New Domain

kanky

Hi Guys,

I have a .ie domain for the last 4 years, it has had steady visitors etc.

I am looking at the possibility of branching into the UK. as a result I have purchased an .eu domain.

I am looking at the possibility of having everything running through the EU domain, with either a subdomain or folder for IE and UK.

Does anybody have any experience of this? Ideally, I would like to do this to keep the domain authority and administer everything from one location. Rather than having to keep up two separate websites.

All thoughts welcome.

Regards,

Kanky.

TsuDhoNimh

(Apologies for some of the technical terms I'm going to use, it'll look nasty, but by using the correct terms it means you can look up anything you're unsure of and gain a better knowledge than I'd have time to provide directly with paraphrasing)

Google treat .eu domains as gTLDs (same as a .com or a .org), so you've no problems there in terms of flexibility in geotargeting the site (or specific subdomains or subdirectories) to specific locations.

From a technical point of view, it'd give you the flexibility you need and plenty of options to choose the best route. From a higher level, should you be looking to pick up a totally general top level domain (gTLD)? (.eu is a regional TLD which is treated as a gTLD - so it has the benefits of a gTLD from a search engine point of view but does carry connotations for users and impacts user behaviour)

You've made the decision to expand into the UK, but would you ever be in a position to look at all/more English speaking or even global markets?
If so, you'd be better off using a more suitable domain now (a true gTLD rather than a regional TLD) and save you having to go through the same steps of domain migration (which will cause drops in performance) again in the future.

kanky wrote: »

I am looking at the possibility of having everything running through the EU domain, with either a subdomain or folder for IE and UK.

Go with subdirectories if you're going this route. Subdomains can perform well, but if you don't get your site architecture and internal linking right it can cause (from minor to major) issues with performance.

Will you have unique content for both target markets? I've no idea what your site offers (information or goods) or sells (retail or service), but if you intend on having the same content on both with only changes to prices and delivery costs, that won't work well.

Without knowing more about the current layout and what you hope to do going forward (in terms of streamlining the running of the site) it's hard to give any specific advice there. If you put up a little more detail I'm sure someone would be happy to advise.

Once you've decided on what you want to do going forward, it'll then be a case of migrating the existing site to the new domain. Lots of great information available on how to do this (301 redirecting on a page by page basis, retaining data from old site to ensure smooth transition, informing search engines directly about the change in domain, etc.) and on the negative impacts it will/may cause, so well worth doing a few searches and gathering as much of that data as you can.

kanky

Thanks for the feedback!

We offer training courses, we country specific certification. I don't foresee a situation where we are offering courses globally, other than if we were contracted to deliver a European course in another country. If that makes any sort of sense at all?

We will have unique content for each of the subdirectories, as for the most part the business activity or courses offered will be different. However, I suspect if there is an overlap we will have to rewrite the website copy for that one page or course rather than just copy and paste from the original site.

We are currently using Joomla CMS for the sites, so not entirely sure the best way to go about setting it up to recognise users with IP addresses from different countries. We also plan to offer the site in a number of languages.

Finally, almost forgot. We managed to get the .ie and co.uk domain as well as the .eu domain. Would it be a good idea to market them separately and then have a redirect to the .eu/uk or .eu/ie subfolders or just leave them parked?

Thanks!

Kanky.

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

We offer training courses, we country specific certification. I don't foresee a situation where we are offering courses globally, other than if we were contracted to deliver a European course in another country.

That seems a fair call.

Personally, I'd probably look at going the gTLD route just to accommodate any future changes in your business structure (e.g. if you moved to being an online training provider where location isn't/wasn't an issue), but if you're happy with the .eu domain that's fine.

You'll have more flexibility in your choice of domain, should find it easier to retain your current domain branding (i.e. just a switch of TLD and not of actual name) and potentially even garner some positive attention for using a .eu well (it's not a commonly well used TLD being honest. Not an issue with the TLD at all, just with its poor usage by some/many).

kanky wrote: »

We will have unique content for each of the subdirectories, as for the most part the business activity or courses offered will be different.

