Say my website is hosted on a server in South Africa (okay... it is hosted on a server in South Africa)
for "malaria free safari in South Africa" i am on the first page of google.com and google.co.za. Nowhere on google.co.uk . Now if i move my site... or create a copy on a server in the UK, would my key phrases etc be more effective on the .co.uk google? (im not sure if this falls into the GEO LINKS forum or not).

I already have the domains for lalibela.net .info and .org (dont know if those are applicable). But my site is still hosted in SA.

If possible i would like to have one copy of the site that i update which will update a copy on the other servers simultaniously. (probably a mission though)

What would the implications of doing something like this be?

Try to get one listed in dmoz under region-uk, or try to get links from related, regional uk-sites.

I believe, you won´t get a duplicate penalty because of copying one of your sites to another server, , but who knows. I´m not sure if this process will cause the designated effect.

I think, .com domains would alse have a advantage int.

greets, ak

Well, this is the $100 000 question now isn’t it.

You see the problem with ‘copies’ of the site is that you will now have duplicate content. So, unless it is a different language, or unique content, there is a problem.

The answer?  I am not sure. I had this discussion yesterday with an associate and will be trying to establish what the protocol is for this. Unfortunately most of my contacts are a PubCon (heavy on the Pub) so I likely can’t find out much until the weekend…

I wonder if hosting a single page in a given region (with a redirect) would do it? Not sure really. It is an interesting pickle.

I have a client that is in Australia and wants to market to both the Au and the US markets. So I certainly have to figure it out here….

At this point, I have no real answer unfortunately

I was thinking about that... the risk is big though... they may see it as spamming... i want to ask our hosting company but i realised something, they know less than i do... if not.. why was i hired... so now i guess i will wait for a general consensus. If only i had dummy site to test on... GWEMA.org pehaps... shot AK and Gypsy, i will attempt the dmoz route when gwema is ranked for something... other than gwema.

Please keep us posted on any resolve you come up with gypsy... it is an interesting topic isnt it

aknet47 wrote:

Try to get one listed in dmoz under region-uk, or try to get links from related, regional uk-sites.

I believe, you won´t get a duplicate penalty because of copying one of your sites to another server, , but who knows. I´m not sure if this process will cause the designated effect.

greets, ak

If the pages are identical (in the source code) then you can be damn sure there will be a duplicate penalty - the word is duplicate

If you want to target the UK market get cheap server in the UK and put a up a few pages, use these to link to and advertise your SA site - alternativly try setting up a 301 redirect from the UK pages to the SA pages to by-pass the duplicate content filters

My experience says, that hosting in different countries doesn´t affect search-results, but it´s quit difficult, because various countries have specific laws and methods. South Africa may be one of them, I think they´re focused national, means that it was not possible for me to get a listing there in a local directory. But when I have a look at SA-google, my .com domain is forward, place no. 6 and the first shopping possibility, the results are first german, then mixed languages?!

I think this is a science on its own.

same site on 2 servers can either be classed as duplicate content or if you do it right classed as geographic load balancing which has got to be a good thing!

it takes one website, two countries, two servers and then uses dns to bounce between the two and share the load on your site.

i'd say get the .co.uk setup to 301 on www. through to your main domain, use nameservers on the main domain and .co.uk and let geographic load balancing sort it out.

to do this for seo and nothing else is silly. do it with the aim of building a more robust platform and the benefits will be a faster more stable site which will then fulfill another criterea google will be looking for. it's better for users too!

My experience says, that hosting in different countries doesn´t affect search-results, but it´s quit difficult, because various countries have specific laws and methods. South Africa may be one of them, I think they´re focused national, means that it was not possible for me to get a listing there in a local directory. But when I have a look at SA-google, my .com domain is forward, place no. 6 and the first shopping possibility, the results are first german, then mixed languages?!

Well... right here an now.. IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE

We went through this on another SEO board and the person in question wanted to expand across Europe (adding .de , .hu etc..). I talked to a Googler at the time and it was confirmed about server location. I also have some G and MSN Patents that deal with these issues....  The advice is THAT case was to reproduce the site in the native language and host if on local servers... I sh_t U not... a bunch of work eh?

I have NOT though, ever looked into this type of a situation yet (same language, multiple geo-targets). It must certainly have an answer, I just don't have it and will certainly look to get one before the weekend is out.. damned PubCon has messed up my lines of communication

thegyspsy wrote:

IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Hi,
do you think google will give you different search-results for your search from the states on the google.co.uk then mine  here from austria from google.co.uk ?

I am unsure on that part, but it is likely. You can actually get 2 sets of results in THE SAME COUNTRY depending the Data Center you are getting results from. Sometimes Google will even switch DCs for a while while it updates old ones.. so over the course of a day or 2 you can be on 2 different DCs with varied results ....

There is an entire segment of the SEO world we call DC Watchers becuse they sit around testing dozens of Google data centers... I gave up the practice....

For example... a couple of today's WMW DC watchers posts

Look what they have done to the following DCs:

http://64.233.183.99
http://64.233.183.104

http://66.102.9.99
http://66.102.9.104

http://66.102.11.99
http://66.102.11.104

http://216.239.59.99
http://216.239.59.104

And as usual, please check your keywords /key phrases and see whether you still exist on Google Planet.



At this moment, I see filters deployed on some DCs. For example:
64.233.161.99
64.233.161.104

Try search both with and without filter=0 to see the difference.

And here is an example of DCs with no filters, yet:

64.233.167.99
64.233.167.104

Of course things might change any moment ;-)

You get the idea... they sit around testing KW/Phrases on DCs of all shapes and sizes.. there are sooooo many.

