International Site Merge
-
Hello,
I've never had to deal with an international site before, let alone a site merge.
These are two large sites, we've got a few smaller old sites that are currently redirecting to the main site (UK). We are looking at moving all the sites to the .com domain. We are also currently not using SSL (on the main pages, we are on the checkout). We also have a m.domain.com site. Are there any good guides on what needs to be done?
My current strategy would be:
- Convert site to SSL.
- Mobile site and desktop site must be on the same domain.
- Start link building to the .com domain now (weaker link profile currently)
What's the best way of handling the domains and languages? We're currently using a .tv site for the UK and .com for the US.
I was thinking, and please correct me if i'm wrong, that we move the US site from domain.com to domain.com/us/ and the domain.tv to domain.com/en/
Would I then reference these by the following:
What would we then do with the canonicals? Would they just reference their "local" version?
Any advice or articles to read would really be appreciated.
-
Hi Thomas,
If a page doesn't have an equivalent on the other country version then you don't need to specify hreflangs really, you can just specify the one of the page that exist if you want, to keep the consistency, although if you see: the goal of the hreflang is to specify Google which is the "best" URL to show in their results when a search is done and there are many that could be relevant as they target the same queries, but should be targeted to different audiences, since in this case there will be only one, then it's not necessary to do it.
Thanks,
Aleyda
-
Hi Aleyda,
The reason we want to merge to one domain is because the higher ups want to, so that's what is happening.
Anyway, thank you for your in depth reply unfortunately having suggested that the site merge and https goes live at the same time development won't be able to achieve that.
I do only have one question left really, if a page doesn't have an equivalent on one site. What does the rel alternate have to be, is it left blank or does it go to the main language url?
Thanks,
Tom
-
Hi Thomas,
Why do you want to merge them on a single domain? If you want to consolidate everything on a single .com domain -which is recommended in case you don't want complexity and capitalize your authority better, while targeting international markets effectively-, then it would be to:
-
Migrate by 301-redirecting your current domains to their relevant country directories that you will enable in your .com, and that should be geolocalized independently each one through the Google Search Console (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en) to their specific countries: .com/gb/ to the UK and .com/us/ to the US, so each one of them can effectively be geo-targeted. Since you have an independent mobile site on an "m" subdomain this case you also have to do the same for them: m.yourbrand.com/gb/ geolocalized to the UK and m.yourbrand.com/us/ geolocalized to the US.
-
Use hreflang annotations (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en) to specify for each one of the site pages their language and country alternatives, for example:
-
Since you will be moving domains anyway, I'll directly migrate to the new .com site already using SSL, instead of splitting these two migrations by migrating to the .com first and then doing a migration towards the https version of the .com a few months after, the direct migration towards the https version will add maybe a bit more of complexity and additional validations to make, but since you're migrating anyway many of them you'd need to follow and do anyway.
-
Finally, be aware that after any change of a Web structure, specially from one domain to another (and if this other doesn't have a highly authoritative link profile yet) will always have a short-term negative effect, so is important that you start an SEO process not only to make sure you follow best practices when migrating but to validate afterwards and grow the new domains results based on what has been found on a technical, content and link profile audit and the desired results: Optimizing the new Web structure, Optimizing or creating content, optimizing or creating links, etc.
I hope this helps!
Thanks,
Aleyda
-
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
-
Baidu Webmaster Tools: How to setup in "Site Properties" the field "Affiliate subject"?
Hi ,
International SEO | | lcourse
finally I managed to setup my site in Baidu Webmaster Tools with the help of a freelance staff member in China. Site is verified and sitemap submitted. In section "Site Properties", field "Affiliate subject" I can't figure out after extensive search what I need to setup here for a foreign company without any presence and without company registration in China. Anybody can help? When I click on this field, it indicates "Site association subject is a necessary link for mobile resources to enter search." so my site will not show up in mobile results without it? Grateful for any tips on how to resolve this piece of puzzle of the baidu setup.