I'd spend a little time considering how much of your future business you expect to come from mainland Europe and how big a market you expect the UK to provide (and how big a part will the Irish operation remain).

If the UK is your main target for the future, there would be benefits in going down the route of an entirely separate .co.uk domain. It's more a user thing than a search engine one, but it is something worth thinking about in terms of your long term business goals.

kanky wrote: »

However, I suspect if there is an overlap we will have to rewrite the website copy for that one page or course rather than just copy and paste from the original site.

This does also give you the opportunity to give it a better sales angle for the specific local market and tailor the copy to that market with greater local signals, so while it is an additional workload the long term benefits are there to make it worthwhile.

kanky wrote: »

We are currently using Joomla CMS for the sites, so not entirely sure the best way to go about setting it up to recognise users with IP addresses from different countries. We also plan to offer the site in a number of languages.

Have you got an existing developer for the site? If so, they can probably offer you some guidance and experience there.

I might suggest not going down the IP route for language selection on a multilingual site, it causes a lot of horror stories where users keep getting hit with content they can't understand based on their location and not their actual language.

It's normally better practice to use their browser default language for that (that's what language you know they speak), but it would be relevant for tailoring information such as local accreditation, local prices, local focused topics and potentially adjusting elements to ensure the best possible UX. Whatever options, if any, you consider in that regard be sure that the solution is flexible and that users and search engines alike can access the 'other' data and not have it forced to a specific language/content that they can't navigate away from.

Google have some decent documents available in relation to international sites that might be of interest. It's very high level though, so only touches on the relevant topics.

kanky wrote: »

We managed to get the .ie and co.uk domain as well as the .eu domain. Would it be a good idea to market them separately and then have a redirect to the .eu/uk or .eu/ie subfolders or just leave them parked?

It's pretty much an all or nothing decision when it comes to this.

Either keep the .ie and .co.uk as two separate sites that are marketed and run as independent sites, or simply 301 redirect both to your .eu/.com site.

If you start marketing them as a site and then simply transfer over to the .eu, you're liable to trip up problems relating to doorway pages or thin content sites that you'd be far better off avoiding from the start.

kanky

Hi TsuDhoNimh,

Sincere thanks for your input.

You have given me a lot to think about.

I will follow your advise for the most part, as it seems pretty sound. I have checked and there are not gTLD's available for what I want. So will stick with .eu for the moment.

I am not sure how much of an impact we will have in Europe, I suppose we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I imagine we are fairly well set-up with a .eu site, as it allows us just to add extra subdirectories for specific countries.

I am the sole developer for the site, so will need to investigate proper solutions before making a final decision. It might just be a case of having a landing page on the main .eu and then click on the country your in to bring you to the local folder. Although I suspect this would get quite annoying for repeat visitors.

From a marketing point of view, I suspect it might be easier to advertise the local domains (.ie and .co.uk) with a permanent redirect to the appropriate folder as people might not be as wiling to buy from a .eu as its less well established.

Thanks for all your help!

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

From a marketing point of view, I suspect it might be easier to advertise the local domains (.ie and .co.uk) with a permanent redirect to the appropriate folder as people might not be as wiling to buy from a .eu as its less well established.

Advertising a specific domain and then instantly redirecting to another isn't a good idea.

Various reasons behind this, from user doubts over the authenticity of the site they're on ("have I been maliciously redirected? This isn't the site I saw in the ad?" etc.) to technical issues it can cause, but the end result is a constant. If you're using the .eu domain as your site, market it as the .eu domain consistently.

The comment about willingness to buy being hurt by not having the relevant ccTLD is a valid one (to what extent depends on the market and on the way the site is executed), but they'll still need to complete the transaction on the non ccTLD so adding to the confusion would simply exacerbate the problem rather than help to lessen it.

blue4ever

kanky,

I'd be a fan of redirect based on IP only in the UK case as there sia site specifically for the UK.

For other areas I be keener to base the redirection based on the language settings in the users browser. The Dutch (fro example) speak two languages - dutch and french. A french speaker in Holland will be automatically redirected to a french speaking site.

