National domains vs one common domain: case of 841% growth from an international brand
Thesis: The SEO strategy on a global scale should concentrate on one common domain, which should lead to an exponential growth in organic issuance, including at the regional level.
This article presents an example of the international company Picodi.com, which managed to strengthen its leadership, bringing together 23 regional sites in one directory.
Picodi is a shopping platform for consumers, which originated from a coupon site with a wide international reach and a high position in search results.
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SEO experts probably know that coupon sites are one of the most competing niches in SEO. The goal of Picodi was not only to become a leader in its niche, but also to maintain its leading position.
Picodi services are represented in 31 countries of the world. Until recently, separate domains were used for each country of presence.
The list of domains is presented below:
As you can see, Picodi did not sin with standardization and standardization: some of the domains were tailored to the keyword (exact-match), and some had a brand name (for example, picodi.gr). Even a schoolboy understands that this is not the most optimal structure in terms of building an international brand.
What is really important from a technical point of view is that in this hodgepodge there were all possible types of domains:
But none of these solutions could be as effective as one common global domain.
The main goal of migration was to unify marketing activities and reduce maintenance costs . The growth of traffic in the light of this turned out to be a pleasant bonus, which no one expected on such a scale. What are the main advantages of the chosen strategy?
Depending on the specifics of the niche, with one or another frequency, each site faces these tasks, weekly or monthly :
In theory, all these activities are very costly, not only from a financial point of view, but also in time. And, as practice shows, most projects leave part of the tasks completely unattended. Fast-growing companies usually do not have enough time or resources, and this is all set aside.
Fortunately, the strategy described here focuses not only on cost reduction, but, above all, on accelerating growth.
Teams dealing with local sites, as well as the product itself, should be closer to the local client. In theory. The reality usually looks different: smaller teams are faced with serious problems: the internal policy of the company, limited budget, limited access to developers, content creators or other resources. A single international team is not a panacea for the typical difficulties of a company operating in several markets at the same time, however, as a rule, it is easier for it to cope with “pushing” its needs.
How, then, can a merger of all domains into one help to increase marketing success?
Imagine that the Picodi team in Russia creates cool viral content that users share around the world. It is published on Picodi.com/ru, and it receives thousands of backlinks. This content and the backlinks it generates support not only the Russian site, but also the entire structure of Picodi.
The introduction of one common brand will speed up the process of building a reference profile and significantly reduce the cost of content marketing.
Now Picodi can lead a unified marketing strategy, and at the same time, the global structure can now receive bonuses from success in individual markets . For example, cool content in Turkey can also raise the position of the site in Australia.
In fact, this idea is simpler than it seems. In a nutshell, it is much more difficult to analyze the strategy of SEO international brands than small sites.
If one domain is intended for several countries, then the number of factors affecting the position of the site is so large that its analysis and copying strategies by competitors become impossible . And here are a few confirmations of this:
Obviously, moving such an extensive structure is always associated with huge risks. All measures were taken to prevent all possible troubles . And you need to understand that a procedure of such magnitude cannot be carried out alone, without having experienced developers (Picodi has just such), without an effective visionary manager (Łukasz Gwóźdź) and, of course, without technical assistance from an SEO agency.
And here we come to the most important part of this longrid. In the environment of SEO-specialists, the Orca method , developed for sites that fall under the Google Penguin algorithm and that had to start from scratch, is fairly well known. In the case of Picodi.com, fortunately, no filters and sanctions were imposed. In addition, for better control of the situation, it was decided to stretch the process to migrate one domain at a time so that you could focus on clearing the reference profile and on potential technical problems before merging several domains into one.
The first step is of key importance, since the long-term success of the migration depends on it. Very often, SEO agencies underestimate this complex and time-consuming process. Migrating without auditing all links can go smoothly. In many cases, domain fusion will have positive effects, but in reality a time bomb will be laid under the site. In addition, the process of removing possible sanctions from a site with such a complex structure and a so diverse profile of links is a real nightmare.
A single domain with a "junk" reference profile can adversely affect the entire site and destroy its traffic. This risk is quite real, and in the field of SEO, a fall in site positions after an unsuccessful migration was observed more than once. Even more such cases are associated with incorrect management of backlinks (we strongly recommend that you read cases from Expedia or Halifax ). In this regard, it is recommended to manually analyze the links and avoid bad links. It is worth checking everything that is possible.
The detailed process for a single domain (scalable to all domains being moved) is as follows:
Step number 3 is extremely time consuming. Effective verification involves manual analysis of the link for the link. Here you can go even further and mark each individual link with information about its character (for example, scraper, trash can site, comment, link catalog site, etc.) and points on a scale from 1 to 5.
Step 6 in the described procedure is a step where most SEO specialists fail. If you redirect the domain olddomain.com → newdomain.com, then these two domains will become one. This means that links from olddomain.com will appear as direct links in the Google Search Console on newdomain.com.
When the link audit team worked on link cleanup, the SEO technical department concentrated on ensuring that the entire structure was clean and efficient .
Mainly, the task was to solve typical SEO problems that could negatively affect domain transfer , for example, internal redirects, 404 errors, canonical correctness, etc. For example, all pages with 404 errors can be easily identified using OnPage.org.
After obtaining the pure structures, unique URLs in each domain were exported and saved for use in the next step.
After solving all the questions on the pages (on-page) and off-page (off-page), it was decided to proceed to the next stage - domain redirection . The process was run-in first on two domains (Brazil and Turkey), so that it was possible to immediately identify possible problems and quickly resolve them . After completion of the redirect, it took a month of waiting to evaluate the results.
First migration
Brazil - codigosdesconto.com.br
Site visibility prior to migration (before installing 301 redirection):
Site visibility after migration to picodi.com/br:
As you can see, the migration of the first domain went pretty well.
After a successful redirect, the process moved on. Using the list of URLs from step 3, Picodi checked that all URLs were redirected correctly to new ones, without creating closed redirection lines leading to pages 404, etc. (for this, the tools ScrapeBox Alive and ScrapeBox Redirect were used).
As a final step, you need to tell Google about moving through the Google Search Console platform.
Difficult to find words to describe the scale of the success of the migration. Suffice it to mention that, according to data from SearchMetrics, average visibility increased by 841%!
Of course, as in everything, there are exceptions from any rule. White crow or black sheep. That little grain of sand that spoils the flawlessly working mechanism. In this case, it was the Russian domain. Ru.
His visibility dropped by 16% .
The best effect was achieved on the Turkish version of the site, the visibility of which increased almost 40 times in one evening.
It was:
It became:
As Neil Armstrong said, there can be no great accomplishments without risk (“There can be no great accomplishment without risk”). We hope that this example will inspire more brands not only to take risks, but to do it wisely and invest in the technical aspects of SEO as one of the best ways to increase visibility around the world.
National Domains
This article presents an example of the international company Picodi.com, which managed to strengthen its leadership, bringing together 23 regional sites in one directory.
About Picodi
Picodi is a shopping platform for consumers, which originated from a coupon site with a wide international reach and a high position in search results.
')
SEO experts probably know that coupon sites are one of the most competing niches in SEO. The goal of Picodi was not only to become a leader in its niche, but also to maintain its leading position.
Picodi structure before making changes
Picodi services are represented in 31 countries of the world. Until recently, separate domains were used for each country of presence.
The list of domains is presented below:
As you can see, Picodi did not sin with standardization and standardization: some of the domains were tailored to the keyword (exact-match), and some had a brand name (for example, picodi.gr). Even a schoolboy understands that this is not the most optimal structure in terms of building an international brand.
What is really important from a technical point of view is that in this hodgepodge there were all possible types of domains:
- Subdomains in the picodi.com directory (for example, thailand.picodi.com )
- Matched domains to keywords (for example, codigosdesconto.com.br )
- National Top Level Domains (e.g. picodi.es )
But none of these solutions could be as effective as one common global domain.
Migration strategy and its benefits
The main goal of migration was to unify marketing activities and reduce maintenance costs . The growth of traffic in the light of this turned out to be a pleasant bonus, which no one expected on such a scale. What are the main advantages of the chosen strategy?
Reduced maintenance costs and lower workloads
Depending on the specifics of the niche, with one or another frequency, each site faces these tasks, weekly or monthly :
- Monitoring incoming links
- Monitoring of structural problems of the site
- Server monitoring
- Brand monitoring
- Data Monitoring in the Google Search Console
- Graphic images
- Marketing campaigns
In theory, all these activities are very costly, not only from a financial point of view, but also in time. And, as practice shows, most projects leave part of the tasks completely unattended. Fast-growing companies usually do not have enough time or resources, and this is all set aside.
Fortunately, the strategy described here focuses not only on cost reduction, but, above all, on accelerating growth.
Global marketing strategy supports local markets
Teams dealing with local sites, as well as the product itself, should be closer to the local client. In theory. The reality usually looks different: smaller teams are faced with serious problems: the internal policy of the company, limited budget, limited access to developers, content creators or other resources. A single international team is not a panacea for the typical difficulties of a company operating in several markets at the same time, however, as a rule, it is easier for it to cope with “pushing” its needs.
How, then, can a merger of all domains into one help to increase marketing success?
Local success supports global structure
Imagine that the Picodi team in Russia creates cool viral content that users share around the world. It is published on Picodi.com/ru, and it receives thousands of backlinks. This content and the backlinks it generates support not only the Russian site, but also the entire structure of Picodi.
The introduction of one common brand will speed up the process of building a reference profile and significantly reduce the cost of content marketing.
What did this give Picodi?
Now Picodi can lead a unified marketing strategy, and at the same time, the global structure can now receive bonuses from success in individual markets . For example, cool content in Turkey can also raise the position of the site in Australia.
Complicating the task of collecting sensitive data by competitors
In fact, this idea is simpler than it seems. In a nutshell, it is much more difficult to analyze the strategy of SEO international brands than small sites.
