Something which has come to my attention recently (and it’s rare that anything does!) is that Google is penalising .gb.com domains quite severly within it’s search results. After a bout of rigorous testing, the Manchester SEO Blog can confirm that .gb.com domains may hamper your SEO, to such an extent it because very difficult to get these domains to rank well. This is a warning to anyone who has (or knows someone with!) a .uk.com, .us.com or anything similar. But there is hope!
What Is The Problem with .gb.com Domains in Google?
Like .uk.com and .us.com domains, these domains look like sub domains. Google knows that sub domains have a fair amount of independence from the main site and domain, but will hold all parts equally responsible for the whole. Let’s suppose Sue has sue.gb.com and Fred has fred.gb.com. If Fred were to use black hat SEO techniques and get himself punished, Sue will also suffer because Google will hold her site partly responsible.
As recently as last year it was possible get first page Google listings with .gb.com domains, but alas what appears to have happened is that the www.gb.com homepage is deemed too much like spam for Google to trust any other domains off .gb.com.
I realised the sheer scale of this problem by searching out a hundred .gb.com domains in DMOZ, then copying and pasting their <title> tags into the Google search bar. The highest I saw any domain listed was about page 3, but most were page 5, outranked by their domain WHOIS entry and Alexa Traffic Rank. This is the first sign that something was very wrong beyond simple poor listings!
After some further testing, I can confirm it is not possible to get good rankings with any of these domains in Google, and – for SEO purposes – they should be avoided at all costs!
How Do I Get My .gb.com Domain Listed in Google?
I was able to resolve this problem by simply using a new domain, and setting up a 301 redirect. Believe it or not, Google recognises all the good PR and popularity the .gb.com domain had, but leaves behind the penalty points of being part of that domain. The person I solved this for suddenly shot onto the first page of Google the moment they were indexed around six days later.
How Do I Know If My Domain Is Penalised By Google?
There are several points to check:
- Try to find a page with at least 60 characters in the title tag, then simply copy and paste this into the Google search bar. Nine times in Ten if everything works as it should, you should be on that first page.
- If not, try surrounding this with quotes for an exact match and see if this makes a difference
- Try searching for your website or company name along with your address (if this features on the site). If again you don’t see yourself, this is another possible diagnosis.
- Try searching for your domain name itself. If you find the WHOIS information and Alexa website above yours, we know something is not right
What Does This Mean For .uk.com, .us.com and Similar Domains?
Firstly, don’t panic! I believe it is unlikely we will see anything similar with the .uk.com .us.com and similar domains, unless the homepages of these sites turn into spam of the same calibre as www.gb.com which I think is unlikely. But nothing stops you being prepared – be sure to have an alternate domain handy. Hopefully you have done the sensible thing already and bought up all domains around your brand names and company name (it makes good sense to do anyway!).
If you suddenly find your site disappears, follow the tests outlined above. If at least two of them fail, then it is probably time to set up a 301 redirect to your other domain. Only do this as a very last resort once you have confirmed this is the root of the problem!
Tags: 301 redirect, black hat seo, domain, domains, Google, manchester seo, manchester seo blog, search engine optimisation, SEO, spam, sub domains
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you’re a dumbass
http://www.google.com/search?h.....%2a.gb.com
Thank you for your in-depth analysis Lysis, but indexing a site is not the same as ranking. You replied to a thread on Google Webmaster forums, and I have allowed your post, (despite the flames) because it will help people see your true nature, and make their own informed decision on who’s advice to follow.
Spam and trojan websites will be indexed too, but not listed in the same way .gb.com domains will not be listed. If I am wrong, please give me an example. Lysis is quite right that Google will index all .gb.com domains, and I think has taken exception to the headline, which I have apologised for. The reasons I chose this headline, was because I know people would be searching for it, and it will help them.
If I have done wrong for this, Google will be the judge, not yourself.
