[Pixel_Donkey]

Hello,

I've recently been able to search Google.com without any redirection using a US proxy server so I'm actually able to get true US results *yay*.

The problem I'm faced with now is my .co.uk website is appearing more than my .com domain name as both sites contain similar content and keywords are generally identical.

I have both sites setup in Webmaster tools with geographical targeting enabled but it appears to do nothing.


Before anyone says I can't use the .com address for the UK website as the domain name has 'USA' in it and changing the US site to .co.uk will make people believe we are only based in the UK.

I need to know if .co.uk search results commonly appear in US searches?

[neil0wen]

I think they can, but they are not as common. Why do you have two sites with the same info?

Why not redirect your .co.uk domain to your .com domain?

[Pixel_Donkey]

I would love to direct to the .com but the domain is example-USA.com instead of example.co.uk - we can't get the .com version of our brand.

The current example-USA.com domain isn't suitable for our UK market.

[neil0wen]

That is a bit of a pickle!

How old are your domains, is there any chance you can buy a new .com and redirect it to that?

The only other way to get your .com site higher, is to change your content, title etc, so there in no duplicate content!

From an SEO point of view, it just seems such a waste to break the amount of backlinks you have between two sites.

In the long run it would be so much better if you could just have one domain.

Goog luck

[Pixel_Donkey]

The .co.uk is 1996 and the .com is 2004, management won't allow merging of any sites (since my predecessors' merged 3 sites into the .co.uk site... losing loads of traffic in the process and messing up 301s in the process).

I'm stuck with the .co.uk and .com and the .com gets no traffic compared to the .co.uk - I think I am in a massive pickle.

[Renaissance-Design]

Have you used the geo targeting settings for both in Webmaster Tools?

Also, are you hosting the UK site in the UK and the US site in the US?

This post has been edited by Renaissance-Design: 11 December 2011 - 05:32 PM

[Pixel_Donkey]

Yeah geo targeting is set for both sites in webmaster tools, I have come to the conclusion that geo targeting does not work anymore, or at least since Panda was released in the US.

The UK site is hosted in the UK and the US server is hosted in the US, since moving sites its had little impact if any at all.

My US proxy shows .co.uk results which I'm surprised about.

[WebDesignBournemouth]

Do you have a listed address on both? and do you mention united kingdom on the UK a few times, and united states on the other.

Google determines GEO on various factors, not just one... not everyone knows that a UK host is better than US if your targetting UK so google values that as a very minor factor, and since clouds can be anywhere its even less important.

I strongly recommend you use content to allow google to determine the GEO, and not that of use of domain/geo settings and hosting.

I've had many of mine .co.uk be top for serps in the US visitors outranking .com

If you do not want to physically allow people to see the address then you could use a invisible tag.

Using the LAT Tag should work, but other can value SEO rankings.

<div class="custom"  >
	<div class="vcard"><span class="fn org">ByBe Bournemouth Web Design</span>
<div class="adr">
<p class="px"><span class="street-address">NAME Road</span><br /> <span class="locality">Bournemouth</span><br /> <span class="region">Dorset</span><br /> <span class="postal-code">POSTCODE</span><br /> <span class="country-name">United Kingdom</span></p>
</div>
<span class="geo"> <span class="latitude"> <span class="value-title" title="50.7245831"> </span> </span> <span class="longitude"> <span class="value-title" title="-1.8556509"> </span> </span> <span>Bournemouth Tel: 01202 000000<br /> International Tel: <span class="tel">+44 </span><br /> UK Tel: 000000</span> <span><br /> Email: asdasddotcasd.com</span></span>

This post has been edited by WebDesignBournemouth: 21 February 2012 - 09:39 PM

[BohnStudios]

Pixel_Donkey, on 07 December 2011 - 12:36 PM, said:

I need to know if .co.uk search results commonly appear in US searches?

I am in the US. I found this site ( webdesignerforum.co.uk ) when searching for "web design forum" from the US. It was #3 at the time. If there are not geographic identifiers (keywords, ie: London or USA or San Francisco etc) in the keywords being searched, then you should show up in English language search results for your English language content. I hope I understood your question correctly.