Hello,

I have been discussing this on other forums as well. What to know your views.

My client has bought two different domains example, abc.com and abc.co.uk but having the same design, marketing message and content in them. Please elaborate what are the SEO stakes, do's and don'ts ! urgent pls.

If the content is same i would be making a single SEO strategy but the client wants both domains ranking top. What should my intelligent, responsible and honest response.



Thank you

According to what I've read, I would have thought they'd be classed as duplicate content and placed in the Google supplemental listings.

Anyone have experience with this? I'd like some confirmation too.

ER

One site will get into the SERPs as normal, the other will be ignored

This means that any external links to both sites will not be as valuable as having all links pointing to one site.

If you really are talking about a .com and a .co.uk you must ask your client where most of the customers are coming from (US/world or UK) as if the .com gets into the SERPs and the .co.uk doesn't then the uk searchers will be less likely to find the site.

However, if it is a uk only search there is a chance that the .co.uk one (if previously filtered out for dupe content) may come up in the SERPs - this is pure speculation and, as far as i am aware, has not been tested

The problem is with any other layman, adamant client that "why?" and "why not?" The duplicate content, linking, preferred domain, wasting resources etc are all which i can understand. But....i don't know... u tell me more..

Thank you

Duplicate content is bad... and pointless, use your .com site, put everything into it,  redirect the .co.uk to point at .com (masking it over the .com would be best) - that way the urls are interchangeable - .com is just the primary and will receive all the love from the serps)

.com is global, if you rank well for it you will be seen in most areas, plus most people switch to google.com without even realising it (how often do you make sure the "search only ####" box is checked?). If your boss wants to target the uk after a while use adwords and ppc in google. You will end up paying two hosting fees for one site if you duplicate, so justify not duplicating by putting that extra money saved into an adwords campaign problem solved and justified

The issue is called Geo-targeting and one should really define the core target audience. Is it the UK? or the World?

Then target with the appropriate domain. The other one I'd simply redirect (at the domain level?) to the one which is deemed to be the primary domain. Confusing search engines by not telling them which is primary is never a great idea as indexation/rankings would be all over the place geographically.

Now, it is likely easier to rank for UK listings compared to global ones, BUT the global listings will rank in the Google UK 'search entire web' setting... as well as the larger global rankings (Google.com)

What's the site?

Great thanks guys I appreciate your help on this.

My client's target audience is UK (problem solved) but also wants his/her .com domain to get rankings. You understand that optimization would put only one domain on rankings/SERPs right, either .com or .co.uk. I think get the preferred domain ranking converting and in the future get its .com version up and running with different content.

Thank you

The Whys and the Wherefores

Duplicate content is filered out of the SERPs because it is useless to the searcher. No searcher wants to be presented with multiple copies of a site for one search - the searcher wants 10 different results to choose from. Search engines do nothing more than recommend sites based on a searcher's choice of phrase. Limiting the options is not good

adeelkhero wrote:

My client's target audience is UK (problem solved) but also wants his/her .com domain to get rankings.

And here is one of the biggest problems many of us face - clients

Clients rarely know what's best for them when it comes to outsourcing something they don't know about. Thay may have heard things from friends, business associates etc etc and want to jump on the band wagon and get something great.

You just have to tell your client that the most profitable action is to develop the .co.uk site and point the .com site to it at the registrar level.

Depending on how you do the redirect you will have one site (understands both requests and redirects to just .co.uk) or two duplicate sites.

You can tell your client you can produce two identical sites, and also you want to make it clear that you, in your expert opinion - and opinions of experts in your field of expertise, do not reccommend that course of action.

Bottom line:

Develop, market and promote .co.uk
Redirect all .com request to .co.uk
Assure client that typing in the .com version will still yield the website (although the url will change to .co.uk - but you don't have to mention this bit!!!)

And here is one of the biggest problems many of us face - clients

Clients rarely know what's best for them when it comes to outsourcing something they don't know about. Thay may have heard things from friends, business associates etc etc and want to jump on the band wagon and get something great.

You just have to tell your client that the most profitable action is to develop the .co.uk site and point the .com site to it at the registrar level.

Depending on how you do the redirect you will have one site (understands both requests and redirects to just .co.uk) or two duplicate sites.

You can tell your client you can produce two identical sites, and also you want to make it clear that you, in your expert opinion - and opinions of experts in your field of expertise, do not reccommend that course of action.

I love that statement. Exactly on point. If the client knows better than you, they don't really need you. Sometimes you need to disagree with the client to help them.

Northie wrote:

Assure client that typing in the .com version will still yield the website (although the url will change to .co.uk - but you don't have to mention this bit!!!)

If you dont mention that bit though, prepare for some top notch explaining from your side, i went through it with .co.za to .net - what a mess. Make sure have an explanation prepared first. Northie is spot on though.