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.
International Seo - Canada
-
Our organization is currently only operating in the USA but will soon be entering the Canadian market.
We did a lot of research and decided that for our needs it would be best to use a subfolder for Canada.
Initially we will be targeting the english speaking community but eventually we will want to expand to the french speaking Canadians as well.
The question is - is there a preferred version in setting up the subfolders:
www.website.org/ca/ -- default will be english
www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french
www.website.org/en-ca/ - english
www.website.org/fr-ca/ - french
www.website.org/ca/en/ -english
www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french
Thanks
-
Hi there!
Ideally if you're going to be targeting another country the best way to go is with a ccTLD, in this case, .ca. In case you're not able then you can go with a directory and at some point switch to the ccTLD (when you're ready) with a migration, when it makes sense for your business.
You can take a look at the different criteria you can take into consideration in this post I wrote some weeks ago, where I also gave my recommendations from a web structure perspective when you target many countries with different languages for each with a generic domain. In this case it would be the following one to maintain a consistency from a country/language perspective and keep the URL structure as simple as possible for a user and crawling perspective:
USA: yourbrand.com
Canada in English: yourbrand.com/en-ca/
Canada in French: yourbrand.com/fr-ca/
In the post I mention you will find also some examples with this different structures and other best practices to follow.
Good luck with the site
Aleyda
-
Thanks Tammy for your response! We do plan on adding the hreflang tag to the different versions.
That being said - I've seen many seos advise to use set up # 2
but I’ve seen many brands do it differently
for example:
apple does it like # 1
ikea like # 3
so I wasn't sure whether there is any real difference.
Regarding tld .ca -- we do own it and plan to redirect it to our subfolder. At the moment we prefer to use that route so we don't split up our link juice among two different sites. Evnetually we can always separate them if we feel it will be better for use
-
Number one, if you also tie in the language tag within the head code. It would also, be preferential if you make sure your content is unique to each sub directory page ( even if the content is similar it should be 100% unique from the main domain and within the anchor text links coming to the /ca/ version.
Interestingly, if you obtain incoming links from .ca domains, to the /ca/ sub directory it will increase the relevance of the intent of Canada traffic.
Why would you not attempt to obtain the tld from .ca? Instead of sub-directories? Each is fine, but when you have a tld with a country specific extension, it increases your indexation rate within the Canada specific directories, citations as well as attracting incoming links.
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
-
Are on-site content carousel bad for SEO?
Hi, I didn't find an answer to my question in the Forum. I attached an example of content carousel, this is what I'm talking about. I understand that Google has no problem anymore with tabbed contents and accordeons (collapsible contents). But now I'm wondering about textual carousels. I'm not talking about an image slider, I'm talking about texts. Is text carousel harder to read for Google than plain text or tabs? Of course, i'm not talking about a carousel using Flash. Let's say the code is proper... Thanks for your help. spfra5
Technical SEO | | Alviau0 -
SEO - New URL structure
Hi, Currently we have the following url structure for all pages, regardless of the hierarchy: domain.co.uk/page, such as domain/blog name. Can you, please confirm the following: 1. What is the benefit of organising the pages as a hierarchy, i.e. domain/features/feature-name or domain/industries/industry-name or domain/blog/blog name etc. 2. This will create too many 301s - what is Google's tolerance of redirects? Is it worth for us changing the url structure or would you only recommend to add breadcrumbs? Many thanks Katarina
Technical SEO | | Katarina-Borovska1 -
Are Expires Headers Detrimental to SEO Health?
My dev was looking into Expires Headers to increase speed, but she don't know the ramifications behind them for SEO. What I found online is really old: https://moz.com/blog/expires-headers-for-seo-why-you-should-think-twice-before-using-them What do SEOs think? Thanks in advance! ~Dana
Technical SEO | | dklarse0 -
JavaScript page loader - SEO impact
Hello all,
Technical SEO | | Lvet
I am working on a site that has a bizarre page load system. All pages get loaded trough the same Javascript snippet, for example: Changing the values in the form changes the page that is loaded. The most incredible thing is that, against my expectations, pages do get indexed by Google.
My question is: "Does loading pages dynamically using JavaScript affect the overall SEO performance?" Why are pages getting indexed? Thank you for shedding light on this.
Cheers
Luca0 -
Static or dynamic category pages for seo
Hi, I'm developing an accommodation site with a limited number of properties in 8 categories. I had been looking at making the properties blog posts and then using category function to show lists but its going to require a lot of customisation and I have seo concerns about the dynamic content as the category page is crucial. As I don't have a lot to add and listings will remain the same my latest thought was to create all as pages. However if I create a page with a list of 12 properties on a category page is there anyway of adding some sorting criteria to that page (would be 7 options - swimming pool, near beach, on site creche, budget, mid-range, luxury) Thanks for any tips Neil
Technical SEO | | neilhenderson0 -
Target: blank. Does it make an SEO difference?
I've notice many sites MOZ included no longer use the target: blank attribute. I think that's what it's called. Basically when a link on your site opens a new tab in the browser as opposed to replacing the browser window you are in. Given that MOZ think of everything, I would love to hear opinions on this.
Technical SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
SEO value of InDesign pages?
Hi there, my company is exploring creating an online magazine built with Adobe's InDesign toolset. If we proceeded with this, could we make these pages "as spiderable" as normal html/css webpages? Or are we limited to them being less spiderable, or not at all spiderable?
Technical SEO | | TheaterMania1 -
What is the best website structure for SEO?
I've been on SEOmoz for about 1 month now and everyone says that depending on the type of business you should build up your website structure for SEO as 1st step. I have a new client click here ( www version doesn't work)... some bugs we are fixing it now. We are almost finished with the design & layout. 2nd question have been running though my head. 1. What would the best url category for the shop be /products/ - current url cat ex: /products/door-handles.html 2. What would you use for the main menu as section for getting the most out of SEO. Personally i am thinking of making 2-3 main categories on the left a section where i can add content to it (3-4 paragraphs... images maybe a video).So the main page focuses on the domain name more and the rest of the sections would focus on specific keywords, this why I avoid cannibalization. Main keyword target is "door handles" Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | mosaicpro0