Multilingual SEO subdirectories structure
-
Hi,
I have to optimize a domain for Google for 3 languages (.com with subdirectories)(Dutch, German and English) content is only served on domain.com/nl, .com/de and .com/en NO CONTENT is served on domain.com.
How do I exclude domain.com from getting in Google? Because there is no content on the top level only on subdirectories.Is there a rule we have to add to htaccess? Or Robots.txt by disallow all and next lines allow /nl, allow /de and allow /en?
Thanks a lot!
Kind regards,
Alain Nijholt
-
Why don't you use the domain.com to serve a "choose language" page - store the choice in the cookie and for subsequent visits redirect to the chosen language. Example: http://www.volvocars.com. This is a pretty standard approach in Belgium to serve both Dutch/French content on the same domain.
rgds,
Dirk
-
No problem.
Consider .nl as main domain as well.
-
Never thought about serving the dutch content on .com and not .com/nl Just because I find it looks strange, and I am more a fan of multilingual SEO with .nl, .de and the .com for English. The reason why we have subdirectories is because of the links, rankings etcetera. Maybe in a existent situation Dutch language on .com isn't that strange (if I look at it in an other way).
Well thanks you've helped me sofar, I will ask on Dutch communities before I'll decide.
Cheers!
-
I say go with your main language on main domain. So, in your case it'd be Dutch.
Personally, since you really want Dutch to be main one, I'd have yourdomain.nl as main domain and then put different language versions in subfolders. Of course, it'll depend on current rankings, links and so on.
-
Well the case is that the main market is not English but Dutch. I had the Enlish content served on the main domain. And in practice the main domain ranks the strongest and I was faced with the head domain ranking stronger than the prefered domain .com/nl So I chose to put the English content on .com/en and my this ranking issue was solved.
It feels better to serve the English content on main domain, but with Dutch language as main language this situation occurs. But would you also choose in this Dutch situation to serve the English content on the main domain and suggest I have to build more and better links to outperform the main domain to prevent it from ranking above .com/nl?
Thanks,
-
Well, I would have an international version (usually english) on main domain and then put other languages into subdirectories.
There are lots of good content about international SEO in MOZ community - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=moz%20international%20seo
You might wanna check those out, see what people say. You'll most likely find useful info
-
Well you've mentioned "even though the way you want to do it is a bit strange"
So I am curious how did you apply this yourself on a multilingual domain with subdirectories? Did you? And what would be the "other way" the one you find less strange?
Thanks,
-
Why is it an issue? That would do exactly what you're asking for (as far as i understand). It would let crawlers to see that domain is indeed existent, they can touch it, taste it and so on. But it won't be in google SERPs. At the same time you still can have JS, htaccess rules or whatever to redirect to proper subdirectory based on locale.
-
Hi Dimitri,
Well I am sorry, I was wrong. Indeed you wrote noindex follow.
Still I find that a bit strange way to solve this issue. How do you handle this issue in a multiligual subdirectories structure?
-
Sorry, i meant noindex follow.
-
Hi Dimitri,
Thanks for your quick response!
Well that is strange! I would never try the noindex,nofollow on the top level domain. Not in my wildest dreams
Is there an other solution, one that makes sense? Do not want to kill the domain in Google
Thanks,
-
Hello, my friend.
Well, even though the way you want to do it is a bit strange, the answer is to use meta robots. noindex follow. It needs to be in head tag like so:
<title>...</title>
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's Structuring Your Work Week
Hi I wanted some feedback on how other SEO's structure their time. I feel as though I'm falling into the trap of fire fighting with tasks rather than working on substantial projects... I don't feel as though I'm being as effective as I could be. Here's our set up - Ecommerce site selling thousands of products - more of a generalist with 5 focus areas. 2 x product/merchandising teams - bring in new products, write content/merchandise products Web team - me (SEO), Webmaster, Ecommcerce manager Studio - Print/Email marketing/creative/photography. A lot of my time is split between working for the product teams doing KWD research, briefing them on keywords to use, checking meta. SEO Tasks - Site audits/craws, reporting Blogs - I try and do a bit as I need it so much for SEO, so I've put a content/social plan together but getting a lot of things actioned is hard... I'm trying to coordinate this across teams Inbetween all that, I don't have much time to work on things I know are crucial like a backlink/outreach plan, blog/user guide/content building etc. How do you plan your time as an SEO? Big projects? Soon I'm going to pull back from the product optimisation & try focussing on category pages, but for an Ecommerce site they are extremely difficulty to promote. Just asking for opinions and advice 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey3 -
Brightcove SEO Best Practices?
