Country domain: Seo for other languages
-
Hi,
I have an italian domain (.it) for an italian hotel, it is an old authoritative domain (1997) and it is well optimized for the keywords that include the city the hotel is in, now the page is decently positioned in Google Italy.
There are many problems to have the same rank for German version (in google.de, google.at). The German version is in the /de folder.
The hotel has another .com domain, much less authoritative (2007), in a German server, but it was and is only a simple redirect 301 (by code) to the German version in the .it domain. (obviously the rank for this domain is almost nonexistent).
Do you have any suggestion? Thank you.
-
Ah, I apologise. I knew someone from South America who targeted a .co (Colombia's TLD) subfolder to Brazil, so I thought it was okay to do that for others. I've just looked it up and Google started to allow .co to be geotargeted in 2010, so I must have missed that. The clues are even in at least one of those links I provided. Slaps forehead
I don't think you want to mess with 301 redirecting the .it to a .com and risk losing some of the authority that's built up - would you say there's also a chance Italians prefer to click to a .it rather than a .com? Do you see yourself expanding to target other countries in future? If so it might be worth using the .com and geotargeting a .com/de, .com/fr etc. You also have to consider whether you have the resources to keep more than one website updated.
Other than that I can only think it's best to continue in your current form and do everything else you can to get the /de ranking higher in German speaking countries - obviously the language (use a native to write your content as well as help with the keyword research), and if possible include an address based in the country you're targeting on localised pages, is it possible to include some German information on your Google Places listing (if you don't have one, set one up!)?
Get inbound local links (maybe encourage German-speaking visitors to post on local review sites?) and get listed on every review, booking and tourist information site you can in the target country. Maybe you could get some German travel guides written for your city if you haven't already, perhaps something that could act as link-bait if there's anything unique or quirky you could come up with (a top 10?) or get guest posts written for German-speaking sites with a link to your /de subfolder?
The upside of doing this over the .com solution is all the links you get from Germany etc. will go towards the overall Domain Authority, rather than it being spread between the .com and .it. Of course all this helps even if you can geotarget.
-
When I add www.example.it/de/ to my GWT sites, it don't ask about verification (because the main domain was already verificated**).**
In Setting/Geo Target there is:
Destinazione geografica Il dominio del tuo sito è già associato alla destinazione: Italia
Translated: Geo target the domain is already associated to target: Italy
the same is for the root domain.
Geo target is only for generic domains (and some other particular domain)
bye
-
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying - it is possible.
When you add a site in Google Webmaster Tools, just add http://www.example.it/de/ as the site and upload the verification file (if you verify that way) to the de folder.
-
Have you targeted the /de folder to Germany (assuming Germany is your preference over Austria) in Google Webmaster Tools?
No, unlucky it is not possible for Country domains.
Did the .com used to be the German version of the site?
No, there is only the index.html 301 redirected on the domain.it/de
Thank you for the links.
-
Have you targeted the /de folder to Germany (assuming Germany is your preference over Austria) in Google Webmaster Tools? That will help immensely. You need to add it as a new site. It'll also help if you get links from the countries you want to target.
Did the .com used to be the German version of the site?
Here are some (I'd say must-view) links on the subject of international SEO:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-fridayYou can also make use of the meta lang and country attributes and have a native German speaker check over the content if you haven't already.
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
-
Moving Shopify from a Sub Domain to the Full Domain
Apologies if this has been asked before. Currently we have a Shopify shop on a subdomain shop.lucybee.com a blog on subdomain blog.lucybee.com and the full domain of course. We'd now like to move everything onto Shopify on the full domain. Therefore the blog rolls into Shopify. We'll manually move pages into Shopify. Any advice or links to resources on how to manage would be gratefully received. Thank you , Jim
Technical SEO | | LucyBee0 -
Migrating domains from a domain that will have new content.
We have a new url. The old url is being taken over by someone else. Is it possible to still have a successful redirect/migration strategy if we are redirect from our old domain, which is now being used by someone else. I see a big mess, but I'm being told we can redirect all the links to our old content (which is now used by someone else) to our new url. Thoughts? craziness? insanity? Or I'm just not getting it:)
Technical SEO | | CC_Dallas0 -
Is dash problem for seo?
My web site http://www.green-lotus-trekking.com is this problem for google search engine optimization? Some little percentage problem or totally I am in Confusion?
Technical SEO | | agsln0 -
Old domain still being crawled despite 301s to new domain
Hi there, We switched from the domain X.com to Y.com in late 2013 and for the most part, the transition was successful. We were able to 301 most of our content over without too much trouble. But when when I do a site:X.com in Google, I still see about 6240 URLs of X listed. But if you click on a link, you get 301d to Y. Maybe Google has not re-crawled those X pages to know of the 301 to Y, right? The home page of X.com is shown in the site:X.com results. But if I look at the cached version, the cached description will say :This is Google's cache of Y.com. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on July 31, 2014." So, Google has freshly crawled the page. It does know of the 301 to Y and is showing that page's content. But the X.com home page still shows up on site:X.com. How is the domain for X showing rather than Y when even Google's cache is showing the page content and URL for Y? There are some other similar examples. For instance, you would see a deep URL for X, but just looking at the <title>in the SERP, you can see it has crawled the Y equivalent. Clicking on the link gives you a 301 to the Y equivalent. The cached version of the deep URL to X also shows the content of Y.</p> <p>Any suggestions on how to fix this or if it's a problem. I'm concerned that some SEO equity is still being sequestered in the old domain.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>Stephen</p></title>
Technical SEO | | fernandoRiveraZ1 -
I've consolidated other domains to a single one with 301 redirects, yet the new domain authority in MOZ is much less that the redirected ones. Is that right?
I'm trying to increase the domain authority of my main site, so decided to consolidate other sites. One of the other sites has a much higher domain authority, but I don't know why after a 301 redirect, the new site's domain authority hasn't changed on over a month. Does MOZ take account of thes types of things?
Technical SEO | | bytecgroup2 -
SEO credit for subdomain blogs?
One of my clients is currently running a webstore through Volusions. They would like to add a blog to their website, but since Volusions doesn't currently support blogs on the same domain we would have to create a Wordpress blog and link it to a subdomain. (http://support.volusion.com/article/linking-your-blog-your-volusion-store) Using this method, will their primary website receive any SEO credit for the content being created on the blog or will it only count towards the subdomain? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | CMSSolutions980 -
How to increase your Domain Authority
Hi Guys, Can someone please provide some pointers on how to best increase your Domain Authority?? Thanks Gareth
Technical SEO | | GAZ090 -
Can I do a redirect to a new domain name only a couple of weeks after having redirected to another domain?
I have a client with two website with very similar content. Both had a lot of inbound links and performed fairly well in SERPS. We recently combined both sites and have redirected one of the domains to the other. The traffic dipped slightly initially, but is recovering nicely. Now the client registered a new domain name he would like to use for the site. Should I wait a few weeks for everything to settle down after the first redirect/consolidation of sites before doing a new redirect to a new domain name, or should I not worry about having any issues with doing it right away?
Technical SEO | | Drewco0