Multi-lingual SEO: Country-specific TLD's, or migration to a huge .com site?
-
Dear SEOmoz team,
I’m an in-house SEO looking after a number of sites in a competitive vertical. Right now we have our core example.com site translated into over thirty different languages, with each one sitting on its own country-specific TLD (so example.de, example.jp, example.es, example.co.kr etc…).
Though we’re using a template system so that changes to the .com domain propagate across all languages, over the years things have become more complex in quite a few areas. For example, the level of analytics script hacks and filters we have created in order to channel users through to each language profile is now bordering on the epic.
For a number of reasons we’ve recently been discussing the cost/benefit of migrating all of these languages into the single example.com domain. On first look this would appear to simplify things greatly; however I’m nervous about what effect this would have on our organic SE traffic.
All these separate sites have cumulatively received years of on/off-site work, and even if we went through the process of setting up page-for-page redirects to their new home on example.com, I would hate to lose all this hard-work (and business) if we saw our rankings tank as a result of the move.
So I guess the question is, for an international business such as ours, which is the optimal site structure in the eyes of the search engines; Local sites on local TLD’s, or one mammoth site with language identifiers in the URL path (or subdomains)?
Is Google still so reliant on TLD for geo targeting search results, or is it less of a factor in today’s search engine environment?
Cheers!
-
http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/11526/any-link-juice-love-from-wordpress-subdomain
This is answered by SEOmoz staff
-
Interesting, MWD. I would have thought that PR would flow through a redirect to a sub domain. Now you've got me concerned. By any chance, can you point me to a source that explains that in more detail?
-
If you redirect to a sub domain, the page rank (link juice) won't transfer.
If example.de 301s to example.com/de, then Pagerank flows through. In addition, your DA helps out too. So if you example.com has a PR 5, using example.com/de will be easier to rank because you are not starting off from scratch. You are using the PR power of the site. "IF" you create de.example.com, you are starting from complete scratch as if was a new website. subdomains are treated as almost like a completely separate site.
Geo Targeting works for me.
-
We have a similar setup but slightly different.
-
example.com (English)
-
example.de 301 redirects to example.com/de (German)
-
example.mx 301 redirects to example.com/mx (Spanish)
All of the regional websites are mini-sites in each language and reside in a subfolder of example.com. We're in the process of creating full in-language sites for each region and we're debating whether to host them on their own domain, example.de or to set them up as de.example.com. We would 301 redirect example.de to de.example.com. We don't want to lose our current rankings in each country so does it matter if we host them on example.de or de.example.com if we're using the 301 redirect?
-
-
I'm facing a similar situation. I recently asked Tiffany Oberoi (google) at the SMX Conference in Sydney whether she suggested taking our respective TLDs and moving into a subfolder format (ie. example.com/au, example.com/nz, example.com/uk etc).
Her response? Stick with the TLDs. I don't think the geotargetting option in GWT is as reliable as it's made out to be.
-
This is what I did.
-
example.com (English)
-
example.com/de (German)
-
example.com/mx (Spanish)
I went to Google Webmasters and did a Geo-Country in Germany for my German folder example.com/de. Since I translated example.com/mx into Spanish and wanted it to rank in Mexico, I geo-targeted for Mexico in Google Webmasters.
You can repeat the process for all the countries.
-
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
-
Why Doesn't Google Use My Title Tag and Meta Description?
Hi fellow Moz SEOs, Need your URGENT help! We set an optimised title & meta description for our client websites. These titles are approved by our clients. Before somedays, they checked on Google, noticed the title & meta description were not the same. Next moment, they notified me about this issue. The title & meta description looks fine when I checked the source code. So, why Google use title & meta description differently? For example: Title approved by client: Top Specialist Divorce & Family Lawyer - Yeo & Associates LLC
International SEO | | Verz
Google set our title: Yeo & Associates LLC: Top Specialist Divorce & Family Lawyer Title approved by client: Filing For Divorce Online in Singapore | DivorceBureau®
Google set our title: DivorceBureau®: Filing For Divorce Online in Singapore Title approved by client: Halal Buffet & Bento/Packet Meals Event Caterer Singapore | Foodtalks
Google set our title: Foodtalks - Halal Buffet & Bento/Packet Meals Event Caterer Singapore Title approved by client: Child Care Centre in Singapore| Top Preschool | Carpe Diem
Google set our title: Carpe Diem: Child care Centre in Singapore| Top Preschool Every day, they are requesting me to update Google's title with their approved title. Also, asking me these questions.
Why did this happen?
Why didn't set their recommended title? Is there any way to set our approved titles? Please, help me to find the solution. ASAP Thanks in advance!0 -
Multiregional / Multilingual SEO - Subfolders Question
Hello all, I wonder if you can help me... I have a question about subfolders in multi-regional / multi-lingual SEO - more specifically in reference to targeting the UK and the US. Having looked at some global websites these are the types of implementations I've most commonly seen: UK subfolders .com/uk .com/gb .com/gb/en-gb | .com/en-GB .com/gb-en .com/en-gb .com/uk/en US subfolders .com/us .com/us/en-us | .com/en-US .com/us-en .com/en-us .com/us/en Are any of these approaches better than others or is it all a matter of personal preference? What's the reason for using .com/gb over .com/uk (or vice versa) for example? Secondly, my assumption is that the examples above which include language subfolders do so because these companies are targeting different speaking users within these countries. Would I be right to think that since the organisation I work for is only targeting the American speakers in the US, we wouldn't need to go so far as to have language subfolders in addition to location subfolders? Would be great to get some feedback / suggestions! Thanks!