C

blue4ever

Also - if your on Joomla 2.5 you can achieve this (without lining any developers pockets with money) in the Language options of the backend.

C

TsuDhoNimh

blue4ever wrote: »

Also - if your on Joomla 2.5 you can achieve this (without lining any developers pockets with money) in the Language options of the backend.

I know Joomla core offers this functionality natively, but any idea how it executes it? (not 'technically how does it do it', just 'does it do it in the right way')

e.g. Is it easy for users or search engines to navigate to the various other options available and ensure correct indexing of the multilingual content and ensure user flexibility (e.g. using a public computer with default language setting differing to their own language)?

kanky

blue4ever wrote: »

Also - if your on Joomla 2.5 you can achieve this (without lining any developers pockets with money) in the Language options of the backend.

C

Hi C,

Thanks for the feedback.

That is only useful for language, it wont actually direct to a specific folder, or will it?

Also, if I do go entirely with .eu/ie and .eu/uk, should I do anything with the .ie and .co.uk sites other than keep them as parked so nobody else can use them?

kanky

Actually, that wont be of much use are both countries are native English speaking. So unless I was planning on diversifying into France the language pack might be of little use.

blue4ever

kanky: Sorry I misunderstood the origional. I though you were expanding across europe. thus the language option. So the IP will be the only option.

If you have a site doing well then i'd 301 the URL's to the new .eu/ie/*.* so that you are maintaining the trafice and other bits. I'd start working on the .eu/UK bit thereafter.

IMO i not too sold on the .eu in the first place. Personally I'd go for the two sites on .ie and one .co.uk. and build from there - but that just an opinion.

TsuDhoNimh : I have a URL bookmarked on another maching which is a decent guide to the language setup and redirecting in Joomla - I throw it up here tomorrow at some point.

bceltic

Hi Kanky,

Don't forget the HREFLANG tag to avoid duplicate content and geotargeting in Google Webmaster Tools.

Also does your brand/domain translate in French? The advantage of a .fr and .ie is it communicates trust and a commitment to the local market, that's why I'm a fan of multiple ccTLD sites over one gTLD (except when it's not needed of course!).

If you're thinking of 301 redirecting everything to .eu from your .ie then you will obviously be sacrificing your domain authority/rankings/traffic. Without knowing more about your business it's harder to make a more solid recommendation here.

I really think International SEO is a huge opportunity ignored by most businesses. Are your courses taken online or they're 'real world' courses?

Brian

kanky

Thanks for all your feedback guys.

Actually, I think I might have omitted a crucial detail! I will try and explain using an example domain.

I currently operate website (example only):

www.dogz.ie We operate in Ireland and have been doing so with this website for nearly 5 years.

We are looking to move into the UK market along with the Irish Market, with a possibility of delivering our services to other European countries.

So what we did was purchase:

www.dogs.ie
www.dogs.co.uk
www.dogs.eu

Now, here is the part that I originally left out. There is a slight name change involved also. It would be similar to the name change given in the example, however a name change all the same.

So my predicament is what do I do with the original site. dogz.ie.

My initial plan is this. Set everything to run through dogs.eu with subdirectory for /ie and /co.uk with emails being routed through info@ie.dogs.eu for example.

The dogs.ie and .co.uk would be redirect to the subdirectory on the .eu site.

Does this make sense?

Any help welcome.

Regards,

Kanky.

blue4ever

Personally as it stands now - I’d leave the .ie as is. If it has traffic and rank and some authority, I’d be keen to leave it. I'd start marketing the UK site as a NewCo and work from there.

Now the kicker for me would be your intention on the rest of Europe. If that’s going to be a multilingual site targeting many countries and languages across Europe - then a IP/Language redirects could be the solution.

If you get it correct now, at the outset, then there's less messing about adding new countries at a later date.

Therefore, I'd redirect the .ie to .eu/ie - on the same url structure as the .ie is now. It’s a simple wildcard redirect in your .htaccess - if the structure is maintained.
Replicate that structure for the .eu/uk. But make sure that the pages have enough points of difference between the ie and uk pages to not look like a duplicate site (prices, contact details can signify differentiation).