Thanks0 -
Using .ag for agriculture site with global targeting
Would using .ag with a short punchy domain like farm.ag, that was targeting a global audience be a wise decision? Versus say an 11 character descriptive ".com". Is there any benefit to using a ".ag" if the site is for agriculture? Note, this is a heavy content site so SEO important, with plans to serve different languages later.
International SEO | | mag7770 -
International SEO Mobile directory
I was wondering, What if I went with international sub-directory route (not ccTLD), for example: sitename.com/fr (fr being france)...But the question is, what's the best practice for MOBILE?sitename.com/mobile/frORsitename.com/fr/mobileORm.sitename.com/fr Again, ccTLD is not an option (currently, sites are in ccTLD but we are now transitioning to sub folders)Now, the next question is WHY is it best practices for it to be sitename.com/mobile/fr or sitename.com/fr/mobile or m.sitename.com/fr ? Please cite source. Thanks!
International SEO | | ggpaul5620 -
Correct site internationalization strategy
Hi, I'm working on the internationalization of a large website; the company wants to reach around 100 countries. I read this Google doc: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en in order to design the strategy. The strategy is the following: For each market, I'll define a domain or subdomain with the next settings: Leave the mysitename.com for the biggest market in which it has been working for years, and define the geographic target in Google search console. Reserve the ccTLD domains for other markets In the markets where I'm not able to reserve the ccTLD domains, I'll use subdomains for the .com site, for example us.mysitename.com, and I'll define in Google search console the geographic target for this domain. Each domain will only be in the preferred language of each country (but the user will be able to change the language via cookies). The content will be similar in all markets of the same language, for example, in the .co.uk and in .us the texts will be the same, but the product selections will be specific for each market. Each URL will link to the same link in other countries via direct link and also via hreflang. The point of this is that all the link relevance that any of them gets, will be transmitted to all other sites. My questions are: Do you think that there are any possible problems with this strategy? Is it possible that I'll have problems with duplicate content? (like I said before, all domains will be assigned to a specific geographic target) Each site will have around 2.000.000 of URLs. Do you think that this could generate problems? It's possible that only primary and other important locations will have URLs with high quality external links and a decent TrustRank. Any other consideration or related experience with a similar process will be very appreciated as well. Sorry for all these questions, but I want to be really sure with this plan, since the company's growth is linked to this internationalization process. Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | robertorg0 -
How to set up international SEO for english speaking countries
Hi, My company have offices around the world. However they also provide different services and products depending on the region. For example our offices in the USA, UK and Australia all provide different services to each other. My question is, how do I set up my WordPress website up to cater for these different countries and services? I think the simple answer would be to build a separate website for each, but this would be too costly and we don't have the resources to maintain all three. Many thanks for your time, Tom
International SEO | | CoGri0 -
Is there a list of most important international web directories ?
Would like to submit the different language versions of our site to some non-english web directories worth submitting to. Does anybody know about a good list as a starting point? To get an idea what may be the 3-5 most important web directories in different countries/languages. Thanks
International SEO | | lcourse0 -
Shall I automatically redirect international visitors from www.domain.com to e.g. www.domain.com/es? What is best SEO practice?
We have chosen the one domain approach with our international site having different language versions in subdirectory of main domain:
International SEO | | lcourse
www.domain.com/es
www.domain.com/it
etc. What is SEO-wise best practice for implementing international index pages. I see following options: entering www.domain.com will display without redirection the index page in language of user (e.g based on IP or browser) in www.domain.com
Example: www.booking.com entering www.domain.com will always show English index page.
Additionally one may display a message in the header if IP from other country with link to other language version.
Example: www.apple.com entering www.domain.com will always redirect automatically to country specific subdirectory based on IP
Example: www.samsung.com Any thoughts/suggestions on what may be best solution from a SEO perspective? For a user I believe options 1) & 3) are preferable.0 -
International hreflang - will this handle duplicate content?
The title says it all - if i have duplicate content on my US and UK website, will adding the hreflang tag help google figure out that they are duplicate for a reason and avoid any penalties?
International SEO | | ALLee1