A few weeks ago, I purchased 2 duplicate Domains but with the following TLD Extensions:
www.domain.com
www.domain.co.uk
When I enter www.domain.co.uk
, into www.google.co.uk
, it appears as expected. Similarly, www.domain.com
also appears.
That being said, www.domain.co.uk
does not appear when I enter domain
as a search query into www.google.co.uk
. Instead, www.domain.com
appears.
My first assumption was that www.google.co.uk
was prioritising www.domain.com
over www.domain.co.uk
as both pages have duplicate content. That being said, why is the .com
variant appearing over '.co.uk', even when the following criteria have been met:
.co.uk
automatically targets UK audiences whilst I have set the .com
variant as 'Unlisted'. This being selected with the view of .com
targeting all other traffic outside of the UK;.co.uk
having en-gb
with .com
having the en-us
installation;Webmaster Tools > International Search
would have on both websites; Admittedly, both domains are missing content that would add to the Geographical signals but I would argue that they are currently 'like for like' at present. As such, being able to be fairly compared.
With the above in mind, why is Google ranking the .com
variant over the .co.uk
variant when it comes to a search query?
At present, I can only conclude that Google adopts the following attitude:
Google will prioritise '.com' TLDs, for search queries, unless the search query contains some location indicator.
Alternatively, maybe Google adopts something more akin to:
Google will prioritise '.com' TLDs, for search queries, unless both the search query and the domain's content suggests otherwise in terms of location.
Is anyone able to suggest why this is happening and/or whether my conclusion has any merit?