A UK customer wants the same website (brochure website describing products to wholesalers) to be available in two countries - UK and South Africa. The South African business venture may turn out to be the most important in the long term. What is the best way of doing this so the website does well in both Uk and South African SERPS: 1 duplicate websites with .co.uk and .co.za 2 .com website with national subdomains 3 .com website without subdomains Would appreciate advice of anyone who has gone down this route. I understand from Googlewebmastercentral that duplicate content "is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries".
If you have two sites with the same content then you will be competing with yourself (Global searches). If you the sites are geographically different but still use the same content then as far as I know you are still at risk. Check-out seomoz.org for advice.
It would be painful for you too if you choose the same name. But you could go for duplicate websites with .co.uk and .co.za option.
1. if you have .uk and .za with same content and same language text, it will look duplicate content 2. if you want to target .uk and .za, you better create different language content (translate it), so .uk in english, and .za for its language 3. you can put "geolocation" script on the site, which is check the visitor, if uk go to .uk, if africa go to .za IMHO & CMIIW
I think if i were you, i will choose the first one, since the website is about 2 languages, then you just need duplicate the website and change the language, most of all, keep updating your website everyday.
Language-wise you will have a problem. South Africa has 11 official languages, with English the main language.