Getting the Proper CCTLDs & Subdomains to Rank in the Proper Countries
-
We seem to be having a really difficult time getting Google to do what we want in regards to getting proper domains indexed in the proper countries. In regards to English language, we tend to see a tremendous amount of crossover between .com, .in, and .co.uk. And yes international targeting is put in place.
For example, both our .com and co.uk websites are in english and when someone enters a search query for one of our particular products, the .com website shows up to users in the UK.
The countries with the hardest time are as follows and typically find them competing primarily with .com, but others can interlope as well.
**All primarily in English: **
- Canada
- UK
- India
- Australia
Any ideas on how we can get this aligned correctly to where we can get the proper CCTLD to show up in the correct country instead of the .com?
-
Hi Greg,
At first sight, it seems to be an issue on where you are searching for that international sites. Keep in mind that Google, since over a year ago, takes your IP to localize our search. So, considering you're searching in the US for your UK site, it's possible that you're the issue there.
Also, I'd take a deep dive at:
- That international configuration, it is one of the most complicated settings in SEO,
- In GSC, for the main site (.com) how much traffic is receiving from your other target countries.
- Are properly linked every site with the others?
- Crawling issues? It could probably be an issue that Googlebot isn't able to crawl entirely all sites.
As always, when it comes to international, these resources come handy:
Hreflang generator - Aleyda Solis International SEO - Moz Learning Center The Guide to International Website Expansion: Hreflang, ccTLDs, & More! - Moz Blog The International SEO Checklist - Moz BlogBest luck.
Hope it helps.
GR
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
-
International SEO: reposting my own posts to different ccTLDs versions of my website
Hello there Moz community! Moz has been super helpful for me and the team, keep up the good work! I have searched online for answers regarding my specific situation, but I haven't found any. I'm asking my fellow Moz users in hopes of an answer. Maybe this thread will help others too. I currently have this domain: https://eco-reusable.com/ I would like to target Ireland and the UK with my keywords so I have just bought eco-reusable**.IE** and eco-reusable**.CO.UK** My questions are: 1. In order to rank as high as possible for Ireland, do I create a new website for eco-reusable.ie using the same pages but changing all the content slightly so it is not duplicate content OR do I point the eco-reusable.ie domain to eco-reusable.com? By having two sites, we will add more hours but we don't mind if that will be of benefit in the longrun for ranking high in Ireland. I have the same question for eco-reusable.co.uk
Local Website Optimization | | Gael_Regnault
If we have to create three websites and make similar content (not duplicate), we will if it will be better for ranking high in ireland for .ie, in the UK for .co.uk and for the rest of the world for .com 2. If we create three websites, can I safely "copy/paste" my blog posts without being punished by Google for duplicate content? If so, how much variation do we have to have for each of the three sites if we are writing blogs that are the same context. Thank you in advance! 🙂0 -
Does anyone experienced to rank a KOREAN Keyword here?
Hi everyone just a quick question is it working if i rank a korean keyword in google search engine?Any tip and advice on how gain more keyword for this.
Local Website Optimization | | invechseo0 -
What is the best way to get found for different areas within my County.
my business is based in the UK in the county of East Sussex. It is not a large County and its neighbour is West Sussex. In terms of local search optimisation I would like to be found when people search for East Susses, West Sussex and Sussex. What is the best way to attack this? e.g. I could use the keywords, "my business is based in East Sussex, but we work across West Sussex too. But would this cover me if someone searched "business in Sussex" . I need some guidance as to the best way to handle this kind of local search conundrum. Thank you
Local Website Optimization | | Web_Prosper_SEO1 -
How to direct the right countries to different URLS.
Hello, I have one site that has 3 different "sites" sitting within. .com/us/shop - Serves the US and Mexico How do i point US and Mexico to .com/us/shop .com/eu/shop - Serves all countries in Europe excluding the UK How do I point Spain, France, Italy, Germany to the .com/eu/shop .com/shop - Serves the UK and all other ROW countries. How do i point UK, China, Russia, Hong Kong to .com/shop Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | MarniFP0 -
Pages ranking outside of sales area
Hi there Moz Community, I work with a client (a car dealership), that mostly serves an area within 50-100 miles at most from their location. A previous SEO company had built a bunch of comparison pages on their website (i.e. 2016 Acura ILX vs. Mercedes-Benz C300). These pages perform well in their backyard in terms of engagement metrics like bounce rate, session duration, etc. However, they pull in traffic from all over the country and other countries as well. Because they really don't have much of an opportunity to sell someone a car across the country that a customer could easily buy at their local dealership, anyone from outside their primary marketing area typically bounces. So, it drags down their overall site metrics plus all of the metrics for these pages. I imagine searchers from outside their primary sales area are seeing their location and saying "whoah that's far and not what I'm looking for." I tried localizing the pages by putting their city name in the title tags, meta descriptions, and content, but that doesn't seem to really be getting rid of this traffic from areas too far away to sell a car to. My worry is that the high bounce rates, low time on site, and general irrelevancy of these pages to someone far away are going to affect them negatively. So, short of trying to localize the content on the page or just deleting these pages all together, I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Do you think that having these high bouncing pages will hurt them? Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | Make_Model1 -
Ranking could be better - wondering why
Hi there, I do SEO for the page conny-ehm.de. I improved the subsite http://www.conny-ehm.de/bewerbungsfotos-freiburg.html to receive an A grade by the on-page grader for the words Bewerbungsfotos Freiburg. However when searching for Bewerbungsfotos Freiburg it is not the subsite that shows up but the main page www.conny-ehm.de. This however get an F in the on-page grader. What should I do to improve the ranking? I do not care which one shows up but I think it should be feasible to get under the top 3. a) Should I improve also the main page for the keywords? I think than I am building an internal concurrence to the subsite which is maybe rather bad. b) Should I place a del canonical on the main site referring to the subsite? c) ??? Thanks for your answers Best regards Marc
Local Website Optimization | | RWW0 -
Which SSL should I get or does it even matter?
We do not have an eCommerce on our site but we do have a worldwide website and a local website, which SSL certs should I get? I found a lot here over at namecheap but not sure if the 10.95 would do just fine or what here: https://www.namecheap.com/security/ssl-certificates/geotrust.aspx ?
Local Website Optimization | | surfsup0 -
Welcome to the Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking sub-forum
Hi guys,We built 2 sites for a client called Kilsaran. 1. Kilsaran.ie targeting Ireland2. Kilsaraninternational.co.uk targeting the ukThe issue is with the uk version of the site is not appearing where it used to be on the SERPs on google.co.uk when you serach for either "Kilsaran" or "Kilsaran International". The Irish version kilsaran.ie now appears first. We have set the GEO targeting for the respective Countries. The .ie site is the original site with the longer History and much more domain authority, links etc There is no manual penalty appearing So my questions is how do I get the English version to appear no.1on google.co.uk? Is it a case of building some local links? or should I implement geo ip detection?Another related question. What is the geo targeting tools function in GWT used for?ThanksRob
Local Website Optimization | | daracreative0