Should I establish a Webmaster Tools site per language?
-
Our company services multiple regions. Our website is setup for France, International (en-gb), Spanish, United States and China. The websites share a common template and format and menu tree but each has unique content.
Should I use a single Google Webmaster Tools site for all of these or establish each of them as a unique website?
-
In theory - yes, but here is how look in practicle:
http://www.stateofdigital.com/google-broken/
Just check examples with "bandwagon" or "carro". I'm not sure how this happen but i can often see similar results since our Bulgarian language is close to Russian. So in bulgarian SERP i can see sometimes russian results. Of course result is relevant, just different country.I also have site related to Greek language. But this site can be visited from Cyprus and other worldwide locations due keywords. I can attach SearchConsole and Analytics screenshots if you don't believe it.
-
What is currently taking place is that in the US I am competing with my international english website for top spot and the international english website often wins. I was hoping that I could assign international targetting to each and that the effort would help Google point users to the most relavent content but according to https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en:
"This setting is only for geographic data. If you're targeting users in different locations—for example, if you have a site in French that you want users in France, Canada, and Mali to read—don't use this tool to set France as a geographic target. A good example of where it would be useful is for a restaurant website: if the restaurant is in Canada, it's probably not of interest to folks in France. But if your content is in French and is of interest to people in multiple countries/regions, it's probably better not to restrict it."
So, to answer my previous question it looks like this will often lock the results into the country.
-
I'm not sure because Canadian Quebec users for example can see .fr results in their SERP. Same can happen with Latin/South America and .es results. Just because language...
-
Thank you for your answer. In our case the following applies:
"If your website is using different folders with gTLDS (example.com/de;example.com/es;example.com/fr) - yes you can verify them and setup to specific geo-location."
For now, we won't be implementing HREFLANG tags but I am considering assigning each website in Webmaster Tools an International Targeting setting. If I assign this value, for example the french website to France, I shouldn't necessarily see the French website show up less in, let's say, Canadian French searches, correct?
-
- If your website is is using different ccTLD (.de/.es/.fr) domains - yes you can verify them and set to specific geo-location.
- If your website is using different gTLDS subdomains (de.example.com/es.example.com/fr.example.com) - yes you can verify them and setup to specific geo-location.
- If your website is using different folders with gTLDS (example.com/de;example.com/es;example.com/fr) - yes you can verify them and setup to specific geo-location.
- If your website is using url parameters (example.com/?hl=de;example.com/?hl=es;example.com/?hl=fr) - no you can verify them only once and setup to only one geo-location.
Whatever your structure is - please use hreflang to avoid duplicate content and provide even better experience for users and bots:
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
-
Hreflang - Is it needed even if the site is only one language
This topic came up in a discussion I had with a fellow SEO colleague, I don't believe it makes sense to have Hreflang if you don't have a second language but according to my friend they mentioned that it is great if your only targeting one country. Any opinions out in the Moz community? It seems like overkill to me
On-Page Optimization | | JonAlonsoCNC0 -
Reducing number of site pages?
Hi, I am looking through my site structure and I have a lot of pages left over from the days of article keywords. Probably 7 or 8 years ago, someone sold my husband on article key word pages. I have slowly gotten rid of a lot of them as they have fallen out out of the ranks. I would like to get rid of the rest, probably 5 or 6 pages. Will it hurt my rankings to delete pages and redirect them? My customers really like the simplicity of our site and I want to keep it that way, plus clean up flags that Moz is telling me is a problem. I think its easier to keep less pages top notch than have to worry with a lot of them. Especially since my customers aren't viewing them. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Site Structure question?
Hey guys, Sorry for posting this again but the last thread got a bit too wayword. I'll sum it up better here. We're producing a WordPress theme every 3-6 months. Each is differently niched (eg: ecommerce, restaurant, magazine, etc...) Which option is better for our products going forward (even the ones we've yet to launch...eg...which method will get future projects more "trust juice" from google): A: create a subfolder for each theme eg: http://bigbangthemes.net/TicketLab_WP/wordpress-ticket-system & http://bigbangthemes.net/Showoff_WP/landing-page/ **This is currently what we're doing.**B: have them all under bigbangthemes.net/wordpress-themes/ eg: bigbangthemes.net/wordpress-themes/wordpress-ticket-system & bigbangthemes.net/wordpress-themes/showoff-startup-agency-theme Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | andy.bigbangthemes0 -
Duplicate Content - Bulk analysis tool?
