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.
.ca and. com domains
-
Hello,
currently the main site im working on is a .com, but have the .ca version purchased from register.com. should i have this setup to redirect to the .com site. will google see these as dup content. We have the .ca for our canadian customers but both sites are identical. Thank you
-
There's not really much more I can tell you without seeing and checking the actual site, LB.
If you're not comfortable listing the site address here publicly, you can send it to me in a PM (personal message) if that's better.
Otherwise it's just going to be too many back and forth messages for me to be certain I'm clear how your site & domains are configured.
P.
P.S. I appreciate you marking a couple of good answers!
-
With the current way that we have it setup now would we have to worry about duplicate issues? If I search on our xxxxxx.ca domain, regardless of where we are on the site is always .ca none of the custom pages or sub directories show.
Thanks for all of your help!
-
Glad to help!
As far as register.com's Premium Web Site Forwarding, I'm not familiar with it. But from the quick look I took, it's an INCREDIBLY expensive way to do something that is standard with almost all other domain registrars.
The cost of their domains is exorbitantly high ($79/3 years from what I see) plus they're charging an extra $50/yr to be able to do simple domain redirecting. Most registrars charge about $12.00/yr to do all that for a .ca domain.
Sorry, didn't want to muddy the waters, but thought you should know those prices are crazy high.
For specific info on how to do the redirects, you should get register.com's support to help you. You just want to be certain to ask that they show you how to create 301 redirects (only 301 - not 302 or CName or anything else) as I mentioned.
Then to confirm, 24 hours after the redirects have been done, use a header-checking tool to test each of yoursite.ca and www.yoursite.ca. The tool should show a 301 redirect leading to a "200 OK" response for each.
Paul
-
First, I'm going to assume the canonical version of your .com website is www.yoursite.com. This assumes that the URL yoursite.com (no www.) is already 301-redirected to the www version.
In that case, I'd create a page at www.yoursite.com/canada (or even /canada-company-name). On that page, I'd create a "homepage" that is similar in design to your regular homepage, but that contains a whole lot of copy specific to the Canadian market. It should NOT be a direct copy of the regular homepage.
Then, I'd 301 redirect yoursite.ca and www.yoursite.ca to www.yoursite.com/canada
Lastly, I'd put a link "Canadian Customers" (or equivalent, maybe with a small CDN flag icon) somewhere at the top of your www.yoursite.com pages pointing to the /canada page. That way, even when a Canadian customer finds the .com site through search, there's a chance they'll notice the Canadian info.
Paul
-
We are currently using the Premium Web Site Forwarding from Register.com.
Would this still cause a Dup content issue?
Thanks again
-
Sorry - dupe post. There's something wonky going on with Roger's server - returning a page error even though the comment posted.
-
hello
should I just create a custom page on my .com site thats says .ca?and mirrors my .com homepage? Also if i redirect should it be to the xxxxx.com or the www.xxxxxx.com?
thanks so much!
-
Just to be clear - when you say both sites are identical, do you mean that there is actually just one site that will have both the .com and .ca pointing to it?
If so, and as long as you correctly use a 301 redirect to point your .ca to the .com, you won't have any problem with duplicate content.
That's exactly the sort of issue 301 redirects are specifically designed to solve.
Just a tip for useability...
As a Canadian, when I get redirected to a US .com site, I'm often left to wonder whether the US company can actually serve me well in Canada.
You might want to consider pointing the .ca domain to a landing page on the .com site that functions as a "Canadian home page" and includes explanations to potential CDN customers about all the great ways you can take care of them.
- assurance that you ship inexpensively and efficiently to Canada
- whether pricing is listed in US or CDN dollars
- how service is provided to Canadian users if needed
- that your product meets Canadian safety standards, licensing etc if applicable
The landing page can graphically mimic the regular home page, but with enough Canadian-market-specific content to keep it from being a dupe of the regular home page.
Paul
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
-
How .ae and .com domain in SEO performance for UAE region?
I have a domain for my UAE based project called https://mydubaiseo.com/ and however, one of my colleagues suggested going with .ae option.
Technical SEO | | 0eup.ombitao
Whether if we change the domain like as suggested get earlier results than .com domain or what?\Which domain .com or .ae ranks faster in UAE location if the SEO strategies followed in the same way?0 -
Redirect multiple domains to 1 domain or not?
Hi there, I have client who has multiple domains that already have some PA and DA. Problem is that most websites have the same content and rank better on different keywords.
Technical SEO | | Leaf-a-mark
I want to redirect all the websites to 1 domain because it’s easier to manage and it removes any duplicate content. Question is if I redirect domain x to domain y do the rankings of domain x increase on domain y? Or is it better to keep domain x separately to generate more referral traffic to domain y? Thanks in advance! Cheers0 -
Clients domain expired - rankings lost - repurchased domain - what next?
Its only been 10 days and i have repurchased the domain name/ renewed. The who is info, website and contact information is all still the same. However we have lost all rankings and i am hoping that our top rankings come back. Does anyone have experience with such a crappy situation?
Technical SEO | | waqid0 -
Redirect root domain to www
I've been having issues with my keyword rankings with MOZ and this is what David at M0Z asked me to do below. Does anyone have a solution to this? I'm not 100% sure what to do. Does it hurt ranking to have a domain at the root or not? Can I 301 redirect a whole site or do I have to do individual pages. "Your campaign is looking for rankings for the www version of the campaign but the URL resolves as a root domain. This would explain the discrepancy. Since there is no re-direct between the two, you can have brickmarkers.com 301 re-direct to www.site.com which will prevent you from re-creating your campaign to track the root domain. Once the re-direct is in place it will take a while for Google to show the www version in the results in which your campaign rankings will be accurate." Thanks
Technical SEO | | SeaDrive0 -
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | inlinear
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
Holger0 -
Links from Instructables.com?
This is a silly newbie question. But will posting on www.instructables.com with some valuable content and url link back to my site help with "linking"? Or do they put a no-follow on all links on their site? Thanks for answering! Ron
Technical SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
Transfer a Main Domain to a Sub-Domain
My IT department tells me they want to transfer my main site domain, which has been in existence since 1999 as an e-commerce site (maindomain.com) to a sub-domain (www2.maindomain.com) or a completely new domain (newdomain.net). This is because we are launching a new website and B2C e-commerce engine, but we still have to maintain the legacy B2B e-commerce engine which contains hard-coded URLs, and both systems can't use the same domain. I've been researching the issue across SEOmoz, but I haven't come across this exact type of scenario (mostly I've seen a sub-domain to new domain). I see major problems with their proposal, including negative SEO impact, loss of domain authority/ranking and issues with branding. Does anyone know the exact type of impact I can expect to see in this scenario and specific steps I should go about to minimize the impact? Btw, I will be using Danny Dover's guide on properly moving domains where appropriate. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AscendLearning0 -
Block a sub-domain from being indexed
This is a pretty quick and simple (i'm hoping) question. What is the best way to completely block a sub domain from getting indexed from all search engines? One item i cannot use is the meta "no follow" tag. Thanks! - Kyle
Technical SEO | | kchandler0