Debt Management TLD Seo experiment

[Ali-v-8]

Ok there has been discussions in regards to TLD's. So I bought www.debtmanagement.pl. For those of you who cant figure the extension, it is Poland.
Now here is some facts the URL only cost £50 for 2 years and site will be hosted in the Uk on a UK server (Oxford).
The experiment is To see if TLD's are filtered out of UK results. The only link i intend to use will be this one and from the blog created.
Its a 1 page website, with enough content (in my opinion) to be rank worthy. i could be wrong
Simple title listed below
<title>debt management | avoid bankruptcy | IVA help | debt advice | free debt consolidation advice | clear debts </title>
And the description
<meta desctiption="Clear you debts and avoid bankruptcy, if you are in need of debt advice and IVA information contact more than finance. Offering free debt consolidation advice and iva help from experienced professionals who will create a debt management plan tailored to your needs" />
No internal links as its one page.
Keyword meta's are being added today and main term is debt management and obviously IVA.
Hopefully we can prove that either google will filter the .pl and not list it or it will and this will mean you can buy any TLD and get it on page one of Google.
The website has been live since Monday.

Its a bit of a rush job so sorry about the design, but hey ho this experiment is only about the .pl tld.

I will post progress report in blog section.

 

[Jay-UK]

Nice one Ali - be very interesting...as many do beleive that Google DO favour the most common TLDs

 

[Ali-v-8]

I been too and fro on the debate about URLs
I hope this will help.
By going for a difficult industry it will stop people saying "niche market" if it gets to top three pages I will class it a successfully being ranked.
I picked the Polish tld because its on the mainland of Europe.

 

[Jay-UK]

I been too and fro on the debate about URLs
I hope this will help.
By going for a difficult industry it will stop people saying "niche market" if it gets to top three pages I will class it a successfully being ranked.
I picked the Polish tld because its on the mainland of Europe.

You going to be doing anything else for it? Links etc?

 

[Ali-v-8]

Only the ones you will see here.
That way it wont fall on the weight of links.
Just TLD and content, seo.
If I bombard with links it will void the experiment.
A few to get it cached and that is it.
And from no where that can be classed as relevant source.

You going to be doing anything else for it? Links etc?

 

[MASSEY]

interesting. i thought the key w in the url was just one of many factors to rank. surely if you can get that .pl onto page 1 you can get Alidebtmanagement.co.uk to page 1? its a good thing to try though. il keep my eye on it.

 

[awebapart.com]

I am finding that Google are being pretty stupid at the moment with some domains. I chose a .it domain a while back for a pet project of mine, as it kind of fitted in with the subject of the domain (the site is a programming tutorial site called howtoprogram.it and I also liked the IT reference). The site is purely in English, not Italian, it is hosted in the UK, and it is mainly linked to by UK websites. A few months ago it was showing up in "pages from the UK" searches, but not anymore, it looks like Google have now decided that it is definitely Italian.

The problem with Google's Web Tools geolocation tool (Site Configuration > Settings > Geographic target) is that it only allows you to set a country for country neutral domains like .com and .org, not country specific domains like .pl, .it.

So not only do I have google's 10 month or so sandbox period to wait for, but with the current domain TLD I reckon I wont have much luck ranking for UK searches at all since UK "web" searches give preference to UK sites, whilst "pages from the UK" searches only show UK sites. So at some point I'll probably 301 redirect the domain to a more UK friendly domain.

My current prediction for your experiment is that your site will not feature in "pages from the UK" searches, but if you had asked me that question a few months ago I would have given you a different answer.

I don't think this has anything to do with google preferring different TLD domains, it is to do with google giving weighting to local sites for local searches (local as in country specific), and google not allowing country specific TLDs to be associated with a different country.

 

[Ali-v-8]

The point is it could easily effect the ranking because ali is in the domain.
The key word targeted debt management should if TLD's are not taken into account get to at least the top 3 pages.

interesting. i thought the key w in the url was just one of many factors to rank. surely if you can get that .pl onto page 1 you can get Alidebtmanagement.co.uk to page 1? its a good thing to try though. il keep my eye on it.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Amazingly the website has been cache today See here
Now let see if it gets ranked.
So far launched on Monday.
Linked in yesterday and today from only one source UKBF (worth paying your members fees just for that alone).

I predict it will hit the top ten pages of google by Monday.

 

[Ali-v-8]

This will also prove the sandbox theory as the website is now cached. 4 days from launch. URL was bought in july but never live with content untill monday.

