Duplicate web content on .com and .co.za

W

WazzyD

Active Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2019
Messages
42
Reaction score
18
Hello I am looking for some advice as I'm not too clued up with websites.

I have both the .com and .co.za domains for a website and I currently only have the .com hosting the site content.

The .co.za is parked with a 301 redirect to the .com. I want to know if it would be beneficial to copy the .com site content and copy it to the .co.za.

Then use 301 redirect to the .com

My thinking is that google will display *****.co.za and SA clients will see it and click it then get directed to the .com. Sort of like Takealot does.
 
You wouldn't copy everything to the .co.za domain. You would just point the .co.za to .com so which ever is searched they arrive at the same destination.

In Cpanel you use alias to do this. Yourdomain.co.za would be and alias for yourdomain.com
 
My main concern is that it's an eCommerce site so when SA shoppers see .com they skip over and look for .co.za domains.

Would it not be better to have content on the .co.za so that Google can index it and show content as .co.za?

Nobody is searching for the domain but when they search a product i'd prefer google to show the .co.za domain and if they click the link they land on the .com? Is this not a good idea or possible?
 
WazzyD said:
My main concern is that it's an eCommerce site so when SA shoppers see .com they skip over and look for .co.za domains.

Would it not be better to have content on the .co.za so that Google can index it and show content as .co.za?

Nobody is searching for the domain but when they search a product i'd prefer google to show the .co.za domain and if they click the link they land on the .com? Is this not a good idea or possible?
Click to expand...

Never duplicate a site for arbitrary reasons. SEO is hard enough without multiple domains.

Google understands 301 redirects and you won't lose any old SEO efforts. In fact, Google does not appreciate abuse of 302 temp redirects and has been treating them the same as 301 for a while now. Reason being, you can flood rankings with the same website with enough effort if Google is caching 302 pages.

If you want to treat international customers differently from local ones, then just do so on a single site. Nothing especially complicated about it and there are many ways to go about doing so. I'm personally in favour of frictionless shopping experiences and ensuring that any adjustments to pricing, currency, product availability, shipping options & costs etc. are invisible to users. Nothing wrong with a country select dropdown, but by default, it should be optimised for each user's location.
 
Bryn said:
Never duplicate a site for arbitrary reasons. SEO is hard enough without multiple domains.

Google understands 301 redirects and you won't lose any old SEO efforts. In fact, Google does not appreciate abuse of 302 temp redirects and has been treating them the same as 301 for a while now. Reason being, you can flood rankings with the same website with enough effort if Google is caching 302 pages.

If you want to treat international customers differently from local ones, then just do so on a single site. Nothing especially complicated about it and there are many ways to go about doing so. I'm personally in favour of frictionless shopping experiences and ensuring that any adjustments to pricing, currency, product availability, shipping options & costs etc. are invisible to users. Nothing wrong with a country select dropdown, but by default, it should be optimised for each user's location.
Click to expand...

Thank you for all the help :) At the moment I am only Targeting SA. I bought both .com and .co.za but decided to use the gTLD but after some time it seems South Africans glance over anything that isn't .co.za on the Google results page. That's why I was trying to figure out a way to get my search results to show as .co.za but if they click on any of the search result links they land on the .com like a mirror.
 
WazzyD said:
Thank you for all the help :) At the moment I am only Targeting SA. I bought both .com and .co.za but decided to use the gTLD but after some time it seems South Africans glance over anything that isn't .co.za on the Google results page. That's why I was trying to figure out a way to get my search results to show as .co.za but if they click on any of the search result links they land on the .com like a mirror.
Click to expand...
That isn't the case. They're glancing over your site for other reasons. Make it clear in your site and page descriptions where your market is.
 
If you use an alias, rather than a redirect, the the users that enter as .co.za should stay on .co.za (assuming your website does not get confused, so make sure to test).
 
WazzyD said:
My main concern is that it's an eCommerce site so when SA shoppers see .com they skip over and look for .co.za domains.

Would it not be better to have content on the .co.za so that Google can index it and show content as .co.za?

Nobody is searching for the domain but when they search a product i'd prefer google to show the .co.za domain and if they click the link they land on the .com? Is this not a good idea or possible?
Click to expand...

Just add a south african flag or some such. Or a picture of table mountain... SEO is your major pitfall.
 
WazzyD said:
Thank you for all the help :) At the moment I am only Targeting SA. I bought both .com and .co.za but decided to use the gTLD but after some time it seems South Africans glance over anything that isn't .co.za on the Google results page. That's why I was trying to figure out a way to get my search results to show as .co.za but if they click on any of the search result links they land on the .com like a mirror.
Click to expand...
Choose one domain and stick with it, and once you've done that be sure to get it registered on google search console
www.google.com

Google Search Central (formerly Webmasters) | Web SEO Resources | Google for Developers

Google Search Central provides SEO resources to help you get your website on Google Search. Learn how to make your website more discoverable today.
www.google.com www.google.com

After deciding, make sure that the second domain performs a redirect to the primary domain name as to ensure that you dont have duplicate content.
If you do have duplicate content then you need to ensure thats its listed as canonical.

If you're moving from the .com to co.za then be sure to submit a url change to google.

I would suggest using the co.za domain name if your primary target market is South Africa, cctld's rank higher for organic results from the country in which the site is hosted - how ever that statement is a blanket one and theres way more to that than simply choosing the correct tld /cctld.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X