My tip here is to use this geotarget feature only, and if only, you want to target ONE specific country. Otherwise, let Google decide.

In my experience, Google does not ranking lower longer URLs. I know Rand published once a correlation study that shows this, but I can show you many examples that I've used the first approach and got good rankings. Same for the second approach.

I think you should keep your website architecture solid, following the correct path and not removing one level.

Another thing is that dropping that specific level may cause you some duplicate URLs problem. You will need some database check before enable each URLs. Pay attention if you choose the second approach.

Hi Jimmy,

Any chance you split that traffic by Mobile vs Desktop and then on Mobile traffic check the direct traffic by device? Sometimes it is related to a specific device or browser that is sending the wrong referral data.

I remember this Cyrus post, about Bing traffic (https traffic) showing as direct traffic. And there is also a post by Shahzad Abbas from Define Media on iOS traffic messing up with analytics reports. Maybe you can read those and have some insights.

Cheers,

Fabio

Just to let you know that the page was indexed in less than 24hrs. We didn't use Tony's tiip (share on G+) but we did all the following:

• Used GWT tool - fetch as googlebot
• Submit the URL using the button that appears after fetching as googlebot
• Included some sidewide links to the page
• Included the page in our sitemap.xml

Thanks all folks who added some insights and tips!