Best practices for country homepage
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Hi,
What are the SEO best practices for redirecting to the correct language site based on geographic location?
Right now, we're using a 302 redirect to point users to the right country landing page.
User reaches site: domain.com > Server detects location > 302 redirect to domain.com/french
We'd like to optimize the site for all languages, but which country gets the SEO rank for the domain.com?
Thanks for your help!
Roya
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OZNAPPIES' idea is a good one, and the technical advice is totally sound.
Here's another idea: show the English language homepage by default, but determine the user's preferred language. If your site supports the identified language, include & display a hyperlinked text-box/graphic-banner suggesting the visitor "view this site in {the user's identified language}" which links to the homepage for that language.
Regarding which country gets the SEO rank for the "domain.com" - it depends on where your links come from, your overall domain authority, the page authority for your targeted page, and the geolocation factors referenced here.
The same site could rank well in multiple countries, by the way. For example, this page on "diagnostic troubleshooting" ranks well in the U.S., the U.K., France, etc. However, if you have the resources to make targeted sites for each language/territory, I recommend you do that.
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If you want domain.com to get the rank for domain.com/french you can set in the head section of ./french .italian etc to pass the juice back to the main site. I would think that <a (anchors)="" would="" be="" better="" than="" 302's="" as="" these="" are="" not="" temp="" redirects="" but="" links="" to="" language="" variations.="" i="" also="" ensure="" that="" have="" a="" tag="" in="" the="" html="" section="" <span=""><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="fr-fr" lang="fr-fr"></a>
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