two websites, same domain.

spokesman

Hi, my title might be a bit confusing, but what i am wondering is, i currently have an i.e. website and own the .co.uk and .com domain names as well.

If say i want to trade in the Uk, should i do a replica site, with the .co.uk address?As the current site is specific to Ireland only. The site is a e commerce site.Any help with be appreciated.

Sparks

Moved from Development.

pingpipe

From a marketing standpoint it would certainly be advantageous to have a site hosted on a UK-based IP, targeting your potential clients there with unique content....a bit more work for you with the upkeep though, and making sure that you duplicate as little content as possible.

spokesman

pingpipe wrote: »

From a marketing standpoint it would certainly be advantageous to have a site hosted on a UK-based IP, targeting your potential clients there with unique content....a bit more work for you with the upkeep though, and making sure that you duplicate as little content as possible.

Hi, thanks for replying.My site is with an irish company but the hosted in the UK if that makes sense. I was thinking off starting a sister site to the irish site, but only for the UK, hence two sites,

mneylon

Google uses a number of indicators to determine the "target" of a site.
Switching your hosting to the UK probably won't have much impact on you if you already have a co.uk domain

You'd need to focus on UK specific content, or have a look at some of the previous discussions here (and elsewhere) on geo targetting

Matrix Internet Web Design

We always recommend looking at your objectives first.

-How important is the UK to you as a market?

-Are you really going after it or is it more just to have a presence there?

-How much can you invest in that presence in terms of time and money?

Ideally you will build a .co.uk and have it customised to that market in terms of content, onsite indicators, inbound links and so on, but it really depends on the answers to the above and other considerations (not least the time you have to keep two sites up to date and fresh).

bceltic

spokesman wrote: »

Hi, my title might be a bit confusing, but what i am wondering is, i currently have an i.e. website and own the .co.uk and .com domain names as well.

If say i want to trade in the Uk, should i do a replica site, with the .co.uk address?As the current site is specific to Ireland only. The site is a e commerce site.Any help with be appreciated.

Hi Spokesman,

What Content Management System (CMS) are you using on your site?

Using something like Magento allows you manage multiple stores/sites from one admin panel.

Assuming the business decision makes sense regarding shipping costs/pricing etc. to launch in the UK I'd highly recommend it. I've seen plenty of Irish sites getting a lot of easy wins once set up in the UK with good SEO.

If you duplicate the new UK site from the existing Irish site you'll have a difficult time ranking in search engines since it will be duplicate content. To avoid this:

1. Create the new site on a .co.uk domain (hosting location once on a localised TLD doesn't matter).
2. Set geo-targeting from Google Webmaster Tools for both websites, Ireland & UK.
3. Implement the HREFLANG tag - now you've avoided any worries with duplicate content and the two sites are recognised by Google as targeting specific markets.
4. Do local outreach to acquire links from .co.uk domains / UK hosted sites
5. Now selling to the UK you're eligble to submit your product data to Google Merchant Centre's feed.

Plenty of other tips but I'm off to bed! Hope this helps.

spokesman

Thanks for all the advice guys. Their is a lot to think about ok.I'll definitely give it a proper go, soon enough, the irish site is slowly but surely getting popular in a niche market, which is ten fold the size in the UK. So would i be right in assuming that i can go and set up a second site with the same name except for .co.uk on the end instead of .ie? Then ensure the content would be different to the irish, this i think will be inevitable and definite as its an e commerce site.

Their are certainly a lot more to it then meets the eye, i would pay for the marketing,setting it up properly etc...is their any suggestions on any companies out their would do that sort of thing?

mneylon

spokesman wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice guys. Their is a lot to think about ok.I'll definitely give it a proper go, soon enough, the irish site is slowly but surely getting popular in a niche market, which is ten fold the size in the UK. So would i be right in assuming that i can go and set up a second site with the same name except for .co.uk on the end instead of .ie? Then ensure the content would be different to the irish, this i think will be inevitable and definite as its an e commerce site.