My current prediction for your experiment is that your site will not feature in "pages from the UK" searches, but if you had asked me that question a few months ago I would have given you a different answer.
I don't think this has anything to do with google preferring different TLD domains, it is to do with google giving weighting to local sites for local searches (local as in country specific), and google not allowing country specific TLDs to be associated with a different country.

 

[awebapart.com]

I predict it will hit the top ten pages of google by Monday.

Monday of which month and year? Which google? (google.pl maybe)

If you are predicting that your new .pl site will be top ten pages of google.co.uk ("web" or "pages from the uk" searches) for debt management, by Monday next week, where a page is 10 results, then my prediction is that wont happen.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Just realised we are on Thursday.
Lets say 14 days is a fair assumption or would you go longer.
And also i would only expect it to get ranked.
Debt management (hmmm) would be great but more likely other terms i would except. I posted the title and description to show what is targeted

 

[awebapart.com]

This will also prove the sandbox theory as the website is now cached. 4 days from launch.

Which google sandbox theory are you talking about, since we've already discussed at long length that we are both talking about very different things when you and I say "google sandbox".

 

[awebapart.com]

Lets say 14 days is a fair assumption or would you go longer.

How about 14 months.

My current prediction, based on the current state of Google, and based on what you are saying you are doing (i.e. not much linking), is that your site wont be in the top 10 natural results pages of google.co.uk for debt management even if you wait 14 months.

 

[SFD]

Does Google treat 1 page sites differently to multiple-page sites when ranking?

 

[awebapart.com]

Despite my gloomy predictions, I still think it is a worthwhile and valid experiment, if just to prove that this particular easy sounding route to rankings will not work.

 

[Ali-v-8]

The one where we said it would not rank and stay ranked for a term with in a 3 month period or something like that.

Which google sandbox theory are you talking about, since we've already discussed at long length that we are both talking about very different things when you and I say "google sandbox".

 

[nitro23456]

This is a very interesting experiment I would be very suprised to see it on page one though for such a competitive and high paying keyword as anything debt related.

Are you only doing on-page SEO then? and no link building at all?

 

[Ali-v-8]

The fact that it is competitive is why i chose it. Easy terms will easily rank. This is a saturated industry and the way i see it anything in the top five page is a successful result for the experiment.

 

[FLAUK]

Interesting experiment.

Would also like to see the results on less competitive terms as I can't see your site reaching page 1 regardless of the TLD.

 

[Ali-v-8]

May be I am biting off more than I can chew. But its the only way to prove that TLD's are or are not important.

 

[cmcp]

I am finding that Google are being pretty stupid at the moment with some domains. I chose a .it domain a while back for a pet project of mine, as it kind of fitted in with the subject of the domain (the site is a programming tutorial site called howtoprogram.it and I also liked the IT reference). The site is purely in English, not Italian, it is hosted in the UK, and it is mainly linked to by UK websites. A few months ago it was showing up in "pages from the UK" searches, but not anymore, it looks like Google have now decided that it is definitely Italian.

The problem with Google's Web Tools geolocation tool (Site Configuration > Settings > Geographic target) is that it only allows you to set a country for country neutral domains like .com and .org, not country specific domains like .pl, .it.

So not only do I have google's 10 month or so sandbox period to wait for, but with the current domain TLD I reckon I wont have much luck ranking for UK searches at all since UK "web" searches give preference to UK sites, whilst "pages from the UK" searches only show UK sites. So at some point I'll probably 301 redirect the domain to a more UK friendly domain.

My current prediction for your experiment is that your site will not feature in "pages from the UK" searches, but if you had asked me that question a few months ago I would have given you a different answer.

I don't think this has anything to do with google preferring different TLD domains, it is to do with google giving weighting to local sites for local searches (local as in country specific), and google not allowing country specific TLDs to be associated with a different country.

I don't think it's Google being stupid there.

 

[Ali-v-8]

I think they are a bit at the moment. Not stupid but i think its more of a glitch.

I don't think it's Google being stupid there.

 

[awebapart.com]

I don't think it's Google being stupid there.

Heh heh. There was method behind my madness. The website is a pet personal project of my own, so not that important business-wise, but it also serves as an SEO experiment for me, and I think SEO experiments are important.

At the time it was not so mad to suggest that other country specific domains could rank under under google "pages from the UK", some web 2 sounding names were at that time, in fact some still do, e.g. the following site still ranks under "pages from the UK" searches:

spectacu.la (la = laos but marketed as a los angeles tld)

(spectacula is a wordpress theme site set up by another member of this forum Interconnect IT)

So perhaps with enough inbound links or other jiggery pokery it is still possible to tell google that a different country specific domain is really targeting the UK.