You might have a look at the links below before you make a final decision. As i said if its going to expand in to a multi-regional site then a bit of planning to future proof the site might be a worthwhile investment:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192#1

TsuDhoNimh: this is the doc I mentioned - its not bad. Kanky, you might have a look at that too at some point:
http://downloads.joomlacode.org/frsrelease/7/3/0/73078/JD2012-Peter-multilanguage_v7.pdf

kanky

That information is really useful!

I understand about the multi-language aspect of things. However, I am unsure that this will work for Uk/Irl as they both have the same language. So how do I separate the users when they are using the same language?

Unless there is an IE-EN language pack and UK-EN language pack?

jmcc

You could have the .eu as a gateway site that redirects users to their relevant ccTLD (.ie for Irish users and .co.uk for UK users) site. But if you are targeting the UK market, use the .co.uk as the .eu has very little credibility or use in the UK compared to .co.uk.

Regards...jmcc

blue4ever

kanky wrote: »

That information is really useful!

I understand about the multi-language aspect of things. However, I am unsure that this will work for Uk/Irl as they both have the same language. So how do I separate the users when they are using the same language?

Unless there is an IE-EN language pack and UK-EN language pack?

I'd redirect the UK punters based on IP and (down the line) redirect the other visitors via language (not country). So long as the site doesn't begin to develop on a per country basis - if so you're back to IP

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

So how do I separate the users when they are using the same language?

Just to play devils advocate here for a moment, I don't know enough about the structure or the content to make an informed call either way so it's entirely guess work on my part, but do you need to separate the users at this level?

My initial thought would have been that the accreditation and/or training locations would have been enough to provide the required filters there for Irish/UK users?

Forgetting about SEO and search engines for a moment, just think about it in terms of your users (giving the best user experience is best practice for SEO, any technical jiggery pokery after that is just to help the machines understand what you're doing). When I arrive on your site, how am I going to try and navigate it?

Do I select a category of training courses, then filter based on location and accreditation?
Do I select a location and then look at what's available?
Do I filter based on all three elements and then search?

As it's face to face training, the location element seems the most relevant and important filter. Assuming that is the case, it might not be in reality, your proposed structure may end up being along the lines of...

site.eu / country / city / category / course

I'm also assuming that while the accreditation is a very important part of the decision to take the course or not and the value for money of taking the course, that it's a sales factory rather than a navigation factor (so basically it's more part of your CRO than to part of your navigation).

If you do end up going down that route, or a route similar to that, you really don't need to try and manual redirect IE/UK users to the specific pages. You can let their query decide which is the most relevant page for them and let them carry on from there. Once you start building geotargeted links to the relevant pages, it'll also provide a very clear signal to the search engines of what's the most relevant for local searches (and using your settings in WMT you can give them a nudge in the right direct right from the start).

So, when doing your manual link building...
If working with the Cork Chamber of Commerce, you'd link back to:
site.eu / IE / Cork
If dealing with a site in Manchester (no idea what UK cities you'll be operating in):
site.eu / UK / Manchester

The pages for the Irish target market will already be optimised for that market. It will have the local signals you want, prices provided in Euros and will the ones that Irish users would naturally navigate to on your site regardless. The UK pages will also be optimised for their local market (local address of where training is provided, virtual office address in that locality if needed, potentially even virtual local contact numbers that redirect to your Irish HQ), have the content geared to that market and have all prices and accreditation with the locally relevant signals.

If that is the case (and depending on your site it could be very close or completely off the mark, we're all punching a little blind here), I wouldn't worry too much about trying to force IP redirects on users. I'd simply look at employing some navigation aids that are tailored to the target market (so a sidebar for Iri/UK users directing them to the highest priority pages for that target market).


