Ranking site with foreign TLD

[TrafficRokit429]

Hello everyone,

Besides my intro post, this is my first post on BHW. I'm looking to purchase a domain for a website which I want to rank in the United States, for Spanish-language keywords. I've been researching domains, and I think I have found a great candidate. 30+ DR, 200+ Backlinks (many of them from 50+ DR sites and multiple Wikipedia links), 50+ referring domains, it is exactly in my niche, and I can pick it up at a reasonable price.

It almost sounds too good to be true. The only thing holding me back is that it's got a ccTLD from a Latin American country (.do, .co, .pe, etc.). Will I be able to rank this site for Spanish keywords in the US? The good thing is that since its from a LatAm country, the backlinks and history of the domain are already in Spanish, but I'm not sure if the TLD being from a foreign country would hurt me in the SERPs.

 

[Monsterer]

yeah, cctld means a lot while ranking and in Google crawling

Instead of using Spanish keywords with a US domain why don't you get a .com domain and rank for it

Use the Translation option to use both Spanish language and English language as well as focus on building the site with Both US traffic and Spanish Traffic?

If u have this option why would go like the ccTLD option?

 

[TrafficRokit429]

yeah, cctld means a lot while ranking and in Google crawling

Instead of using Spanish keywords with a US domain why don't you get a .com domain and rank for it

Use the Translation option to use both Spanish language and English language as well as focus on building the site with Both US traffic and Spanish Traffic?

If u have this option why would go like the ccTLD option?

I was thinking of using Spanish keywords with a US domain for the following reasons:

1. My target audience/eventual customers live in the US
2. My keywords are extremely competitive in English (Forbes, CNET, etc.)
3. I see many low-hanging fruit Spanish keywords in the niche where the top-ranking sites are very weak
4. I speak both Spanish/English

If there is a better strategy here I would love to learn about it. I wasn't necessarily looking for a ccTLD domain, or even a domain with a history of Spanish-language backlinks. I was simply browsing expired domains in my niche and found this one which seemed amazing because of its numbers - the Spanish links in my niche was the icing on the cake. But then I started thinking about the TLD.

 

[Monsterer]

Ah okay fine i am curious What is your niche about?

 

[TrafficRokit429]

Ah okay fine i am curious What is your niche about?

Given that I think I may have found a low-key gem but I'm not really sure on my strategy yet, I'm not ready to share my keywords. I will share that it is a large-ticket service industry, ultimately the goal is to generate leads from my money site. My system will be similar to a rank-and-rent operation, but it is targeted at the US nationwide and instead of renting the site or selling the leads, I have an in-house team that will contact the leads and close the sale via Zoom. I have a nationwide network of distributors and can sell in most US states. Potential for $5k+ commission for each sale. I was already trying to target the Spanish-speaking market because my team and I can speak the language, and the Spanish market is severely underserved in this industry.

The more I look at this domain, I think I'm gonna buy it regardless. Even if it doesn't end up being the money site, I feel like this is an asset that I should definitely pick up. It has serious authority in the niche, just in another country. The backlinks are so good, seriously the first 60+ backlinks are from 50+ DR, 5 links from 90+ DR, average DR 40+ out of 100+ group of links. This site was routinely cited by authority media outlets for several years. It appears that this site belonged to a serious player in this industry in that country, and they have since gone out of business and lost the domain.

I've built websites before, but this will be my first attempt at anything remotely black-hat or really even off-page. But from where I'm standing, it looks like I need to take this opportunity to control that domain because in one way or another it can help me build juice for a money site with a .com TLD. It looks like the company lost the domain about 2 years ago, and someone had it for a year. It was spammed a little but, but I'm talking 15 links with an average DR of 6.

 

[GoogSEO]

In all likelihood you will not be able to rank in the US with this domain, or it will take a lot of effort and time to do so.
You can do a weight distillation of this site to a .com, which is what you will rank in the US in Spanish.

You can do a full 301 redirect to the new .com, or you can do two sites and in ahrefslang specify the com domain for the US and your original domain for Latin America. And on each page of the old domain you will put a through link in the form of: "For visitors from the USA".

 

[Computylab]

Hello everyone,

Besides my intro post, this is my first post on BHW. I'm looking to purchase a domain for a website which I want to rank in the United States, for Spanish-language keywords. I've been researching domains, and I think I have found a great candidate. 30+ DR, 200+ Backlinks (many of them from 50+ DR sites and multiple Wikipedia links), 50+ referring domains, it is exactly in my niche, and I can pick it up at a reasonable price.

It almost sounds too good to be true. The only thing holding me back is that it's got a ccTLD from a Latin American country (.do, .co, .pe, etc.). Will I be able to rank this site for Spanish keywords in the US? The good thing is that since its from a LatAm country, the backlinks and history of the domain are already in Spanish, but I'm not sure if the TLD being from a foreign country would hurt me in the SERPs.

i think your domain name is not consider to be a direct google ranking factor, elements of your domain overall SEO success,and the last thing what is your niche about?

 

[hideath]

As it got a decent link profile and within the same niche, you should really go for it,
A few competitors of mine are ranking for English terms & countries using ccTLDs, it has been the case for years,

Another option you can consider is redirecting the domain to an "US" ccTLD later,
Especially if you're only targeting the US,

Ofc, that should be done later as you need to recover the domain first,
So, get that domain, restore or/and put your content in there and depends on how it performs you can decide to either redirect or not

 

[TrafficRokit429]

As it got a decent link profile and within the same niche, you should really go for it,
A few competitors of mine are ranking for English terms & countries using ccTLDs, it has been the case for years,

Another option you can consider is redirecting the domain to an "US" ccTLD later,
Especially if you're only targeting the US,

Ofc, that should be done later as you need to recover the domain first,
So, get that domain, restore or/and put your content in there and depends on how it performs you can decide to either redirect or not

I went ahead and pulled the trigger. The domain was listed as "Make Offer" on SEO.domains. I made an offer which was counter-offered, and I accepted. Domain is currently registered on openprovider, and payment/transfer process will begin on Monday.

After taking possession of the domain, I am thinking of taking the following steps:

1. Build a blog and start posting content about my niche to quickly get it ranking in its own country - many relevant low-hanging fruit that I can target
2. Work to build some backlinks to this domain from high quality, Spanish-language, US-based sources
3. While that is happening, study and learn as much as I can so I can develop a good high-level strategy. I will be studying PBN building, redirects, weight distillation (I just learned this term in post #6 from @GoogSEO, kudos for the tip), and the many other concepts that I'm sure I'll run into along the way
4. Keep looking for more high quality domains to add to my fleet. I'm not sure yet if the money site will be a brand new registration or if I will find a high quality .com or .us domain in my niche. I'm thinking that if the idea is to go with a new registration, I should probably get that ball rolling sooner rather than later to begin building a good foundation for the new domain.

Thoughts on my plans thus far?

Although this thread was initially about whether I should purchase this domain, I am thinking about starting a journey thread as I get started down this long road. I am a big proponent of doing things right or not doing them at all, so I will be taking my time making sure that I am stepping on firm land each step of the way.

 

[hideath]

Thoughts on my plans thus far?

That's what SEO is about

Take your time and make your research, a plan for both on and off page and implement changes progressively,
Making a journey will help you own track your own progress and stick to the work in fact, and ofc getting help when it's needed,
Best of luck ^^