The Great AU Domain Experiment

Aim

The aim of this experiment is to test whether .com.au will outperform the new AU Domains

Hypothesis

As the .com.au domains have been around longer than the AU domains, we hypothesise that the .com.au will outperform the .au version, at least in the short term.

Method

Materials

1. Both the .com.au and .au versions will be hosted on a VPS server.

2. Rank Math will be installed on each site for the sitemap functionality only. The setting will remain the same for both to reduce variability.

3. Both sites will use Divi.

4. HTTPS will be used on both websites.

5. Websites will have different text to avoid duplicate content conflicting with the results.

6. Both sites will be included in Google Search Console.

7. No sites will receive backlinks other than from this report and those created naturally.

Steps

1. Both sites were purchased from Crazy Domains.

2. Hosting account created on Siteground for both versions.

4. WordPress installed on both versions.

5. Themes and plugins cleaned from both versions.

6. Divi installed on both versions.

7. ‘Home’ page created on both versions.

8. ‘Business Consultant’ template chosen from Divi premade modules for the both sites.

9. Text changed on each site to avoid duplicate content variables.

10. Sitemap created for both versions using Rank Math

11. Google Search Console property created for both versions.

12. Sitemap.xml provided for each property.

Results

Experiment started on 22/04/22

Discussion

Experiment still in progress.

Conclusion

Experiment still in progress.