Best Server/Domain Setup for UK and USA business?

threnode · 11th July 2008, 11:57 PM

I'm planning on starting a web site for an online service. I'll buy a .com and .co.uk domain with the same name (eg mydomain.com and mydomain.co.uk.) The content on the site(s) will differ depending on whether the visitor is from the UK or the USA.

I'm wondering what the best way to set this up will be. Should I:

- host the site in just the UK or just the USA and change content by detecting where the visitor is from?

- or host the sites on separate UK (.co.uk) and US (.com) servers and keep the sites separate for each country's visitors (but with shared branding?) Would this also optimise speed and search rankings for the respective domains?

I'm sure you get the idea: what is the optimum web server/domain setup for presenting differing UK and USA content, please? I'm grateful for any input from webmasters who are more experienced than I am at handling international traffic.

Many thanks in advance!

UH-Matt · 12th July 2008, 01:06 AM

Host the .com with unique worldwide/US content on a US based server.

Host the .co.uk with unique UK/EU content on a UK based server.

Check how we use unitedhosting .com and .co.uk as above.

GabyZ · 18th July 2008, 01:49 AM

I do recommend that too. Plus you will have a lot of SEO problems.

By hosting different content on same domain, you'll probably use a Javascript Technique (Google does not recognize it) to redirect the user after you check the IP. Google bot will not be redirected and it will only read the default content, and this is the Happy case.

If you use any kind of server redirect based on IP, when 2 different Google Bots access your page and let suppose they are one from USA and another one from UK they'll find different content. So how will choose Google the right content? It will ban the site

However if you redirect the UK user to a subdomain or folder called uk it COULD be fine...

Use different domains, is much better and you'll have full control on both sites so changes on the first will not affect the other.

Hope this helps for others.

UH-Matt · 19th July 2008, 01:09 AM

Why use an auto redirect at all? Just let the site visitior choose manually if they want to be on the UK and US site, and make sure the content on both is written differently to focus differently on both markets. This way your not risking any problems with google. Again see how we do it on UH.

GabyZ · 19th July 2008, 12:02 PM

That's right, just let the visitor decide.