My company has decided to go with Brightcove as a video platform so we can better monetize all of the video content we create and better customize the experience as well. We have a pretty decent YouTube presence, and I won't let them stop using that because it would totally alienate us from part of our audience. So I was hoping someone could help me with the following: Are we able to keep videos hosted on YouTube as well as Brightcove without any risk of duplicate content? If we use the Brightcove player to embed videos in our on-site content, are we hindering potential organic search visibility? On the embeds, it's looking like it's using an iframe in our content (https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/sativa-indica-and-hybrid-whats-the-difference-between-cannabis-ty) - We're using a Brightcove WP plugin for the embed, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on a better way to implement/if this is even an issue at all. Are there any other general best practices/insights anyone has working with this platform? I found this article on their site, but I was wondering if there was anything else I should consider. Thank you in advance for any insights/answers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidkaralisjr0 -
95% of organic traffic lands in my homepage, despite having a 250 page website with a "seo optimized" hierarchical structure. Any suggestion as to what might be happening?
Challenging issue All the "usual suspects" have been discarded: all pages included in google index, no google penalties, metas optimized, kw's segregated by pages/cluster of pages to avoid cannibalization... BUT, we know we are missing something website is www.e-florex.com and is an e-commerce site based on magento Any ideas you might think are worth exploring? Thanks in advance for your help Juan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | juanmarn0 -
Hypothetical SEO Question
I am running a website for a law firm. It has been running for many, many years and has plenty of backlinks and authority. I then create a standalone website for a specific type of case that the law firm is handling. On that website, I have a page that copies some of the attorney bio text from the main website. How much of a negative impact will this standalone website have on the main website as far as duplicate content issues are concerned? Please explain your answer in detail. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | goldbergweismancairo0 -
SEO site Review
Does anyone have suggestions on places that provide in depth site / analytics reviews for SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gordian0 -
Recommended SEO companies
I'm trying to find SEO companies to partner with. Are they any you can recommend that are near San Diego?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RoniHicksAssociates0 -
Real Estate Local SEO
My site hovers on page 2 of google for the key search phrase. I have a blog that gets updated often, I have genuine links coming in, I promote on all social media channels, I do email campaigns, I have a site map, I have my local address on what I believe are the most important sites like Yelp, Manta, Google Local etc. All this and my site is still on page 2 while other sites with less of everything are on page 1. What is missing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Google News URL Structure
Hi there folks I am looking for some guidance on Google News URLs. We are restructuring the site. A main traffic driver will be the traffic we get from Google News. Most large publishers use: www.site.com/news/12345/this-is-the-title/ Others use www.example.com/news/celebrity/12345/this-is-the-title/ etc. www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/12345/this-is-the-title/ www.example.com/celebrity-news/12345/this-is-the-title/ (Celebrity is a channel on Google News so should we try and follow that format?) www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/this-is-the-title/12345/ www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/this-is-the-title-12345/ (unique ID no at the end and part of the title URL) www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/celebrity-name/this-is-the-title-12345/ Others include the date. So as you can see there are so many combinations and there doesnt seem to be any unity across news sites for this format. Have you any advice on how to structure these URLs? Particularly if we want to been seen as an authority on the following topics: fashion, hair, beauty, and celebrity news - in particular "celebrity name" So should the celebrity news section be www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/celebrity-name/this-is-the-title-12345/ or what? This is for a completely new site build. Thanks Barry
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deepti_C0