International SEO Domain Structure
-
Hi Guys,
I am wondering if anybody can point me to a recent trusted report or study on international domain name structure and SEO considerations.
I am looking to read up on the SEO considerations and recommendations for the different domain structures in particular using sub-directories i.e. domain.com/uk, domain.com/fr.
Kind regards,
Cian -
Good post. However be aware that "UK" is not the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 country code for the United Kingdom - it's GB so en-GB for English speaking users in the United Kingdom.
-
Just to add Google's guidelines here-
-
Hi there,
When organising your site infrastructure to manage multilingual versions of your site and adapt content for different country targets, there are three main hosting options:
- Root domain ccTLD’s (example.fr, example.co.uk,)
- Subdomains (fr.example.org)
- Subdirectories and subfolders (example.com/EN’, ‘example.com/EN-UK’ or ‘example.com/EN-US)
As each has unique pros and cons, the option you choose will depend largely on the size of your organisation, the locations of your likely target market, and of course your budget.
If you choose the best, most practical option, it will complement your other efforts and add up to a whole that boosts your immediate rankings and sets the foundation for a long-term international SEO strategy
We have an exceptional international seo checklist guide in moz that you can see here moz.com/blog/the-international-seo-checklist and if you want to extend this information about the domains will be very useful to read this one http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-without-boarders-a-guide-to-international-seo-nick-paterman/60092/
Hope it helps you.
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
-
SEO Menu Question
I have a question regarding to the SEO benefits of different types of menus. Recently, I have noticed an increasing number of websites with the sort of menu like at www.sportsdirect.com, where there is only one main dropdown and then everything is a sub-menu of the sub-menus if that makes sense. Is this approach more, less or equal beneficial to what you see at http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ where there are multiple initial dropdown menus? Appreciate the feedback.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | simonukss0 -
Domain switch planned - new domain accessible - until the switch: redirect from new to old domain with 307?
Hi there, We are going to switch our local domain oldsite.at to newsite.com in November. As our IT department wants to use the newsite.com already for email traffic till then, the domain newsite.com has to be accessible for public and currently shows the default Apache page without useful content. The old domain has quite some trust, the new domain is a first time registered domain (not known by search engines yet and no published anyhow). The domain was parked till now. I am aware of the steps to take for the switch itself, but: **what to do with the newsite.com domain until everything is prepared for the switch? **I suppose users or search engines find the domain and as there is no useful information available it harms us already. My idea was to 307 redirect newsite.com to the oldsite.at but the concern is that this causes problems as soon as we switch the domain and redirecting with 301 from oldsite.at to newsite.com? Do you have any objections or other recommendations? Thank you a lot in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | comicron0 -
Sub Domain or New Domain?
Hi All, We have a client that has a business with three different services. 2 of these services compliment each other in a really obvious way, but the 3rd, while related is not such a obvious complimentary service. For this reason, service 3 kind of weakens the content of the website SEO wise for the two main services. Also, internally at the business it is run by an entirely different team so it feels culturally somewhat different. So, the client wants to pull all the content about service 3 and put it on a different website. Which would you chose as a domain for this new site: service3.existingdomain.co.uk or www.service3+brandname.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoisyLittleMonkey0 -
What next with SEO
I've been working on my site for over 2 years and have some very good links and now have a PageRank 4. My site has fallen down from page 1 to page 4 for 'Web Design London' which may be due to not putting much work into link building in the last 6 months. The site is pretty well optimised onsite but there are less that 20 pages of content. With time constraints in place because I have to run the business, would it be better to increase the content, seek out more links or outsource the work. Ideally I would do both but money and time restrict this. If I was to outsource, do you have recommendations and rough prices? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wpwebdesignlondon0 -
Domain name match and SEO
I was asked a question today and would like a second opinion on it : Knowing that Alex wants to rank for personnal training the question is, from a SEO standpoint, which domain name would you recommend me using and why : personnaltraining.com ( IS not available) Personnaltrainingalex.com alexpersonnaltraining.com alextraining.com trainingalex.com I have my idea on this, but I'd like to have your so we can share and discuss on that. Thanks !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Catalyste0 -
I am SEO amameur and have bee adding links slowly to site. I cannot seem to increase my domain authority from 20 however, Anyone any advice please????
I updated meta tags on website 2/3 months ago and saw a significant improvements in rankings for keyowrds, however since then I have been dropping back down. I am wondering if this is because of low domain authoriyty. it is currentyly 20. www.babskibay.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | babski0 -
Multiple domains expiring that have 301 redirects to my primary domain. Am I in trouble?
I recently took on the SEO of a large website with http://example.com. My predecessor bought 40 plus domains for specific cities like Jacksonvilleexample.com, Miamiexample.com, etc. ZERO of the additional domains linked to our main website. The domains that were bought basically had our exact same website in terms of content, links etc that mirrored our main http://example.com. I added 301 redirects to help problems that may be a result of this type of structure. Some of the additional domains were indexed and some were not but all have 301's and as far as traffic is concerned I'm not worried about loosing short term traffic. My question: All the domains are set to expire in June and I don't want to continue to have them 301 redirected to my main domain (example.com). I'm not trying to avoid the additional cost of all the domains but I don't see an advantage to having them so CAN letting all these domains expire hurt me from a long term SEO position if I don't renew them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ballanrk0 -
Best SEO Practices for Top-Level Navigation Structure
OK - First of all, thank you to those of you who view and take the time to answer our question. We are currently in the middle of re-designing our golf packages website, and we're trying to decide the best way to structure our Main Navigation for maximum SEO benefit while keeping user experience in mind. The top key phrases we are currently targeting: 1) Myrtle Beach Golf 2) Myrtle Beach Golf Packages You can find the current navigation structure we have come up with here: http://www.myrtlebeachsitemasters.com/index2.html So our question is this: We have subdivisions of: Golf Packages, Accommodations, Golf Courses Is it in our best interest to: A) Get rid of the subdivisions and consolidate them to one page? or B) Simply "NoFollow" the subdivisions within the Main Navigation? We are concerned about the subdivisons for 2 reasons: Too many internal links in Main Navigation The "first link only" rule with Google affecting our additional internal links on existing pages. THANK YOU again to those of you who take the time to answer this question. We really appreciate any clarification on this issue.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesO0