Geo-targeted Organic Search Traffic to a sub-domain
-
For a client of ours, we are likely to create a sub-domain that is to be targeted at a specific country.
Most of the content on this sub-domain will be from the main site, although with some specific differentiation to suit that geographic market.
We intend to tell Google through Webmaster Centre that the sub-domain is targeted at a specific country. Some questions:
a) Any idea how long it could take before google gives precedence to the content in this sub-domain for queries originating from that particular country?
b) What is the likely impact of content duplication ? What extent of differentiation is necessary from a search engine perspective?
Thanks.
-
Thanks.
-
If its not too competitive then it shouldnt take you more than 30-60 days for a geo-targeted domain.
There is no case study to look at because each situation is so different.
-
Thank you, Gianluca. Your detailed response is much appreciated.
Would you be able to give any indication on the time it could take for the sub-domain to get all the search traffic directly for queries originating in that country?
Any case studies or references you will be able to point me to? That'd be great.
-
Thank you for your response; it's helpful.
By any chance, are you able to point me to any case study that shows the time it took for the geo-targeted sub-domain to get all the traffic directly from the search engines?
Our concern with using a new TLD is the time it will take the domain to acquire authority and attract traffic of its own from the targeted geography.
-
Hi Manoj, in your case I suggest you to use the rel="alternate" hreflang="x" geotargeting tag, apart from targeting the subdomain to the desired country (and the main site set as "global").
The use of the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” is strongly suggested in the case a website as an “incomplete” international version for very different reasons:
- Template translated, but main content in a single language;
- Broadly similar content within a single language, but targeting different countries (i.e.: US, UK, Australia…)
But remember that Google suggests to use it also in the case the site content is fully translated (i.e.: all the Spanish version has content in Spanish, and so on).
This rel, then, seems very appropriate for the Sitecore site.
How to implement it
Two options:
- HTML link element. In the section of any page.
In this case, for instance, in the section of www.domain.com we should add as many rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” as the different country versions are present in the site.
I.e.: http://es.domain.com” />
Please note that if exist multiple language versions (“set” in the Google slang), every set must include the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” to every other language versions.
I.e.: if we Global, UK and FR versions of the site apart the Spanish one, the Spanish version will have to include:
Obviously, every single URL must have the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” tag pointing to the corresponding URL of any other language version.
- HTTP header, in the case of not-HTML files (as PDF)
As it is implicitly said, this tag is used on a page level, not domain one. That means that every single pages must be correctly marked-up
Same content and same language on different pages and language versions
If, as it happens in case, some pages show almost the same content in both the domain and subdomain, hence it is highly suggested to use also the rel=”canonical” in order to specify to Google what the preferred version of the URL is.
As Google itself says here, Google will “use that signal to focus on that version in search, while showing the local URLs to users where appropriate. For example, you could use this if you have the same product page in German, but want to target it separately to users searching on the Google properties for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.”
Don't forget
Don't forget that your main site is set a targeting all the web, also the country targeted by your sub-domain.
That means that if you will perform an active link building campaign for the sub-domain, in order to provide it of an equal if not higher strenght respect the main site.
-
As soon as they index it it will take precedence in that country for geotargeting. You can increase the likelihood of differentiation or non duplicate content by using top level domains and by adding geotargeting keywords to your sub domain content. See the specific examples below:
Use top-level domains: To help us serve the most appropriate version of a document, use top-level domains whenever possible to handle country-specific content. We're more likely to know that
http://www.example.de
contains Germany-focused content, for instance, thanhttp://www.example.com/de
orhttp://de.example.com
.Minimize similar content: If you have many pages that are similar, consider expanding each page or consolidating the pages into one. For instance, if you have a travel site with separate pages for two cities, but the same information on both pages, you could either merge the pages into one page about both cities or you could expand each page to contain unique content about each city.
Source for above comes from google on duplicate content relating to different countries.
Hope this helps.....
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
-
Substantial drop in organic traffic and keyword rankings
My client's organic traffic has been on the decline ever since January of 2015. We suspected it had to do with some spammy link farm pointing to his site. We disavowed those links in August 2015. Still, we are seeing huge drop offs in rankings and organic traffic. I am at a loss of what to do. Are we being penalized by Google for some reason? Has this happened to anyone else? If so, how did you remedy? Feel free to ask my any more questions if you more information. KDc8dMp fyVtrYo
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kheberger0 -
Sudden Drop in Website Traffic Last month
Can any one help me. One of my website http://www.imperialcard.com.au/ suddenly started to drop in traffic and ranking. I havent done anything black hat. How do I figure out what caused this. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Verve-Innovation0 -
Redirect from old domain to a new domain
Hi, assuming i have an old domain that i would like to redirect it to the new domain because the old domain contain good links on it and been ranking for its keywords. Would it be a wise choice? and can i redirect my sub domain into my new one too? for example website1.com/life > website2.com/life and how do i do so? can i do that by hosting the old domain in my new domain hosting and do all those redirect include sub domain redirect?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Do searchs bot understand SEF and non SEF url as the same ones ?
