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
-
The use of Markup language
Hi, We were thinking of adding markup language to our site. We have been reading about it to understand the actual benefits of doing so (we have seen many brands are not using it, including moz.com). So I have two questions: 1- Would you recommend using it for our site? www.memoq.com 2- If yes, would it be better to create a snippet of code for our home page as an "organization" and then different snippets for our product pages as "products". Looking forward to your comments,
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
301 - Specific Domain
In Google our main website page url is <cite class="_Rm">www.wheelchairparts.com</cite> it has 25 root domain links & PA 34. When you go to our website from there, the homepage url is http://www.wheelchairparts.com/store/pc/home.asp it only has 3 root domain links & PA 27. Do I need to add a 301 Redirect here? What kind of redirect is on it now? Thanks, - Mike Bean
Technical SEO | | Mike.Bean0 -
Local SEO and Penguin
All, One of my client's sites was hit by Penguin. The business has lost almost all of its organic rankings but is still holding on for a handful of local searches for some of its satellite offices. We've built a new site and are slowly building domain authority. My question is this: at what point do I swap out the new site's location URL for the old URL in Google places? I don't want to risk the existing local placement which is all they have left for the time being. Thanks, John
Technical SEO | | JSOC0 -
Domain Forwarding Help
A friend of mine is a domainer and he wants to forward 21 parked niche specific domains to my site for extra type-in traffic. This will turn out to be 30 extra hits a day. Obviously, since these are parked domains, the SEO benefits are none, we just want the traffic. My questions is how to do it. These are his parked domains, and will not be redirected forever, is a 302 redirect the best plan here? He planned on just going into his hosting/domain admin and selecting "forward domain" -- is this ok too? Also, he would prefer to forward these domains to a single domain he owns, and then forward that single domain he owns to my domain. So someone who types in one of these 21 domains will go typindomain.com ---> hisredirectsite.com ---->mysite.com any implications here? What is the best option and how to do it? Thanks
Technical SEO | | terran0 -
Does server location impact SEO?
Hi, I am about to purchase hosting for my WordPress site which is primarily targeting the UK and wondered if server location still has an impact on SEO? Also can anyone recommend a reliable hosting provider with CPanel?
Technical SEO | | Wallander0 -
Grabbing Expired Domains
How hard is it to grab expired domains? I have my eye on a domain that is expiring in 3 days, but I don't think it's quite that simple. Doesn't it go through months of waiting to become available? Is there an easy way to grab domains that are set to expire? Are the services that offer this type of service good? And who do you guys recommend?
Technical SEO | | applesofgold0 -
Autoswitching of language
Hi all, I got a resort & spa hotel that has as index page an autoswitching language that redirects you to EN if you're English, ITA if you're italia, ESP, RU etc etc. Does this affects the ranking? The root index.php only has this programming lines that redirect users to their browser language. This was done cause we really hate intro pages that lets you select language.
Technical SEO | | digitec0