Also, for future reference, characters like ‘:’, ‘*’ (and other ’special’ characters) are generally not save to include in URLs for several reasons. I’ve updated your post so the link actually works.
%3a = :
%2a = *
A complete list can be found here: http://www.asciitable.com/
You’re assuming that Google are treating these domains differently from the rest on the web. I’m not sure why you assume that poor ranking equates to some sort of Google penalty?
[...] recent post on Just Roger IT! The Manchester SEO Blog, I brought to everyones’ attention, the extreme penalty that gb.com domains face in Google. Instead of being thanked by potential consumers for avoiding a product that was [...]
I have worked on a few sites for clients of mine that have .gb.com domains, and i was struggling to get them any higher than page 5 or 6 of google. This article has given me some great insight and I’m going to try your method when I get into work tomorrow morning (I’ll report back and let you know how it goes).
Another point i thought of though, and I have brought this up with my client, is that why would anyone pay £35 a year for a .gb.com sub-domain when a .co.uk domain is only about £8-9 a year?! I know there’s ways to play around with your name servers so you could get the domain to point to your own server, but otherwise you’re stuck using the same server account that they do! Just seems a very extortionate service when you could choose a more cheaper and more reliable service from another host such as 1 and 1 or dreamhost. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’d never be the true owner of a sub-domain at .gb.com as the domain is owned GB.com ltd and you’d only in effect be renting the sub-domain off them. Seems a very dubious practice that only serves to make them money…
Because I have experienced dealing with the duff gb.com domains, and I know that Google penalises them. I know because one of my clients used to use a gb.com domain, and upon moving, shot onto the first page of Google for their search terms. The content did not change, and nothing else changed about the structure of the site, simply the domain move with a 301 redirect.
Why do you assume that poor listings are NOT the result of penalisation? I had carefully eliminated all other factors until we gave up on the domain. At first I thought it was spammy backlinks on this domain in particular, until I investigated DMOZ and found this was the situation with every other .gb.com domain I could find.
[...] hopefully we can now provide sound advice. Avoid gb.com domains! And if you have one follow this blog entry to find out how to fix [...]
I look after two uk.coms and they both rank well so I don’t see any immediate problem. I’ll bear what you say in mind though. Bookmarked.
BB
Hi, I have a joomla site using a gb.com domain and it has always ranked badly on Google around page 8 when typing the domain name, I am not a SEO expert but was using friendly urls and a Meta generator. This domain is 8 years old and I have tried many different tips and ideas that have made no difference. Bing and yahoo both rank my site on the first page.
I have often thought it was the domain name, but have not been able to prove it, anyways I am going to do your recommendation and I will let you know how it goes.
Thanx
I have been reading this thread and others similar to it. I think there is a difference between being penalised and having progress hampered. I have worked on a few .gb.com domains and they both had issues with ranking well in Google. Other search engines seemed okay but there are other issues too such as duplicate content etc.
I do think there is something in this, especially as all the tools I use show the link profile of http://www.gb.com and not the sub-domain I work on.
Lysis needs to learn the difference between indexed and rankings – He’s made two comments on different forums exposing this lack of basic knowledge.
Thanks for the hard work on this Roger. I would be interested in any updates on this.
Hi sorry for the late response, but I can confirm that I moved my site from .gb.com to a .com, and wow I am now on the 1st page for my domain name and many many keywords. To be clear I changed nothing other than the domain name.
An interesting point I use Google web master tools and I wanted to use the change of address function to let Google know I have moved to the new .com address. But guess what it won’t let me! It says that change of address is restricted to root level domains only. To be clear my domain is lca.gb.com.
Anyways I put a 301 redirect in and have just deleted the account in webmaster tools
Thanx for your help
I have also noted that with one of my domain, bestessays.us.com It has never been indexed by Google or MSN. Even direct typing of the address in the Google search box does not work
It’s not a real top level domain if you get mydomain.gb.com. That incurs at least a slight penalty over mydomain.com.