Question regarding geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools.
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I understand that it's possible to target both domains/subdomains and subfolders to different geographical regions in GWT.
However, I was wondering about the effect of targeting the domain to a single country, say the UK. Then targeting subfolders to other regions (say the US and France).
e.g.
www.domain.com -> UK
www.domain.com/us -> US
www.domain.com/fr -> Franceetc
Would it be better to leave the main domain without a geographical target but set geo-targeting for the subfolders? Or would it be best to set geo-targeting for both the domain and subfolders.
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Hi David,
Thanks for your response. That makes perfect sense.
I assumed that to be the case but thought it was worth checking before making any changes.
I suppose by adding appropriate hreflang="x" mark-up combined with the geo-targeting of root domain and subfolders - that should be enough to inform search engines of our intended geographical targets.
Strangely there wasn't a lot of information out there about this specific question - so thanks again.
Yusuf
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Hi there, your suggested setup is perfectly fine. You're able to, and allowed to target the root domain to a specific country, while targeting subfolders to others. The geotargeting on the main domain's URLs will be overridden if you specify a different target for subfolders, for example:
if you target www.domain.com -> UK, then
- www.domain.com/this -> UK
- www.domain.com/that -> UK
and if you target www.domain.com/us -> US, then
- www.domain.com/us/this -> US
- www.domain.com/us/that -> US
Does that make sense?
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