The multilingual side of things is slightly different, but from a glance at the information blue4ever gave that appears to be a suitable solution for that (I would keep a very close eye on your WMT data, your sitemap indexation data and any other issues it may throw up - but from a glance it does seem acceptable from a crawl/search engine pov).

jmcc wrote: »

But if you are targeting the UK market, use the .co.uk as the .eu has very little credibility or use in the UK compared to .co.uk

blue4ever wrote: »

Personally as it stands now - I’d leave the .ie as is. If it has traffic and rank and some authority, I’d be keen to leave it.

bceltic wrote: »

If you're thinking of 301 redirecting everything to .eu from your .ie then you will obviously be sacrificing your domain authority/rankings/traffic.

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

If the UK is your main target for the future, there would be benefits in going down the route of an entirely separate .co.uk domain.

Don't want to dwell too much on that point, but said I'd highlight it just one more time. I think that's every poster on this thread making a similar or at least directly related comment on that aspect of your decision here.

kanky wrote: »

There is a slight name change involved also. It would be similar to the name change given in the example, however a name change all the same.

Not really a big deal. It may/will cause some fluctuation in results depending on the specifics of the names (or keywords) involved, but in general it's nothing that would be a major issue to get concerned over. If you feel the branding benefits are there and that it's a suitable name for your domains, there's probably far more benefit there than their is negative. Depending on the specifics of the change, you might even find it leads to a positive change rather than a negative one in the long run.

kanky wrote: »

My initial plan is this. Set everything to run through dogs.eu with subdirectory for /ie and /co.uk with emails being routed through info@ie.dogs.eu for example.

In terms of the redirects to the relevant subdirectories, that's fine (assuming you do continue against having the two separate sites). Just make sure it's a correctly setup 301 redirect and nothing to worry about there.

It's a little more complicated for redirecting the .ie if you end up changing site structure on the new domain, as you can't use a wildcard redirect as mentioned and would need to do it page by page or create suitable rules to control it, but regardless of how it's done as long as you end up 301 redirecting each page on the current .ie to the new/same page on the .eu it's fine (you will suffer heavy losses in the early days of the change and even long term losses from the redirect, but that side of it is out of your hands and all you can do is your best in the situation).

kanky

Guys, thanks for all your help so far.

I suppose at this point I must admit that I am slightly confused as to the advise being given.

I am conscious of that fact that you are probably repeating yourselves here.

Just to consolidate the advise given, or what I can make of it, would I be right in assuming the following:

www.dogz.ie
www.dogs.ie
www.dogs.co.uk
www.dogs.eu

Initially, if I was to redirect dogz.ie to dogs.eu\ie then there would be a loss of some domain authority. Along with the fact that the redirect could only be done en mass if the navigation structure was the same. If not it will be a page redirect?

I am keen to use the .eu domain, is there any way I can utilize the new .ie and .co.uk for the .eu, without giving people the idea that we are trying to trick them and such?

I would imagine any domain authority lost from the old .ie will be maid up for with the new .eu site.

I really do appreciate your help, and sorry for repeating myself.

Regards,

Kanky

blue4ever

kanky wrote: »

Guys, thanks for all your help so far.

Initially, if I was to redirect dogz.ie to dogs.eu\ie then there would be a loss of some domain authority. Along with the fact that the redirect could only be done en mass if the navigation structure was the same. If not it will be a page redirect?

Some small loss naturally, but thats going to be always the case. 

Just on the redirect - plenty of options - its just that keeping the structure the same will make it easier. This may not suit the new site, so thats your call. Example:

take the current site as www.dogz.ie and the eudomain is www.dogs.eu.

Taking two pages to be directed to the ie portion of the eu site:

www.dogz.ie/pageone.html
www.dogz.ie/pagetwo.html
www.dogz.ie/pagethree.html

The redirection would be that the new url up to the first slash would be appended to

www.dogs.eu/ie/ as a wildcard

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} \dogz.ie/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.dogs.eu/ie/$1 [R=301,L

The other way as the urls are not the same would be to direct them one by one

www.dogz.ie/pageone.html > www.dogs.eu/ie/newpageone.htm
www.dogz.ie/pagetwo.html > www.dogs.eu/ie/newpagetwo.htm
www.dogz.ie/pagethree.html > www.dogs.eu/ie/newpagethree.htm

Could be a time consuming and fairly drudge - but its that or rediect the old site urls to the new home page (which is crap!)