 

[Ali-v-8]

I agree. I think google may not realise this but people expect pages from the UK to usually mean they are in uk.

I think steve may clarify this.
Google adword: When some one does GEO targeted advertising. How does Google determine how to show these results.

The reason ask is if you set it to only show in London, what if your IP suggest that your in Glasgow. What if your on a dongle.
I think may be its better to put location in the advert to filter out bad click as opposed to restricting the views. EG we only cover london

 

[nitro23456]

The fact that it is competitive is why i chose it. Easy terms will easily rank. This is a saturated industry and the way i see it anything in the top five page is a successful result for the experiment.

If your doing no further work off page, I think top 5 pages would be a good result regardless of TLD...... I just think that perhaps this won't prove anything at all because of the difficult niche.

A better experiment would have been to have made two sites and compared a competing .pl and a .co.uk both under the same conditions (ie both new sites like your .pl etc).

With no control, this will prove nothing essentially. Nice idea though so credit for crack

 

[awebapart.com]

With no control, this will prove nothing essentially. Nice idea though so credit for crack

If it proves, that by doing certain things, whether a non-uk other country specific domain can or cannot be deemed by Google as a UK site and listed in the "pages from the UK" results, then it will prove something.

 

[nitro23456]

from that point of view yes......... I thought the purpose was to see if they penalise a .pl in the UK SERPS. Perhaps I misinterpreted the experiment. Soz.

 

[MASSEY]

You would think it will get penalised.

After all would you really want polish websites appearing in the uk serps? i cant read polish....

It would be good if you could pick which country (Search en) you wanted your country tld to list on.

But then what would be the point of specific country related tld's?

Its definitely an interesting topic.

 

[terryuk]

100% sites can rank in non-geo targeted search results, so a UK site can rank for a brand in Spain, Germany etc and vice versa but not too sure about the other...

I also believe that geo targeting backlinks works, so if you link to your new debt site from UK domains then yeah it will have an effect.

 

[harryboon]

nice I will look forward to see what happens - I think I already know, but lets see lol

 

[Ali-v-8]

i feel like an idiot.
wrong code for the expanding content.
It wont get read.
Will have to redo the website. :redface:
What a waste of 4 days.

 

[awebapart.com]

i feel like an idiot.
wrong code for the expanding content.
It wont get read.

You reckon?

Google is quite smart at reading some initially hidden content. (Google isn't particularly smart, it probably just ignores the display none div style)

 

[Ali-v-8]

Dont like text cached that way. Prefer the text on the same page and listed. when you hit "click her the url changes. (imo) New url new location.
Should have technically been all on one page.
Ho Hum, Started to design a new site last night too.
I think i'll hold off and see how this goes.

You reckon?

Google is quite smart at reading some initially hidden content. (Google isn't particularly smart, it probably just ignores the display none div style)

 

[awebapart.com]

It is technically on one page/url. The text is in the one home page. The google search I provided in the previous post shows that text belonging to the one home page.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Just want to say thanks to AWEBAPART, He is really helping a lot with this experiment. (feed back, Spotting my mistakes ).

Hope you keep on it.

 

[awebapart.com]

I thought I'd post an update to an SEO experiment I've been running (mentioned on this thread's post a year ago), notably trying to get another country specific non uk exact match domain, an .it domain (italy) ranking in the uk (howtoprogram.it).

I'd almost forgotten/given up on this experiment, but it actually started ranking a few months ago, and has been page 1 position 1 on google for the last couple of months! (Google still quite rightly takes it out of the ranking if you switch on pages from the uk)

 

[RadiusBPO]

Some sites I work with are getting traffic from other countries but have .co.uk domains.

I think this is due to a recent algo change making other country TDLs rank, maybe a devaluation of the country code??

 

[fisicx]

I've got a .co.uk that ranks all over the world. I don't think this is anything new as I've been getting overseas visitor for a few years.

And I did a search for a German book a little while back and amazon.de was #1 in the results page even though the book was listed in the amazon.co.uk site.

 

[awebapart.com]

Some sites I work with are getting traffic from other countries but have .co.uk domains.

This particular site, howtoprogram.it, is doing alright on other google country sites too, like google canada (page 1 pos 4), google australia (page 1 pos 2), google us (page 2 pos 2).

I think this is due to a recent algo change making other country TDLs rank, maybe a devaluation of the country code??

It will be interesting to move on to the second part of my experiment (when I have the time), to see if I can then get the site ranking for some IT terms! (to see if the IT extension/tld helps when ranking for terms with IT in them)