I've jsut realized that since almost for ever I use to code first my website using the non sef for internal linkings. It's very convenient as I'm sure that what ever will be the final url the link will always be good. ex: website.com/component1/id=1 Before releasing the website I use extensions to make the url user friendly according the choosen strategy. ex: website.com/component1/id=1 -> website.com/article1.html But I just wondered if google consider both urls as the same ones or if it consider just as a 301 redirection. What do you think is the best to do ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AymanH0 -
One good domain generating to much links what to do
I think penguin had no effect yet on spain. propdental.com remain the same.And propdental.es still growing.No penguin 2.0 effect. I think it will need a few more days to see if there is impact on spain.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas
Althought i have a question regarding coagnitive SEO, (is regarding a link to propdental.es from unidirectorio.com) i think is a good web, but as generated me an very big amount of links)i have this on link from unidirectorio.com that has generated 2400 links to www.propdental.es with this ancor text "clinica dental con dentistas especialistas en implantes dentales ortodoncia invisalign y carillas" Links is comes from this page http://undirectorio.com/Salud/dentistas/ and then generates 2400I can not remove this link. I seemed a good directory with just 3 pages linking out and good page rank on my specific field.I ask google to dont take that link into account, although i am not sure if i did it well.**Can someone tell me how to say to google to dont take in account the links from a domain?**google still shows this link on webmaster tools, i am afraid it ends up been bad. I seems a good directory is not an exact ancor text although containt all work i want to rank.What would be your advice? Do i have any way to make sure that google does not have the links recieved from that domain into account0 -
Closing down site and redirecting its traffic to another
OK - so we currently own two websites that are in the same industry. Site A is our main site which hosts real estate listings and rentals in Canada and the US. Site B hosts rentals in Canada only. We are shutting down site B to concentrate solely on Site A, and will be looking to redirect all traffic from Site B to Site A, ie. user lands on Toronto Rentals page on Site B, we're looking to forward them off to Toronto Rentals page on Site A, and so on. Site A has all the same locations and property types as Site B. On to the question: We are trying to figure out the best method of doing this that will appease both users and the Google machine. Here's what we've come up with (2 options): When user hits Site B via Google/bookmark/whatever, do we: 1. Automatically/instantly (301) redirect them to the applicable page on Site A? 2. Present them with a splash page of sorts ("This page has been moved to Site A. Please click the following link <insert anchor="" text="" rich="" url="" here="">to visit the new page.").</insert> We're worried that option #1 might confuse some users and are not sure how crawlers might react to thousands of instant redirects like that. Option #2 would be most beneficial to the end-user (we're thinking) as they're being notified, on page, of what's going on. Crawlers would still be able to follow the URL that is presented within the splash write-up. Thoughts? We've never done this before. It's basically like one site acquiring another site; however, in this case, we already owned both sites. We just don't have time to take care of Site B any longer due to the massive growth of Site A. Thanks for any/all help. Marc
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | THB0 -
Unique businesses - unique domain names?
A client of mine owns a studio space where he teaches yoga and martial arts. It's a new business and we're deciding how to create the website(s) and which domain(s) to buy. The idea right now is to have 3 websites for each side of the business, and I'm looking for validation of this idea. I haven't been able to find an answer in the Q&A forum that quite applies to our situation. Website 1: for the studio itself. The audience is other yoga teachers, martial arts teachers, or personal trainers. He will rent out the studio space to them and they bring in their own clients. Content and keywords will relate to this. Website 2: yoga classes. The audience is members of the public who want to take yoga classes. Content and keywords will relate to this. Website 3: martial arts. The audience is members of the public who want to take martial arts classes. Content and keywords will relate to this. We will make certain there's no duplicate content on the sites, but it makes sense for them to link to each other because they're similar in nature (personal health and fitness at the studio), and the latter 2 services are offered at the studio, of course. Question 1: (a) is it a good idea to get a separate domain for each site? for example: www.city-studio.com, www.unique-name-yoga.com, www.unique-name-martial-arts.com (b) Or would it be better to keep it all under city-studio.com and use subdomains like yoga.city-studio.com and martial-arts.city-studio.com? In either case, the keywords "yoga" and "martial arts" would be in the domain name, which has benefit. Does that still apply for subdomains? (c) Or would these services even be considered similar enough that I just use www.city-studio.com/yoga.php and www.city-studio.com/martial-arts..php There will of course be several pages on yoga and several on martial arts. Question 2: if registering multiple domains, they will interlink as much as possible. (a) what do we consider when buying the domains? (b) use a different address for WHOIS of each domain? (c) can technical contact be the same address (mine, the consultant)? (d) use a different credit card for each? (e) ok if the name on the credit card is the same? (f) can we register them all the same day? (h) same domain registrar? (i) same host? we don't want to appear black hat by having multiple sites, but I think it's very legitimate to have the business split into 3 sites like this just because they're separate sides of the business with different audiences, content, keywords. Question 3: when the domains come up for renewal in 1 year (or more), would it be safe to switch them all over to one credit card then, for convenience to the owner? Question 4: is there anything important I haven't mentioned here? I appreciate any input and discussion.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Kenoshi0 -
Free Mass Traffic Software
How does the community feel about Free Mass Traffic Software? Is this a scam or what?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | noork0