If one domain is intended for several countries, then the number of factors affecting the position of the site is so large that its analysis and copying strategies by competitors become impossible . And here are a few confirmations of this:
- The picodi.com reference profile is quite difficult to analyze due to the large number of domain redirects. Most tools show only a small percentage of backlinks for picodi.com.
- Analysis of any domain in any country in comparison with picodi.com will be completely useless.
- The position of the picodi.com/XX site at the local geo-level will always be influenced by the entire site structure. This will dissuade competitors from picodi.com as a direct competitor in the local market.
Risks associated with migration
Obviously, moving such an extensive structure is always associated with huge risks. All measures were taken to prevent all possible troubles . And you need to understand that a procedure of such magnitude cannot be carried out alone, without having experienced developers (Picodi has just such), without an effective visionary manager (Łukasz Gwóźdź) and, of course, without technical assistance from an SEO agency.
Explaining the process of moving domains
And here we come to the most important part of this longrid. In the environment of SEO-specialists, the Orca method , developed for sites that fall under the Google Penguin algorithm and that had to start from scratch, is fairly well known. In the case of Picodi.com, fortunately, no filters and sanctions were imposed. In addition, for better control of the situation, it was decided to stretch the process to migrate one domain at a time so that you could focus on clearing the reference profile and on potential technical problems before merging several domains into one.
1. Audit links manually
The first step is of key importance, since the long-term success of the migration depends on it. Very often, SEO agencies underestimate this complex and time-consuming process. Migrating without auditing all links can go smoothly. In many cases, domain fusion will have positive effects, but in reality a time bomb will be laid under the site. In addition, the process of removing possible sanctions from a site with such a complex structure and a so diverse profile of links is a real nightmare.
A single domain with a "junk" reference profile can adversely affect the entire site and destroy its traffic. This risk is quite real, and in the field of SEO, a fall in site positions after an unsuccessful migration was observed more than once. Even more such cases are associated with incorrect management of backlinks (we strongly recommend that you read cases from Expedia or Halifax ). In this regard, it is recommended to manually analyze the links and avoid bad links. It is worth checking everything that is possible.
The detailed process for a single domain (scalable to all domains being moved) is as follows:
- Collect information about all backlinks (LinkResearchTools, Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Majestic, SearchMetrics, SEO SpyGlass, etc.);
- Backlink deduplication and posting via LinkResearchTools - Link Detox;
- Manual audit of all backlinks (the most time consuming process);
- Create a Disavow file (backlink rejection);
- Download Disavow file to Google Search Console (for olddomain.com);
- Download Disavow file to list of rejected backlinks (for newdomain.com).
Step number 3 is extremely time consuming. Effective verification involves manual analysis of the link for the link. Here you can go even further and mark each individual link with information about its character (for example, scraper, trash can site, comment, link catalog site, etc.) and points on a scale from 1 to 5.
Step 6 in the described procedure is a step where most SEO specialists fail. If you redirect the domain olddomain.com → newdomain.com, then these two domains will become one. This means that links from olddomain.com will appear as direct links in the Google Search Console on newdomain.com.
2. Full crawl
When the link audit team worked on link cleanup, the SEO technical department concentrated on ensuring that the entire structure was clean and efficient .
Mainly, the task was to solve typical SEO problems that could negatively affect domain transfer , for example, internal redirects, 404 errors, canonical correctness, etc. For example, all pages with 404 errors can be easily identified using OnPage.org.
3. URL list
After obtaining the pure structures, unique URLs in each domain were exported and saved for use in the next step.
4. Domain Forwarding
After solving all the questions on the pages (on-page) and off-page (off-page), it was decided to proceed to the next stage - domain redirection . The process was run-in first on two domains (Brazil and Turkey), so that it was possible to immediately identify possible problems and quickly resolve them . After completion of the redirect, it took a month of waiting to evaluate the results.
First migration
Brazil - codigosdesconto.com.br
Site visibility prior to migration (before installing 301 redirection):
Site visibility after migration to picodi.com/br:
As you can see, the migration of the first domain went pretty well.
After a successful redirect, the process moved on. Using the list of URLs from step 3, Picodi checked that all URLs were redirected correctly to new ones, without creating closed redirection lines leading to pages 404, etc. (for this, the tools ScrapeBox Alive and ScrapeBox Redirect were used).
5. Setting up domain redirection in the Google Search Console
As a final step, you need to tell Google about moving through the Google Search Console platform.
Results: success of migration and the white crow
Difficult to find words to describe the scale of the success of the migration. Suffice it to mention that, according to data from SearchMetrics, average visibility increased by 841%!
Of course, as in everything, there are exceptions from any rule. White crow or black sheep. That little grain of sand that spoils the flawlessly working mechanism. In this case, it was the Russian domain. Ru.
His visibility dropped by 16% .
The best effect was achieved on the Turkish version of the site, the visibility of which increased almost 40 times in one evening.
It was:
It became:
Summary
As Neil Armstrong said, there can be no great accomplishments without risk (“There can be no great accomplishment without risk”). We hope that this example will inspire more brands not only to take risks, but to do it wisely and invest in the technical aspects of SEO as one of the best ways to increase visibility around the world.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/320364/
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