Their are certainly a lot more to it then meets the eye, i would pay for the marketing,setting it up properly etc...is their any suggestions on any companies out their would do that sort of thing?

Without knowing your budget it's impossible to advise.

You'd need to give a ballpark

spokesman

Blacknight wrote: »

Without knowing your budget it's impossible to advise.

You'd need to give a ballpark

Being no expert, would a couple of hundred get something worthwhile? grand plus?

A1terEgo

I am looking at something similar.

If it is an ecommerce site and in a niche area then I for one fail to see how the site content can be that different.

If you were selling fruit as an example then the products, descriptions will be the same for both sites as the UK and Ireland are very similar in terms of what sells there, sells here and vice versa.

Nobody wants to be penalised by google on potential rankings but then changing a site's content for no other reason than it not being the same makes little sense to me.

bceltic gave a great answer there - basically one needs to make sure each site is geo-targetted to a specific market.

This makes sense - now does it matter if they are hosted together would it be preferable to have the .co.uk with a uk host and the .ie with an irish host? Just re-read about localised domain.

Is this as big an issue where the domain names are not the same?

In our case we have the best uk domain name for the biggest selling item in our market sector. Therefore we have to use it.

It is like owning bread.co.uk if one was selling bread and other related products.

The irish domain is in comparison completely unrelated as we will use the .ie to sell other items from other sectors as well.

blue4ever

The duplicate content (DC) is a bit of a suspect one and focused on way to much - not thats its un-important.

DC will happen very naturally all over the net, and from the best of sources.

The match report in the Daily Telegraph today on AC and Barca is syndicated copy and is repeated in a raft of sites accross the net.

They are going to be peanilised? No.

When Google hits 'duplicated' copy it tries to asseses which is the origionator or indeed which page is the most important/better result for the searcher - sometimes based on geography.

If you have a site thats .ie and anotherthats .co.uk then the domaIn will (to an extent) indicate to google which site is the most appropiate to a searcher in, say, London.

If anyone thinks that a sites on two seperate geo specific domains have to have differemnt copy for each domain - they are off their heads.

Can you believe that there is duplicate copy on Amazon.com and amazon.co.uk - the shock of it all!! :eek:

smash

You can keep the same website, with the .co.uk domain pointed at the same files and change pricing etc based on user IP... If you have a developer on hand to do it.

A1terEgo

Thanks guys that is really helpful!

spokesman

smash wrote: »

You can keep the same website, with the .co.uk domain pointed at the same files and change pricing etc based on user IP... If you have a developer on hand to do it.

very good, I must look into it further, thanks.

bceltic

A1terEgo wrote: »

This makes sense - now does it matter if they are hosted together would it be preferable to have the .co.uk with a uk host and the .ie with an irish host? Just re-read about localised domain.

Is this as big an issue where the domain names are not the same?

Once you have a local ccTLD then hosting location doesn't matter that much. Ideally though for site speed it's probably best that the servers are hosted in their target country although for UK/Ireland there shouldn't be too much of a difference.

Matrix Internet Web Design

bceltic wrote: »

Once you have a local ccTLD then hosting location doesn't matter that much. Ideally though for site speed it's probably best that the servers are hosted in their target country although for UK/Ireland there shouldn't be too much of a difference.

This is pretty much what we advise too.

ccTLD is the ultimate indicator of locality / target locale really.

spokesman

Thanks for all the advice lads,

mneylon

bceltic wrote: »

Ideally though for site speed it's probably best that the servers are hosted in their target country although for UK/Ireland there shouldn't be too much of a difference.

The physical location doesn't make that much difference and depending on the hosting provider's network etc., could have a negative impact

If you're choosing providers you need to go with one that is directly peering at an exchange and has their own network

Bawnmore

Might be a different question again - but if you wanted to have a separate site for the UK, what's the best way to manage stock levels from the website. Surely with 2 sites, there would need to be manual adjustments to both sites made all the time to manage the same stock?

Would it be possible to have 2 sites (e.g. 2 separate Zen Cart installations on 2 different domains) using the same database?