Thanks so far.

atothek - over and out

mobtex wrote:

same site on 2 servers can either be classed as duplicate content or if you do it right classed as geographic load balancing which has got to be a good thing!

it takes one website, two countries, two servers and then uses dns to bounce between the two and share the load on your site.

i'd say get the .co.uk setup to 301 on www. through to your main domain, use nameservers on the main domain and .co.uk and let geographic load balancing sort it out.

to do this for seo and nothing else is silly. do it with the aim of building a more robust platform and the benefits will be a faster more stable site which will then fulfill another criterea google will be looking for. it's better for users too!

See.... that's pretty good. I suspect this is the answer..or something damned close to it. I shall report back.. EXCELELNT call Mob :0)

You can try this Dublin-Core-Metadata, it may help a bit.

<meta name="DC.coverage" content="United Kingdom" scheme="DCTERMS.TGN">

mobtex wrote:

same site on 2 servers can either be classed as duplicate content or if you do it right classed as geographic load balancing which has got to be a good thing!

it takes one website, two countries, two servers and then uses dns to bounce between the two and share the load on your site.

i'd say get the .co.uk setup to 301 on www. through to your main domain, use nameservers on the main domain and .co.uk and let geographic load balancing sort it out.

to do this for seo and nothing else is silly. do it with the aim of building a more robust platform and the benefits will be a faster more stable site which will then fulfill another criterea google will be looking for. it's better for users too!

Worked out how to synchronise any databases yet?

my efforts have been, subdued for a short time, we (the owner) came to the conclusion that we are not going for an SA market, so its actuually pointless beeing on an SA server as the results are more  locally based. This is a metaphoric kick in the nuts to my original question but i will carry looking for the answer... it will surely be a useful one to know for future reference. I hope this doesnt mean i havte start seo from scratch again for that market? I will only know on Monday afternoon when its finished copying.

thegyspsy wrote:

mobtex wrote:

blah blah!

See.... that's pretty good. I suspect this is the answer..or something damned close to it. I shall report back.. EXCELELNT call Mob :0)

Northie wrote:

mobtex wrote:

blah blah!

Worked out how to synchronise any databases yet?

No and I just puddled my head for too long trying to work out how!

Master slave relationships don't sound right when both should have master rights and accurate shared data to work from.

What happens if the slave server updates, inserts, deletes etc? Those changes would be dropped when the master fed the revised data over.

A seperate server for mysql is one option and would be fine for a normal load balancing setup with three boxes linked together in the same datacentre. Remote servers means at least one of them has to make a remote connection and that can slow down a box and defeats the point of load balancing to speed things up.

Now my head is hurting. Thoughts Northie?

Ryan_steyn wrote:

Say my website is hosted on a server in South Africa (okay... it is hosted on a server in South Africa)
for "malaria free safari in South Africa" i am on the first page of google.com and google.co.za. Nowhere on google.co.uk . Now if i move my site... or create a copy on a server in the UK, would my key phrases etc be more effective on the .co.uk google? (im not sure if this falls into the GEO LINKS forum or not).

I already have the domains for lalibela.net .info and .org (dont know if those are applicable). But my site is still hosted in SA.

If possible i would like to have one copy of the site that i update which will update a copy on the other servers simultaniously. (probably a mission though)

What would the implications of doing something like this be?

Up Until 2004 our specialist  designer swimwear  site www.xen.co.za was hosted in South Africa. Since inception ours was top dog in most SA based SE's including search in Google local but average at best on any Google.com , Uk etc.

Since moving our site host  to NY - where it is far cheaper - we have grown in international page position for our chosen keywords and now sit - with some optimisation - within the top three pages on all major SE's worldwide including countries such as Australia. I strongly suggest that you move hosting off shore where the chances of your site being found to be more mainstream are far better.

My suggestion is find a hosting company that has international servers. You may try www.newnet.co.za as they have both. There is honestly no need to have domains in every targeted country.

I may also suggest that you look at your site description and Title as some countries use different terminology. An example is that ,as in our case, the term swimwear, swimsuits or bathing suits is not normally used in everyday  UK English.  They like SA and Aus,. use the term swimming costumes or bathing costumes. This small change has brought us to top ten in the countries named.

Good luck

www.xen.co.za

Enhancing the feminine Mystique

Thanks for the feeback... I am un-convinced that this is the REAL answer as there are many factors tht can account for what you are talking about in terms of rankings change... ( back links, more pages etc..)

As far as the unque terms, this is certainly true ... but not systemic of what I am trying to sort out. Simply moving to US servers is certainly not going to be the answer... this also creates load problems for say..folks in Australia...

I like the load balancing theory at this point and have initiated a few conversations on this issue to try and come up with a more definative answer....

mobtex wrote:

Northie wrote:

Worked out how to synchronise any databases yet?

No and I just puddled my head for too long trying to work out how!
......
......
Now my head is hurting. Thoughts Northie?

only one - cron; and that depends on how frequently the database updates. Fine for what I have in place, but far from elegant:
theory - every minute or two one server calls the other and asks for an update (eg an XML feed (I have some security scripts i wrote for server communication via XML)) based on what it has and what it thinks the other server has, and vice-versa.

alteratively, the web servers are load balanced but the database server isn't.

I could try asking my hosting company or our account managing company, they might have some ideas

Ya know...Mob/North.... there are days I wish I could afford to work with ya'll full time...

Of all the responses.. here and other boards ... yours are still making the most sense...