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.
Will using a service such as Akamai impact on rankings?
-
Howdy
My client has a .com site they are looking at hosting via Akamai - they have offices in various locations, e.g UK, US, AU, RU & in some Asian countries.
If they used Akamai, would the best approach be to set up seperate sites per country:
- .co.uk
- .com
- .com.au
- .ru
- .sg etc
Although my understanding is that Googlebot is located in the US so if it crawled any of those sites it would always get a US IP address?
So is the answer perhaps to go with Akamai for the .com only which should target the US market and use different / seperate C class hosts for the others?
Thanks!
Woj
-
My understanding of how a CDN is configured is it's a back-end server change. The HTML will still appear as mysite.com/image.jpg but when a request for that image is made, your server will tell the user's browser to fetch it from cdn.chicago.akamai.com/mysite.com/image.jpg.
Your server still hosts the image and is the primary source of the image. That image is duplicated on CDN servers throughout the country and world depending on what cdn plan you purchase.
So in short, the images are hosted on mysite.com and images should not be taken out of the mix. You can confirm this by checking well known sites which use Akamai:
-
Ryan,
What about when images are handled through Akamai and the URL's to those images are "Akamaized". Since the images are not hosted on the www.mysite.com, but on www.akamai.com, how would this effect image search. Does it take my images out of the mix. Would an image sitemap help with this?
-
Thanks, makes perfect sense
-
Google effectively crawls all types of sites from around the world. As long as you offer proper navigation with your site, there shouldn't be any issue.
Your content for each region should have a landing page for that region. mysite.com/jp would be your landing page for Japan, etc. Your landing pages would be treated as your home page for Japanese speakers. You should have links from Japanese companies to the /jp page as if it was your site's home page.
-
Thanks Ryan!
I guess my main concern is to not have existing rankings penalised. For example, the head office is based in Australia with other offices around the world - if Googlebot comes in from the US and gets a US IP.. would Australian rankings drop?
Also, I believe the content being served will be identical to all regions.. for now at least.
-
Akamai offers numerous services. Are you referring to their Content Delivery Network? If so, then the CDN will provide faster page load times which is a good user experience. If your site was being penalized for slow load times (only a small percentage of sites fall into this category) then yes, by properly setting up your content on a CDN you can remove the penalty which would improve rankings. Otherwise you would not directly benefit in terms of rankings, but your users will likely find your site more usable, explore more, etc. which could benefit your rankings.
With respect to your site design, I would recommend a single .com site with folders for each country. mysite.com/ru for russia, mysite.com/au for australia, etc. This method will allow you to collect all your domain authority in a single site and can greatly reduce your software and site maintenance expenses.
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
-
How recovering the ranking after an hacking
Hello, I'm Alexia and a few months ago (end of March) my site has been hacked: hackers have created more than 30.000 links in Japanese to sell tires. I've successfully removed the hack and after 14 days of struggle even decided to change the domain to Siteground as they've been really keen to help. I still have some problems and I desperately need your tips. In search console, Google is informing about the +30.000 404 errors due to the content created by hackers which is not available anymore. I've been advised to redirect those links to 410 as they might have penalty effects in the SERP I have 50 503 server errors recognised by Google back in April but still there. What should I do to solve them? I still have a lot of traffic from Japan, even if I've removed all the content and ask Googled to disavow spamming backlinks. Do you think I have on page keywords? I don't understand how they can still find me. Those KWs are indexed in analytics, but not effective clicks, as the content is not there anymore. I also asked Google to remove links in search console with the tool removing links but not all of my requests have been accepted. My site disappeared from the organic results even if it hasn't been recognised as hacked in Google (there wasn't any manual actions on the Search Console). What can I do to gain the organic positioning once again? I've just tried to use the “Fetch as Google” option on search console for the entire website. Thank you all and I look forward to your replies. Thanks! Alessia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlessiaCamera0 -
Keyword Ranking Fluctuations
Hi Guys I am currently working on a website where one of the keyword targets is fluctuating. The keyword is fluctuating between page 2 and page 5. What makes this strange is that we are not experiencing the issue with any other keyword targets. They are all ranking fine.  It is only 1 keyword. The keyword target happens to be the main homepage keyword target - not sure if this makes a difference? The homepage targets 2 keyword e.g. Business Offices & Accessories. The homepage ranks perfectly fine for e.g. Business Accessories but is fluctuating for e.g. Business Offices! Very strange. What makes it even stranger - the keyword variations of the fluctuating keyword e.g. office for business  - these variations are all fine and not fluctuating. Its only 1 keyword. If anyone has any ideas  or feedback that would be great! Thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
How to rank my website in Google UK?
Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least -Â I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo0 -
Will obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on my ranking?
I would like to obfuscate my HTML so that people do not see that I used a Template on my site. Does obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on the ranking in google? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWW0 -
Page Rank Worse After Optimization
For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword. My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought). I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual. In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader. Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dkeipper0 -
Ranking on google but not Bing?
Any reason why I could be ranking for Google but not Bing? Â
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Using Folkd for Video Backlink
Hi Mozzers, What are your thoughts on using www.folkd.com for video SEO? We have a few company videos and would like to possibly get a backlink by either embedding one of our youtube videos on our site or self hosting the video. Are bookmarking sites like this spammy?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Use of subdomains, subdirectories or both?
Hello, i would like your advice on a dilemma i am facing. I am working a new project that is going to release soon,  thats a network of users with personal profiles seperated in categories for example lets say the categories are colors. So let say i am a member and i belong in red color categorie and i got a page where i update my personal information/cv/resume as well as a personal blog thats on that page. So the main site is giving the option to user to search for members by the criteria of color. My first idea is that all users should own a subdomain (and this is how its developed so far) thats easy to use and since the domain name is really small (just 3 letters) i believe subdomain worth since personal site will be easy to remember. My dilemma is should all users own a subdomain, a subdirectory or both and if both witch one should be the canonical? Since it said that search engines treat subdomains as different stand-alone sites, whats best for the main site? to show multiple search results with profiles in subdomains or subdirectories? What if i use both? meaning in search results i use search directory url for each profile while same time each profile owns a subdomains as well? and if so which one should be the canonical? Thanks in advance, C
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HaCos0