Hi I wondered if there's a tool to analyse duplicate content - within your own site or on external sites, but that you can upload the URL's you want to check in bulk? I used Copyscape a while ago, but don't remember this having a bulk feature? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | BeckyKey0 -
301 Redirect to external site
Hi guys, We have a client who is getting their website redesigned through us. They are discontinuing couple of their services which will not get featured in the new site. They are fairly well ranked for these services and my client wishes to 301 redirect these pages to an external site owned by his friend so that they benefit out of the ranking. The question is: Will my client's website's general ranking get affected due to 301 redirecting to an external site? The external site is not spammy or red-flagged by Google (at the moment, at least). Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | RameshNair
Ramesh Nair0 -
Moving from Local to National Audience - Ecommerce Site
I have an e-commerce site that was optimized for local results. We’ve been receiving traffic from all over the nation so recently we've decided to optimize the site for a more national audience by removing the local business indicators. I have below a list of things that I’ve done, I’m contemplating doing and other various questions. One note I want to make is that we offer installation services – which we would still like to rank locally for. I have done the following: Remove [city] from all of the title tags (except for the installation pages) Removed NAP (name, address, ph#) from site wide footer – I’m not sure if I should have done this. Inserted NAP at the bottom of the body content of the installation pages Questions Right now my installation pages are located in a sub-folder (ex: www.mydomain.com/installation-services). Should I create a sub-domain for installations (ex: city.mydomain.com/installation-services)? My thoughts are that it would make that sub-domain all about our installation services while keeping our root domain focused on our products and not dilute it with installations. However, this sub-domain will have less juicy juice. What should I do with our G+ business page? In the back end of the business G+, there are boxes I can check for “my business has service areas where I visit my customers at their location” and “I serve customers at my business address.” If checked, will these make my site less likely to rank Nationally? We DO have a storefront and we DO visit people to do installations, so I would like these to be checked but not if it hurts my national rankings. There are local “7 pack” results for my main keywords and their installations. So, I would want my root domain to show up locally for “widgets in [city]” and my sub-domain to show up for “widget installation in [city]". Is it against Google’s TOS to create another G+ business page for the sub-domain? Is this even possible? Do I even need to do this or will Google know that I have a sub-domain all about installation and have my site show up in the local results? Is there anything in GWT that I need to make sure to have done? I put the geographic target to United States. Is there anything else? Of course, there is always the option of creating a new domain and optimize it for the installations. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | SWWebTeam0 -
Can Cascading DropDown HELP improve site architucture?
Our online stores is selling furnace filters. http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com We have 4 different qualities furnace filters and each of them are avaible in almost 50 different sizes. My store is setup with almost 200 different products. ( 4 filtres X 50 sizes) None of them have variable. I'm looking for a solution to help customers to find there furnace filter size fast and easy on our HOME page. I find this cascading dropdown option http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/CascadingDropDown/CascadingDropDown.aspx where I wiil setup 3 options to select: filter width filter lenght filter depth Will it be the best options? Now my store is setup with categories and it is not the best solution. http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com This was a lots of work to create 200 different products. The reason I did this is because when searching in search engine, vistors will use such keywords: 16x20x4 filter 20x25x2 furnace filter a/c filter 10x20x1 replacement filter online 20x20x1 16x25x5 filter toronto and so on... Must keywords request in search engine will included the furnace filter size. Thank you for your help, BigBlaze
On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050 -
Website Speed Testing Tools
I have been experimenting with a number of plugins to speed up the loading of my wordpress site and find that website speed testing tools are all over the map when it comes to results. Even the same tool can produce vastly different results. Does anyone have experience with one that is both dependable and consistent?
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340