Do SE's consider .com and .co.uk sites as duplcates

[stevealmond]

Hi all,

I started a thread in the MSN forum on the fact that I am receiving different results for my website from search.msn.com and search.msn.co.uk, but without clicking on the search UK only button.

I have moved my question to this forum as my question is now about all SE's rather than just MSN.

Timmathews.com said on the MSN forum

Buy yourself a .co.uk domain if you want to place well in the search.msn.co.uk. This has worked WONDERS for me.

At the moment I have a .com site that is hosted in Canada that is selling vacations in Spain. My main market is the UK, with the rest of Europe being second and the States and Canada third. I also have a .co.uk site that is redirected to my .com site.

OK my question is this;

How should I handle a domain that is both .com and .co.uk.

1) Should I leave the .com site with the same content and hosted where it is. Look for hosting of the .co.uk domain in the UK, using the same content as the .com site, and then look for backlinks to try to get PR for the .co.uk. site.

or

2) Should I try to create new content for the .co.uk site, selling the same product as the .com site, and then host it in the UK.

or

3) Should I change to a .co.uk site only and host it in the UK and drop the .com site completely.

I am not sure, but I am worried that both options 1 and 2 run the risk that the sites might be banned by SE's for having duplicate content. Going for option 3 means that I run the risk of loosing my good rankings on google and yahoo.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

Steve

[bhartzer]

If you can create enough content to support having an entirely separate co.uk site without duplicating content, then that's probably preferred. However, keep in mind that you'll need to also promote it separately with separate links. It will take some time to get it to rank well (it's just like starting from scratch again with a new site). Don't expect to link your co.uk site to your .com (and vice versa) and expect to get any linking benefit from it, either.

At this point, it's probably best, though, to keep one website, the .com site. All other domains you own, including the .co.uk domain, should have a 301 Permanent Redirect set up so it redirects to the .com site. That way you won't get caught for having duplicate content.

Generally, it's a lot easier to promote, continue to get links, and update one site rather than two more more sites.

[stevealmond]

Thanks bhartzer for the endorsement of the way that I have so far handled my website. I.e. a .com with a .co.uk using a 301 redirect to the .com site.

My problem is with search.msn.co.uk where my site just does not appear in the results for ANY keyword searches including the company name. The only way that I can find my site is by using the company name in quotes, and hey presto my site is no. 1.

However on search.msn.com, search.msn.es, search.msn.de, etc, my site is appearing on the first page with virtually all keyphrases that I can think of.

My site also does well in google and yahoo, etc.

What I would really like to know is why there is such a difference in the search results from search.msn.co.uk with the other search.msn's.

80% of my business comes from the uk and so it is very important to me to be in the top results on search.msn.co.uk. Being top on search.msn.com is great, but being there doesn't get me any business as the msn website in the uk uses the search.msn.co.uk as default.

I don't really want to go down the road of changing my site to suit msn.co.uk and loose google, yahoo, msn.com, etc.

Regards

Steve

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by stevealmond

At the moment I have a .com site that is hosted in Canada that is selling vacations in Spain. My main market is the UK, with the rest of Europe being second and the States and Canada third.

I would suggest moving your .com site to a server actually located in the UK, and keep the redirect as is. From all I've read, local search results are determined by server location, not domain extension.

[brianzajac]

I would suggest moving your .com site to a server actually located in the UK, and keep the redirect as is. From all I've read, local search results are determined by server location, not domain extension.

I agree. If your relevant traffic is from the UK, that's where you should be defaulted. However, if you still want information funneled through the US, I would suggest what is traditionally done by the bigger companies: an affiliate site. Your affiliate site would have the essential information from your UK site, but only tweaked for the US audiences. That differential content should be enough to distinguish your website as being an affiliate & not the same site (thus, not getting you banned). As for linking, it's true the SEs won't think too much of it, but your audience will. Think about it: If a prospective client came to your site and you have office(s) oversees, that makes your look like a bigger company. This, in turn, gives you more 'clout' & gives you an edge over 'smaller' competition.

[ditto]

If your targetmarket is the UK then you should really be using the co.uk extension. Not sure about MSN but Google will give a co.uk presidence over a .com for somebody searching in the UK.

Plus since your hosted in... Canada was it, there's also no indication in your IP that your targeting the UK market.

Either switch the .com to co.uk with your current host. Or move the hosting for the .com to the UK where at least your IP will let the SE's know your UK based.
Or set up the co.uk as a seperate site, since it's a co.uk it doesn't matter where it's hosted the SE's know it's UK targetd.

hth,

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by ditto

Not sure about MSN but Google will give a co.uk presidence over a .com for somebody searching in the UK.

I was under the impression that with Google, local search was determined by server location, and not domain extension - is that not accurate?

[ditto]

I was under the impression that with Google, local search was determined by server location, and not domain extension - is that not accurate?

As far as I'm aware for a .com the server IP is the deciding factor since .com is worldwide. For more localized extensions such as .co.uk, .de, .fr, .as, etc the IP is not as relevant since the extension is specific to that local.

Hence a site with a co.uk extension hosted in the US will be returned in results for a UK specific search. It used to be cheaper hosting in the states saw lots of .co.uk hosted over there. Costs have leveled out now.

If you have a .com targeting the UK then it should really be hosted in the UK the server IP will be the deciding factor in this case.

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by cspelts

I was under the impression that with Google, local search was determined by server location, and not domain extension - is that not accurate?

no, not accurate... one of the many half-truths and mis-information floating out there.

Ip location OR country-specific domain extension
Either one