Multi National Company that Doesn't Want to Implement International SEO
-
I have got an interesting situation where I have a client who wants to merge two ccTLD's into one. They currently have .fi and .com and they want to merge both sites to .com
.fi is for finland and .com for USA.
They want to merge the sites and the original plan was to use subfolders for each country and pair with hreflang.
However the team now wants to merge both sites with NO subfolders differentiating between finland or the US.
My understanding of International SEO that this is the most opposite from best practices, but is there any specific reasons why they wouldn't want to do this?
I'm struggling to find any specific reasons that I can cite to the client that would argue why we should at least do a subfolder or some sort of international seo strategy.
-
@webuniversalp1 Yes, hreflang tags need to be created for each page "appropriately" as covered in my previous response to help search engines show the right version page to the right geo/audience.
-
El tema es que vas a tener que redireccionar las dos webs, no sé si mantendrás el contenido de la .com pero si no te espera un auditoria grande dependiendo de la web, en cuanto a lo que dicen en los anteriores sobre hreflang pienso lo mismo.
-
@naeemgari Hello,
You need to use the hreflang tags for each page, with this Google will not penalize your content and will understand that they are two versions with different languages.
-
@naeemgari I agree with that.
-
Hello,
You need to use the hreflang tags for each page, with this Google will not penalize your content and will understand that they are two versions with different languages.
-
@jkhoo for international SEO the strongest signal for search engines is ccTLDs. The next best option would be a sub-folder URL structure with the correct hreflang tag declarations.
For your core keywords is there low / no search volume in Finland? From a business standpoint, managing two websites can be tedious. You need to build content & backlinks for two domains.
However, from an SEO standpoint, the preferred option would be to keep the ccTLDs. They are the best indicator of relevance to local SERPs. Think about your audience in Finland are they likely to visit a .com domain from SERPs or a .fi domain? Search engines would also prefer showing more targeted and relevant results to users. Therefore, ccTLDs for target regions and international SEO are the best options.
The next best route would be sub folders with appropriate hreflang tag declarations & xml sitemaps.
Additionally, site mergers/migrations generally result in a loss in organic traffic and visibility which can range from a quarter to over year(s).
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
-
Multilang site: Auto redirect 301 or 302?
We need to establish if 301 or 302 response code is to be used for our auto redirects based on Accept-Language header. https://domain.com
International SEO | | fJ66doneOIdDpj
30x > https://domain.com/en
30x > https://domain.com/ru
30x > https://domain.com/de The site architecture is set up with proper inline HREFLANG.
We have read different opinions about this, Ahrefs says 302 is the correct one:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
302 redirect:
"You want to redirect users to the right version of the site for them (based on location/language)." You could argue that the root redirect is never permanent as it varies based on user language settings (302)
On the other hand, the lang specific redirects are permanent per language: IF Accept-Language header = en
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/en
IF Accept-Language header = ru
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/ru So each of these is 'permanent'. So which is the correct?0 -
"Duplicate without user-selected canonical” - impact to SERPs
Hello, we are facing some issues on our project and we would like to get some advice. Scenario
International SEO | | Alex_Pisa
We run several websites (www.brandName.com, www.brandName.be, www.brandName.ch, etc..) all in French language . All sites have nearly the same content & structure, only minor text (some headings and phone numbers due to different countries are different). There are many good quality pages, but again they are the same over all domains. Goal
We want local domains (be, ch, fr, etc.) to appear in SERPs and also comply with Google policy of local language variants and/or canonical links. Current solution
Currently we don’t use canonicals, instead we use rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default": <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-BE" href="https://www.brandName.be/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CA" href="https://www.brandName.ca/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CH" href="https://www.brandName.ch/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.brandName.fr/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-LU" href="https://www.brandName.lu/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.brandName.com/" /> Issue
After Googlebot crawled the websites we see lot of “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” in Coverage/Excluded report (Google Search Console) for most domains. When we inspect some of those URLs we can see Google has decided that canonical URL points to (example): User-declared canonical: None
Google-selected canonical: …same page, but on a different domain Strange is that even those URLs are on Google and can be found in SERPs. Obviously Google doesn’t know what to make of it. We noticed many websites in the same scenario use a self-referencing approach which is not really “kosher” - we are afraid if we use the same approach we can get penalized by Google. Question: What do you suggest to fix the “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” in our scenario? Any suggestions/ideas appreciated, thanks. Regards.0 -
Hreflang implementation via sitemap - don’t need canonical tags?
Hi, Quick easy question here I hope! An international site has hreflang and canonical tags in page head sections and also hreflang in the sitemap so I can see one version needs removing. The head section versions are relative URLs and need updating so think we will keep the sitemap hreflangs instead. If the sitemap implementation is going to be used (sitemap auto-updates when changes are made to pages so seems easier to do this way) am I right in thinking No canonical tags are needed at all (and can safely be removed from head section too?). Pretty sure links included in sitemap are assumed to be canonicals, or any issues with this approach? Will be using x-default for the default language version of homepage too.
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
Sponsor in flight ticket section
How can I be included in http://www.google.com/flights section in Serp for other languages like Persian e.g the keyword: بلیط هواپیما
International SEO | | fareli0 -
Dynamic Google search snippet text based on user's language
On Google search results page, I want to show search snippet text (of my webpage) in Hindi language if user is user is using Google in Hindi language. If user chose another language on Google search page, my snippet text should be shown in that language. Is this possible? How?
International SEO | | Avinashmb0 -
Rel alternate use for multi regional website with english language and same content
I have a website targeting multi language and multi regional users. For example, my main site is www.abcd.com which is in English and targeting US. I have the same content in English which is targeting UK and India with www.uk.abcd.com and www.india.abcd.com. I want to avoid content duplication and help search engines to show the right pages on the country level searches. I have researched a bit and have come to conclusion of using re alternate tag. Can someone help me with how to place the codes for the same. Many thanks Mozers!
International SEO | | HiteshBharucha0 -
How do I successfully verify my site for Baidu's webmaster tools?
Instructions for verifying a website via file validation for Baidu's webmaster tools are pretty vague. Does anyone know if the process is the same as Google Webmaster Tools where the verification string must appear in the URL and in the content of the file? Also, does it truly have to be verified within 2.6 hours? Appreciate any feedback from people who have successfully verified their site.
International SEO | | sigmaaldrich0 -
Russian SEO: Do you know some good sources with tips and news about Yandex?
We are launching our site in Russia - and basically I have no experience in Russian SEO! Could you please recommend me some good English sources with news, tips and hints about Yandex? Basically I am looking the Russian SEOmoz 🙂 Thanks!
International SEO | | jorgediaz0