Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is a slash just as good as buying a country specific domain? .com/de vs .de
-
I guess this question comes in a few parts:
1. Would Google read a 2-letter country code that is after the domain name (after the slash) and recognize it as a location (targeting that country)? Or does is just read it as it would a word.
eg. www.marketing.com/de for a microsite for the Germans
www.marketing.com/fr for a microsite for the French
Or would it read the de and fr as words (not locations) in the url. In which case, would it have worse SEO (as people would tend to search "marketing france" not "marketing fr")?
2. Which is better for SEO and rankings?
Separate country specific domains:
www.marketing.de and www.marketing.fr
OR the use of subfolders in the url:
-
To achieve those different geotargeting options in Google Webmaster Tools you have to add every subdirectory as a different site, otherwise you can only target one country for the top-domain.
You should add marketing.com/de and marketing.com/fr as separate sites to GWT and set the geolocation for each folder to the right country.
-
It doesn't matter, because in Google Webmaster Tools you can geo-target directories for specific countries, so there is no need for different TLD's for different regions. It seems to work well.
Also, Google is smart enough to know that if a section is in German it should be shown in Google.de, if a section is in French it will be shown in Google.fr - it is the English sections that you definitely need to point Google in the right directions with.
-
To answer on your first question, Google doesn't read this as France or Germany, but that doesn't mean it is bad for your SEO.
For example, having those different subdirectories in one domain can help you get lots of backlinks to one domain instead of backlinks to all your location based domains.
To answer your second question, your URL doesn't do all of your SEO work... If you use the right title tags, urls, on-page elements you can rank with your .com domain for different languages.
Yesterday I analysed a webshop that targets different countries (FR, NL, DE, ENG) but doesn't have different domains for each country and I must say that he was ranking for some competitive terms in several languages. If your overall SEO elements are good to target a certain language or country it doesn't matter that much if it is a .fr or .com/fr
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 my Domain Authority (DA) is Decreased
Hello, I would like to know how the changes in domain authority is considered by MOZ? Domain Authority for my this domain https://factohr.com was 14 and it is decreased to 13 in this week. Though i have a very decent and good links going over to all my pages howcome my DA is affected and decreased. As its regularly being updated and has a high quality traffic! i would like to know the reason behind decrement in DA and is there any connection with redirection of .com domain? How can i increase DA for my website?
Algorithm Updates | | MyMoz710 -
Fresh backlinks vs old backlinks: A solid ranking factor?
Hi Moz community, Backlinks being a major ranking factor, do they must be very recent or fresh to make a ranking difference compared to the backlinks which are years old? We know usually fresh content ranks well, but I wonder how much the fresh/recent backlinks impact in rankings. Do the years old backlinks from related and reputed website have same impact on rankings? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Sub-domain with spammy content and links: Any impact on main website rankings?
Hi all, One of our sub-domains is forums. Our users will be discussing about our product and many related things. But some of the users in forum are adding a lot of spammy content everyday. I just wonder whether this scenario is ruining our ranking efforts of main website? A sub domain with spammy content really kills the ranking of main website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Is it a good idea to 301 redirect one same niche site towards another site for seo benefit
Hello friends, I have 2 android niche sites, one site is running on a technology dropped domain i catch 1 year ago it has, almost 400+ domains linking to different parts of the site, the other one i established from scratch and both are running from jan 2015. Now i want to redirect first site which already has 400 links pointing towards it to the home page of my 2nd android site. Is it a good idea to do so and does it give any boost in terms of seo?
Algorithm Updates | | RizwanAkbar0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Dofollow Links on Press Releases: Good or Bad?
Hello, I know that Google says that you are supposed to make anchored text links nofollow on press releases, but what about just putting the site url itself (example.com) and making it dofollow? Is that okay?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Non .Com or .Co Versus .ca or .fm sites - In terms of SEO value
We are launching a new site with a non traditional top level domain . We were looking at either .ca or .in as we are not able to get the traditional .com or .co or .net etc . I was wondering if this has any SEO effect ? Does Google/Bing treat this domain differently .Will it be penalized ? Note : My site is a US based site targeting US audience
Algorithm Updates | | Chaits0 -
Singular vs plural SEO
Hi everyone, OK I've been looking at the Google adwords keyword tool and it's thrown some of my On-page SEO into question (everything said here are examples, I haven't used any real life terms or figures). Lets say my page is about "Green Apples", let's say the keyword tool shows that the singular version "Green Apple" gets more searches (as an example). Should I optimize for the singular or the plural? Also lets say my title tag for that page is "Green Apples | Apples Galore UK" would Google/SEOmoz count that as an optimisation for the singular "Green Apple" or do the search engines take the title literally and don't differenciate between singular and plurals? Thanks in advance everyone! Regards, Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshSEO20112