I have a .ie domain but I want to climb google.com search engine rankings.

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katman

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I have a .ie domain but I want to climb google.com search engine rankings. Will google penalize me or look less favourably on me because I have a .ie domain name?
Should I get a .com domain and point the .com domain to my .ie domain name? If this is the preferred method when working on seo, should I work on getting backlinks to the .com domain (which will then point to the .ie domain) or work on backlinks to the .ie domain? Will google look on me less favourably for pointing a .com to a .ie domain?
Or... should I just get a .com domain? I dont want to drop the .ie domain though and, of course, I dont want 2 identical sites. I know I'd get seriously penalized for duplicate content.
Any thoughts? Sorry for the hap hazzard questions...I'm brainstorming! Thanks.
 
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Kieran

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I got dizzy around the 3rd sentence. It depends on where you want to rank. I always recommend that you get as many domain names for your company as is possible as it saves it being taken later.

And Google wont penalise you for any domain name.
 
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katman

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Yeah, I got dizzy writing it.
So, if I have have it set up where the .com domain is pointing to the .ie domain, when I start my link building, do I point the backlinks to www.mydomain[dot]COM or www.mydomain[dot]IE. Or does it matter?

Thanks.
 
Satanta

Satanta

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Will google penalize me or look less favourably on me because I have a .ie domain name?
You don't get 'penalized' in a .com search, you just can't decide to specifically target a given country (other than that of the ccTLD, so Ireland, used) thus gaining a boost in that specific area (i.e. you're 'set' to receive that in Ireland). Personally, I'd consider the user behaviour to be a far more important factor here. Is there a risk of foreign users deeming your site less relevant due to a ccTLD rather than a gTLD? (Depends on the type of information/product/service you're promoting and your target market)

Should I get a .com domain and point the .com domain to my .ie domain name?
Having your domain with various TLD's is good from a brand protection point of view (stops anyone else taking your name and allows you to catch users who get the URL wrong [often worth picking up a typo of your URL if it's a common mistake]), but you won't receive any 'benefit' (in terms of SERPs) from having the redirect there.

should I work on getting backlinks to the .com domain (which will then point to the .ie domain) or work on backlinks to the .ie domain?
No, point the links directly to the 'real' site. Passing links through a redirect causes a detoriation in the link juice passed, while also being a poor user experience (users don't like being redirected where it isn't necessary - think of the users who block redirects as default in their browsers).

Will google look on me less favourably for pointing a .com to a .ie domain?
No. It's common practice to do so for branding, as mentioned above. No negative impacts there.
 
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MOH

New Member
Where's your target market based? When you say you want to climb google.com rankings, do you mean you want to rank well for searches by US users on google.com?
 
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katman

New Member
MOH said:
Where's your target market based? When you say you want to climb google.com rankings, do you mean you want to rank well for searches by US users on google.com?
Click to expand...

Yes, I'd like to rank well for searches by US users on google.com
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
Are you only interested in the US market OR do you want both US and Irish market?
 
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link8r

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katman said:
I have a .ie domain but I want to climb google.com search engine rankings. Will google penalize me or look less favourably on me because I have a .ie domain name?
Click to expand...

People give Google an awful name. Google doesn't really assess/look/investigate sites. It sums you up based on a number of factors. The same algorithm is applied to all sites and country-specific data is part of that.


katman said:
Should I get a .com domain and point the .com domain to my .ie domain name? If this is the preferred method when working on seo, should I work on getting backlinks to the .com domain (which will then point to the .ie domain) or work on backlinks to the .ie domain? Will google look on me less favourably for pointing a .com to a .ie domain?
Click to expand...

If people stopped looking for Yes/No answers then it might make it easier to understand. There is no "preferred" method. Its all about strategy. As @satanta points out - what do your intended users prefer? You don't get bonus points for owning lots of domains. A null domain (new, not indexed, no authority) doesn't really have bonus points for a redirect. Pointing domains at other domains is adopted by people who don't want to manage two sets of content for two different countries. Fair enough but its a shortcut and well, if know about shortcuts, they rarely exist/last.

The idea is quite simple: build a site that people want, need and like. If its a french site, build a site for french people in french...etc

katman said:
Or... should I just get a .com domain? I dont want to drop the .ie domain though and, of course, I dont want 2 identical sites. I know I'd get seriously penalized for duplicate content.
Click to expand...

American English is somewhat different from Irish content. I would imagine that a successful US focused site would be very different in style, presentation and content.

katman said:
Any thoughts? Sorry for the hap hazzard questions...I'm brainstorming! Thanks.
Click to expand...

No problem! Next post "Bullet Points: Your new friends"
 
L

link8r

New Member
Just to clarify. Any TLD can be focused at ANY one country. It can also span countries but at Google's "discretion". Its very hard to do but fantastic when it happens.
 
K

katrina

New Member
This is a personal opinion but if your chosen keyword phrase for ranking on Google is very competitive and doesn't have any specific relevance to Ireland, then I don't think a .ie is the best for ranking in the US. You can move up the ranks here faster with a .ie, but it will still be hard to get ahead of the competition abroad. A lot depends on your keyword phrase and your target audience. You rarely see .ie sites ranking highly in US searches except perhaps for very niche specific/irish relate keywords.
However, ultimately it is the SEO that will get you ranked.
 
I

I4Visual

New Member
Satanta said:
Will google penalize me or look less favourably on me because I have a .ie domain name?
You don't get 'penalized' in a .com search, you just can't decide to specifically target a given country (other than that of the ccTLD, so Ireland, used) thus gaining a boost in that specific area (i.e. you're 'set' to receive that in Ireland). Personally, I'd consider the user behaviour to be a far more important factor here. Is there a risk of foreign users deeming your site less relevant due to a ccTLD rather than a gTLD? (Depends on the type of information/product/service you're promoting and your target market)

Should I get a .com domain and point the .com domain to my .ie domain name?
Having your domain with various TLD's is good from a brand protection point of view (stops anyone else taking your name and allows you to catch users who get the URL wrong [often worth picking up a typo of your URL if it's a common mistake]), but you won't receive any 'benefit' (in terms of SERPs) from having the redirect there.

should I work on getting backlinks to the .com domain (which will then point to the .ie domain) or work on backlinks to the .ie domain?
No, point the links directly to the 'real' site. Passing links through a redirect causes a detoriation in the link juice passed, while also being a poor user experience (users don't like being redirected where it isn't necessary - think of the users who block redirects as default in their browsers).

Will google look on me less favourably for pointing a .com to a .ie domain?
No. It's common practice to do so for branding, as mentioned above. No negative impacts there.
Click to expand...

Brilliant, I have to say. Such a great response to a thread..
I realise mine isn't exactly helpful at all but I just had to give you credit there, you really know how to contribute - thanks:)
 
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