UK and US websites with slightly different content

[ehasler]

I run a couple of websites for UK visitors, and would like to use the majority of the same content on a US-specific site, but with slight differences such as American spelling, and different outbound links to US rather than UK sites.

Ideally, I'd want US visitors to see the .com site listed on google.com, and UK visitors see the .co.uk site listed on google.co.uk.

I've got both the .com and .co.uk domain names, but my original idea of having two different sites with mostly the same content would most likely be penalised by Google due to duplicate content from what I can see.

I don't collect any user data, so wouldn't need to worry about the data protection side of things.

So what's the best way of having two versions of the site, using very similar but slightly different content targeted at two different regions? Also, is it worth hosting the US version on a server in the US?

[Martin4x4]

Google Web Master Tools allows you to manage different regional audiences.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en