Directing Multiple ccTLD's to 1 gTLD with a country specific subdirectory?

Question

We have multiple ccTLDomains and are thinking about how to best combine these into one. We want to do this to focus our link building efforts.

We are running a website through which we offer a software-as-a-service. Therefore we could potentially sell to any country in the world. However, Germany is our most important market. We currently have a .com, .de, .nl. and .pl domain. All these domains have a high amount of unique content pages.

What we are planning is to change everything to .com with language-based subdirectories, so .com/en/, .com/de/, etc.

I have two questions concerning this issue:

1. How much of an advantage does a ccTLD have over a gTLD with country specific subdirectories in search rankings? So let’s say .de versus .com/de/?
2. How could we best redirect the visitors of our old ccTLD’s to our gTLD’s subdirectories? We would like to looe as few search engine rankings as possible.

Answer 1

1. There is some advantage in a ccTLD as search engines like Google use them as a geotargeting signal. So .de is by definition intended for Germany, whereas a gTLD with a section intended for Germany, e.g., .com/de/, does not by itself contain such intrinsic geotargeting information.

   The precise degree of advantage conferred by a ccTLD is open to debate, however the fact that Google describe them on the previously linked page as a "strong signal to both users and search engines that your site is explicitly intended for a certain country" is to me sufficient to consider ccTLDs as a preferred option where geotargeting is a concern.

2. 301 permanent redirects. This is covered in detail elsewhere so I won't repeat that; but the essence, however, is that this method of server redirection provides a seamless user expreience and the best possibilities for preserving your existing SEO value (i.e., PageRank, backlinks, etc.).

   Wherever possible, redirect on a 1:1, page-by-page basis (rather than in batches). If you're dealing with very large numbers of pages, I recommend doing some analytic research to prioritise content for 1:1 redirection and use batch redirects for the rest.