The redirection can be done any way you want. If the URL structure is similar then its accomplished in an easier way. Otherwise you have to manually redirect "page a" to "newpage a" individulal redirections.

Kanky: dont take that code above as the correct one - you'd have to research and test your redirects first.

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

Initially, if I was to redirect dogz.ie to dogs.eu\ie then there would be a loss of some domain authority.

Yes.

There would be a dramatic impact to begin with, which would lessen over time as the search engines pick up on all of the changes and redirections that have been made. How long or how dramatic an impact varies from site to site, but there will be an impact there in both the short and long term.

kanky wrote: »

Along with the fact that the redirect could only be done en mass if the navigation structure was the same. If not it will be a page redirect?

The redirect can be done extremely quickly and easily en mass if there is no change in the URL structure (which is what I assume you meant by nav structure).

It can still be done if there are changes, it's just a question of how the old structure and the new one match up to see how difficult this might be. If your old site has a logical and well set up URL structure, it shouldn't be a big deal to adjust it. If there's little logic and it's a mess to begin with, it can be a pain setting the correct redirections. So it's a case of the specifics there.

kanky wrote: »

I am keen to use the .eu domain, is there any way I can utilize the new .ie and .co.uk for the .eu, without giving people the idea that we are trying to trick them and such?

You can utilise them any way you wish, but for consolidating your marketing efforts and not spreading yourself too thin across multiple satellite domains the only general answer that makes sense is to either focus everything on the .eu and use that or else operate the .ie and .co.uk as independent sites and manage it that way.

There are cases where it can make sense to break out into numerous domains, but it's the exception rather than the rule and is not commonly executed well. Again, without very detailed specifics it's hard to see how that system would work well for you and it comes with too many nuances to speak of it as a good idea in general terms.

In about 90% of cases the best route is to go with the relevant ccTLDs. If that's too much work to maintain and market two individual domains, then focusing on one single gTLD is the way to go. There are exceptions, but without specifics there's a good chance you'd end up being one of that 90%.

kanky wrote: »

I would imagine any domain authority lost from the old .ie will be maid up for with the new .eu site.

You'll be transferring some of the domain authority that the current .ie has to the new .eu with the 301 redirects. In that transfer, some losses do occur. The redirect has an inherent PageRank decay so not all of the benefits will transfer to the new site.

You can easily rebuild that lost authority on the new domain. It's not a negative mark against you, it just means you've lost a few of the positive marks that you had before the move.

Matrix Internet Web Design

Hi kanky,

I think it's far less about the ins and outs of what the SEO impact will be (because if you are doing what you need to be doing, the details generally take care of themselves when it comes to Google), and far more about whether to use the .eu or not, and the impact it will have on how customers in the UK and elsewhere perceive your website.

Personally, I would not advise using a .eu, and I would never even think of using it myself. The only case to be made would be if you wanted very wide targeting across the EU, or maybe if you had an enterprise/government-oriented product or service. In most cases, just like yours, it is usually a typical business under discussion, and it is generally best to either use the country-level domains, or come up with a sub-directory solution, where you can assign certain sections/categories of your site to each market and develop content and onsite indicators (office addresses, maps, virtual phone numbers, company registration numbers, etc) within these categories, to make the categories more customised to that local market.

In any case, your question is by far and away the most common question we get, and our advice generally runs along these lines:

-If you are lucky enough to have the relevant local domains (i.e. the ccTLDs - .co.uk, .ie, etc) then use them - ONLY if the different local markets are of high enough priority AND you have the resources to manage the different websites to ensure they are sufficiently targeted. Let's say you are really keen to go after the UK market - you will get a lot futher using a .co.uk and then building links from high-quality UK sites and targeting your website content to that market, than you will using a .eu in the hopes that it be useful to have in case you want to expand further afield later on.