Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best geotargeting strategy: Subdomains or subfolders or country specific domain
-
How have the relatively recent changes in how G perceives subdomains changed the best route to onsite geotargeting i.e. not building out new country specific sites on country specific and hosted domains and instead developing sub-domains or sub-folders and geo-targeting those via webmaster tools ?
In other words, given the recent change in G perception, are sub-domains now a better option than a sub-folder or is there not much in it ?
Also if client has a .co.uk and they want to geo-target say France, is the sub-domain/sub-folder route still an option or is the .co.uk still too UK specific, and these options would only work using a .com ?
In other words can sites on country specific domains (.co.uk , .fr, .de etc etc) use sub-folders or domains to geo-target other countries or do they have no option other than to develop new country specific (domains/hosting/language) websites ?
Any thoughts regarding current best practice in this regard much appreciated. I have seen last Febs WBF which covers geotargeting in depth but the way google perceives subdomains has changed since then
Many Thanks
Dan
-
That isn't a domain at all - it's a sub-domain - what you've purchased there is yourdomain.uk.com - so your site is actually on a sub-domain of the domain uk.com
I'm guessing that in theory you could geo-target via Webmaster Tools, however I think that in reality you might struggle to get the site to rank. It would also make for some pretty mixed up looking URLs - yourdomain.uk.com/fr/ - the UK in there might mean lower click through rates as the site looks primarily UK focused.
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
Sorry 1 more question re my client with the .co.uk who wants to Geo-target content to france.
They do have the .com version of their domain too. If the site was new I would recommend changing this round so they can geotarget france via the sub-directory on the .com and would still like to but since the site is well established I fear changing from the .co.uk to the .com will lose alot of its existing history/authority/rankings etc etc.
Is this a valid concern or should swapping the site over to sit on the .com, rather than the existing .co.uk, and then 301'ing the .co.uk pages to the .com deal with this ?
Many Thanks
Dan
-
Many Thanks Hannah !
Cheers
Dan
-
Hi Dan,
uk.com is the domain - but your site is effectively sitting on a subdomain - i.e. yourdomain.uk.com
As such I'd expect that technically speaking you could geo-target something like yourdomain.uk.com/fr/ via webmaster tools, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Partially because I don't think it will actually work - overall you're giving off a really mixed signal, but also from a user experience perspective - I don't think French users will want to transact with a uk.com site - it just looks like a site for people in the UK.
Thanks
Hannah
-
Thank you all for your helpful comments !!
So to summarise - all fine to go sub-directory route for generic domains like .com, .net etc but if you have country specific domain such as .co.uk then forget it and start afresh with a domain/language/hosting for your target country.
Just to throw a cat amongst the pigeons - if you have a .uk.com domain is that considered as a genuine uk focused tld or a .com ? So for .uk.com domains can you geo-target using sub-directories since ultimately considered as .com, or not ?
All Best
Dan
-
I would go for subdirectory approach if the site has a generic TLD like .com. Link building becomes much easier. However if you have country TLD like .co.uk then I would not go for a subdirectory approach. www.xyz.co.uk/de may be perceived a UK site for a German user from a site conversion point of view.
-
Some time ago I struggled with the same problem, and after reading articles on the seomoz blog and questions posted here I went for subdirectories.
subdirectories still give you the ability to add those folders to Google Webmaster Tools and set regio for that folder. You can go with country specific domains as well, but you will have to build links for every domain, whereas you only have to do it once when you choose subfolders.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Forwarding a .org domain to a .com domain: any negative impact to consider?
Hello! I have a question I've been unable to find a clear answer to. My client's primary domain is a .com with a satisfactorily high DA. My client owns the .org version of its domain (which has a very low DA, I suppose due to inactivity) but has never forwarded it on. For branding/visibility/traffic reasons, I'd like to recommend they set up the .org domain to forward to the .com domain, but I wanted to ask a few questions first: 1. Does forwarding low-value DA domains to high-value DA domains have any negative authority/SEO impact? 2. If the .org domain was to be forwarded, am I correct that an SSL cert is not necessary for it if the .com domain has an SSL cert? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | mollykathariner_ms1 -
Tool to Generate All the URLs on a Domain
Hi all, I've been using xml-sitemaps.com for a while to generate a list of all the URLs that exist on a domain. However, this tool only works for websites with under 500 URLs on a domain. The paid tool doesn't offer what we are looking for either. I'm hoping someone can help with a recommendation. We're looking for a tool that can: Crawl, and list, all the indexed URLs on a domain, including .pdf and .doc files (ideally in a .xls or .txt file) Crawl multiple domains with unlimited URLs (we have 5 websites with 500+ URLs on them) Seems pretty simple, but we haven't been able to find something that isn't tailored toward management of a single domain or that can crawl a huge volume of content.
Technical SEO | | timfrick0 -
Does a subdomain benefit from being on a high authority domain?
I think the title sums up the question, but does a new subdomain get any ranking benefits from being on a pre-existing high authority domain. Or does the new subdomain have to fend for itself in the SERPs?
Technical SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Are .clinic domains effective?
We acquired a .clinic domain for a client, they are right now running under a .ca and I was just wondering if there were any cons to making the switch. On the flip side are there any pros? I've tried to search for the answer but couldn't seem to come across anything, thank you if you have any knowledge or could point me to a resource.
Technical SEO | | webignite0 -
I can buy a domain from a competitor. Whats the best way to make good use of these links for my existing website
I can buy a domain from a competitor. Whats the best way to make good use of these links for my existing website
Technical SEO | | Archers0 -
What is best practice for redirecting "secondary" domain names?
For sites with multiple top-level domains that have been secured for a business or organization, I'm curious as to what is considered best practice for setting up 301 redirects for secondary domains. Is it best to do the 301 redirects at the registrar level, or the hosting level? So that .net, .biz, or other secondary domains funnel visitors to the correct primary/main domain name. I'm looking for the "best practice" answer and want to avoid duplicate content problems, or penalties from the search engines. I'm not trying to game the system with dozens of domain names, simply the handful of domains that are important to the client. I've seen some registrars recommend hosting secondary domains, and doing redirects from the hosting level (and they use meta refresh for "domain forwarding," which I want to avoid). It seems rather wasteful to set up hosting for a secondary domain and then 301 each URL.
Technical SEO | | Scott-Thomas0 -
How to move my blog from subdomain to subfolder?
Not an unusual situation, I have a blog on blog.domain.com it has quite a few blog postings. The platform is old and will be scrapped, but the blog content itself is going to be moved to domain.com/blog. The current process is we are manually listing all linked to/content pages and we are going to 301 redirect them to their counterparts on the new blog. This is going to be a tedious process. A) Is there any way to automate the moving of the blog? B) What is the best way to do the massive 301 redirect, php headers, .htaccess? Should we move the individual pages with redirects, or redirect the domain in the .htaccess (this will be very difficult to match all the titles and file structure)?
Technical SEO | | MarloSchneider0