Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Impact of .us vs .com on SEO rankings?
-
Our website is hosted on www.discovered.us. I have 2 questions:
1: we have had regular feedback a .us domain is negative in SEO and in conversion (customers don't like it). We are thinking of changing domain to: www.dscvrd.com.
Any insights on the impact on our rankings (if any) if we do this?2: we are focusing our SEO global / USA first but conversions in UK are better. We currently do not have multi-language SEO setup. What would the impact be of implementing www.discovered.co.uk on SEO in UK?
Thanks!
Gijsbert
-
If you change your domain then expect your rankings and traffic to drop significantly for at least a short period of time (a few months is likely). You'll need to set up 301 redirects from the old domain to the new, pointing to relevant replacement URLs on the new domain; .us/how-to-redirect => .com/how-to-redirect
The .us domain will help focus on a US market, though a .com will also do the same. The differences is a .com is also international, so users from the UK, France, etc may still feel comfortable dealing with a .com domain, but may not with a .us one.
The most important thing in terms of SEO is the users' experience in finding the answer to their query; too many people focus on using '-' in their URL in order to get the perfect, keyword rich domain, but Google actually looks for the speed and efficiency in which you can answer a query for "easier routes from IL to KY".
.com, .net, .org. They're all pretty much the same in terms of value; they're all TLDs. The key difference in them is how your users react to them; a charity/public service website may see better results by using a .org for example, but a multinational corporation would likely only settle for .com or .net.
-
Thanks James.
Is there any research or data to support this?
For us, it would mean implementing dscvrd.com for the USA market. Quite a change and want to make sure this is the best way to go.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does anyone experienced to rank a KOREAN Keyword here?
Hi everyone just a quick question is it working if i rank a korean keyword in google search engine?Any tip and advice on how gain more keyword for this.
Local Website Optimization | | invechseo0 -
I want to rank a national home page for a local keyword phrase
Hello - We are a nationally available brand based in Denver, CO. Our home page currently ranks #8 (used to be 5) for "real estate photography in Denver" -- I want to improve this ranking, but our home page is generalized and not geared toward Denver, CO but to all of our markets. I'm trying to troubleshoot this and have a few ideas.... I would love advice on the best route, or a different route altogether: Create a Denver-specific page -- _will that page compete with my home page that is already ranked in the top ten? _ Add the keyword phrase in the image alt attribute Add keyword phrase into the content - need to make sure that viewers realize we are national I already updated the meta description to say "real estate photography in Denver and beyond"
Local Website Optimization | | virtuance_photography1 -
Multi location silo seo technique
A physical therapy company has 8 locations in one city and 4 locations in another with plans to expand. I've seen two methods to approach this. The first I feel is sloppy and that is the individual url for each location that points to from the location pages on the main domain. The second is to use the silo technique incorporated with metro scale addition. You have the main domain with the number of silos (individual stores) and each silo has its own content (what they do at each store is pretty much the same). My question is should the focus of each silo, besides making sure there is no duplicate copy, to increase their own hyperlocal outreach? Focus on social, reviews, content curated for the specific location. How would you attack this problem?
Local Website Optimization | | Ohmichael1 -
Site Not Rankings After a Few Months
I have a client site that I am beating my head against the wall for right now. Three months into a 100% white hat campaign, we can't get him ranking in the top 150. Here's the cliffsnotes: Built a new wordpress website All on page SEO has been done and score an A+ for his primary kws Robots.txt is setup correctly .htaccess is setup correctly new domain multiple 95 DA, 50 PA links from reputable, national sites. Yext Local listings SSL, CDN, Speed optimized Has 19 pages indexed by Google Posting one blog a week for him Granted his primary keyword is a hyper competitive kw, but still, I've been doing this for 8 years and never seen a guy be stuck on the 16th page for so long for the sort of links we are building him. I'm genuinely stumped here and could use some help.
Local Website Optimization | | BrianJGomez0 -
Does multiple sites that relate to one company hurt seo
I know this has been asked and answered but my situation is a little different. I am a local electrical contractor. I specialize in a service and not a product. Competition is high in the local market due to the other electrical contractors that have well seasoned sites with very good DA/PA. Although new to the web I am not new to the trade. Throughout years almost back to the AOL dialup days I have been collecting domain names for this particular purpose. Now I want to put them to good use. Being an electrical contractor, there are many different facets of work and services we provide. My primary site is empireelec.com A second site I threw online overnight with minimal content is jacksonvillelightingrepair.com. Although it is a fresh site, there is minimal content and I have put almost zero effort in to it. It appears to be ranking for keywords a lot quicker. That leads me to believe I should utilize my other domain jacksonvillefloridaelectrician.com and target just the keyword Jacksonville Florida Electrician. It leads me to believe I should use jacksonvillebeachelectrician.com for targeting electricians in jacksonville beach. And again with jacksonvilleelectricianservice.com I can provide a unique phone number for each site. Am I going about this all wrong? Everything I read says no,no,no but I feel my situation is a little more unique.
Local Website Optimization | | empireelec1 -
Local SEO for National Brands
Hi all, When it comes to local SEO in 2015, I appreciate that having a physical location in the town/city you wish to rank is a major factor. However, if you're a national brand is it still possible to rank for local searches when you're based in one location? The reason I ask is that, although our service is national, the nature of what we offer means that it is not inconceivable that people would search for a local variation of our top keywords. Other than the standard things - location in the content, the H1/H2s, title tag, meta description, url etc. - is there anything national businesses can do to help? Thanks in advance. John
Local Website Optimization | | NAHL-14300 -
Subdomain for ticketing of a client website (how to solve SEO problems caused by the subdomain/domain relationship)
We have a client in need of a ticketing solution for their domain (let's call it www.domain.com) which is on Wordpress - as is our custom ticket solution. However, we want to have full control of the ticketing, since we manage it for them - so we do not want to build it inside their original Wordpress install. Our proposed solution is to build it on tickets.domain.com. This will exist only for selling and issuing the tickets. The question is, is there a way to do this without damaging their bounce rate and SEO scores?
Local Website Optimization | | Adam_RushHour_Marketing
Since customers will come to www.domain.com, then click the ticketing tab and land on tickets.domain.com, Google will see this as a bounce. In reality, customers will not notice the difference as we will clone the look and feel of domain.com Should we perhaps have the canonical URL of tickets.domain.com point to www.domain.com? And also, can we install Webmaster Tools for tickets.domain.com and set the preferred domain as www.domain.com? Are these possible solutions to the problem, or not - and if not, does anyone else have a viable solution? Thank you so much for the help.0 -
Does the Location of my Server effect my SEO?
Does the geographic Location of my Server effect my SEO? HELP US! We are arguing for 3 weeks already. My partner has mentioned multiple times in the past that "since 2013 google does not require your server to be in the country you are targeting for seo"
Local Website Optimization | | DanielBernhardt
And that actually all they care about is if its a good and fast server - not where its physically located in the world. I am a strong believer that the geographic location of your server directly effects your SEO ranking... lets say if you want to target www.google.ru for your seo, best you have a server located in Russia for hosting your website.. WHO IS RIGHT? Choose the winner and base the facts.
If anybody has the correct answer and information to base it on it will help us alot - and maybe even spare some unnecessary violent between us two! we found some articles across the web, sadly they are all dated back to 2012.... Thanks in Advance for all the help guys!0