementation is not correct.

But now imagine if you are the 3% who do it right Google algo will think you are the genius and reward you generously. For the 97% it will just ignore our idiocy.

Where does one check to see if Google approves of one's hreflang implementation?

I think the strategy we use is: sitewide hreflang=en
On individual pages that we want to rank in a certain country we use hreflang=en-US or hreflang=en-AU in the metatags body (site still defaults to en, but I assume this overrides it?)