International SEO | | SEOCT0 -
International SEO
Okay, so I have read through the following link in respect to International SEO (https://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo), and I believe that the way forward it a ccTLD. My thought was to have .com, .co.uk and .eu. Currently my site is .com, but receives most of its traffic from UK sources. I'm concerned that when I switch over to ccTLDs, the .co.uk in particular, that my UK traffic could dry up. Switching from .com to .co.uk and then using the .com to target the US market makes sense, but I would like to know others opinions on the potential dangers of doing this. Also, are ccTLDs kept on the same hosting or would they require individual hosting? The link doesn't cover this question.
International SEO | | moon-boots1 -
Geolocation issue: Google not displaying the correct url in the SERP's
Hello, Im running a multi-country domain with this structure: domain.com/ar/
International SEO | | EstebanCervi
domain.com/mx/
domain.com/cl/
etc I also have: domain.com/int/ for x-default
domain.com/category/ does a 301 redirect through IP geo-location to the correspondent url, example if your IP is from Mexico, then you got redirected to domain.com/mx/category/ hreflang is correct. webmaster tool geo-location is correct. Example of the issue Im facing right now: When users from Chile do a keyword search in Google Chile, the domain ranks well but the URL that appears in the SERP is the /mx/ version, or the /int/ version or any other country version. Other times is the /cl/ version. The same happens for all the users / countries / keywords. I need to understand what Im doing wrong, because Google is not displaying in the SERP's the correct URL version for the country of the user who is doing the search. Thank you so much! I will appreciate your ideas. PS: I think I should try to change the 301 to a 302 redirect, or completely remove those redirects. Any ideas? Suggestions? Thanks!0 -
Is using JavaScript to render translations safe for International SEO?
Hello World! Background: I am evaluating a tool/service that a company wants to use for managing the translated versions of their international/multi-lingual websites: https://www.transifex.com/product/transifexlive/ Transifex is asking webmaster to "simply add a snippet of JavaScript" to their website(s); the approved translations are added by the business in the back-end; and the translated sites are made live with the click of a button (on/to the proper ccTLD, sub-domain, or sub-directory, which is specified). CONCERN: Even though I know Google reads JavaScript for crawling and ranking,
International SEO | | SixSpokeMedia64
I am concerned because I see the "English text" when I view the source-code on the "German site", and I wonder if this is really acceptable? QUESTION: Is a service like this (such as Transifex using JavaScript to render translations client-side) safe for indexing and ranking for my clients' international search engine visibility, especially via Google? Thank you!0 -
Moving British site to the US... who will have .com? US or UK?
We are the UK's first baby social commerce site launched in Nov 2011. We're doing quite well and are looking at expanding to the US. However I'm not sure what advice you'd give me in terms of internationalising the site. I see three options on how to deal with the URL structure? Make US site as .com as it will be my main source of revenue for the long run and redirect all British traffic to .co.uk Have .com for both UK and US but have the URL as either: us.babyhuddle.com or as babyhuddle.com/us/. Same thing for the UK Another option? Would love to hear the feedback from you guys. Thanks, Walid
International SEO | | walidalsaqqaf0 -
How to rank in Google for a specific country?
Hi, I've a relative good ranking for a specific keyword in google.com (english queries (hl=en)), but searching for the same keyword in google.com.br (Brazilian Portuguese (hl=pt-BR)), my rank for that keyword is far worst. The question is: I need to do something specific to rank in google.com.br (hl=pt-BR)? I'm doing the regular link building. Creating some blogs, blogging for 10 days before droping my links, and creating link wheels the same way. The blogs I create to make links are written in Brazilian Portuguese, also, the blog that I'm trying to rank higher, is also written in Brazilian Portuguese. Sorry for the english, it's not my native language. Thanks
International SEO | | izaiasalmeida0 -
Site structure for multi-lingual hotel website (subfolder names)
Hi there superMozers! I´ve read a quite a few questions about multi-lingual sites but none answered my doubt / idea, so here it is: I´m re-designing an old website for a hotel in 4 different languages which are all** hosted on the same .com domain** as follows: example.com/english/ for english example.com/espanol/ for **spanish ** example.com/francais/ for french example.com/portugues/ for portuguese While doing keyword search, I have noticed that many travel agencies separate geographical areas by folders, therefor an **agency pomoting beach hotels in South America **will have a structure as follows: travelagency.com/argentina-beach-hotels/ travelagency.com/peru-beach-hotels/ and they list hotels in each folder, therefor benefiting from those keywords to rank ahead of many independent hotels sites from those areas. What **I would like to **do -rather than just naming those folders with the traditional /en/ for english or /fr/ for french etc- is take advantage of this extra language subfolder to_´include´_ important keywords in the name of the subfolders in the following way (supposing the we have a beach hotel in Argentina): example.com/argentina-beach-hotel/ for english example.com/hotel-playa-argentina/ for **spanish ** example.com/hotel-plage-argentine/ for french example.com/hotel-praia-argentina/ for portuguese Note that the same keywords are used in the name of the folder, but translated into the language the subfolders are. In order to make things clear for the search engines I would specify the language in the html for each page. My doubt is whether google or other search engines may consider this as ´stuffing´ although most travel agencies do it in their site structure. Any Mozers have experience with this, any idea on how search engines may react, or if they could penalise the site? Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | underground0