International SEO - auto geo-targetting
-
I read with interest the recent post on international SEO and the top level domain architecture approaches to local content:
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview#jtc135670
The issue I have is a little more complex:
-
The business sells a wide variety of products (37) but one is by far and away the biggest and most popular. This means that due to the link profile of the various country sites and HQ site, search engines categorise the site according to this product (this is easily seen with the Google Adplanner) and the other product lines suffer as a result.
-
The current architecture is to have a .com site and then individual ccTLD country sites, again with all products on each site. This creates an issue as in most countries the brand is not strong (compared to the keyword names and search volumes of the products) and so it is not that effective in generating organic traffic. The .com hogs much of the inbound links and the country sites themselves are not that well optimised for a number of reasons.
A proposed solution has been to leverage the strength of the .com and the search volume for the product names, and to produce thematic sites based on each product:
productA.brand.com
productB.brand.com
productC.brand.comIn this way, the sites, content and link profiles are aligned around the more desirable products and we can expect improved organic search performance as a result (or at least ensure relevant traffic finds the relevant content fast).
In terms of providing localised content, the plan was to use content mirroring and to then assign each content mirror to a specific geo-location using the webmaster tools console (and other SE equivilents). This is shown I think in one of Rand's videos.
ProductA.brand.com/de/de Germany site for product A with unique German content
ProductA.brand.com/fr/fr French site for product A with unique French contentThis makes economic sense to me as to utilise the ccTLDs would result in hundreds of separate sites with all the licence and server considerations that entails. For example, for product A alone we would have to produce:
productA.brand.de
productA.brand.fr
productA.brand.cn
productA.brand.jp
ect ect ectThis just would not be sustainable in license/server costs alone across 37 products and 24 countries.
However, I saw in a recent presentation at SES London that (auto) geo-targeting is risky, often doesn't work well for SEO and can even be seen as cloaking.
I think the above strategy could still work, but perhaps we should avoid the use of auto-geotargetting altogether and hope the search engines alone do their job in getting users to the right content as we optimise the unique content for each country (and if they don't, ensure our desgn, UX and country selectors do the job instead).
SEO guru consensus is to use the ccTLD if you own it, but as described above, in the real world that just isn't possible or practical given the company's strategic position.
Which leads to the final question- we do own the brand ccTLDs- if they are directed back to the content mirror for the country on the .com, is there any SEO benefit in doing so aside from directing back any link juice associated with the domain)?
-
-
Hi Keri, Steve and Russ,
I'm glad to weigh in on this if Steve needs a little more help. In short, my opinion is going to be very close to Russ, but I'm going to articulate it in a different way:
You talk about building a product based strategy rather than branding. I'd have to say that building the brand is going to be more important.
The structure that Russ proposes allows you to leverage the authority of the whole site, rather than starting from scratch. And isn't that going to be better for your best product as well as those you have deemed secondary?
-
Hi! We're going through some of the older unanswered questions and seeing if people still have questions or if they've gone ahead and implemented something and have any lessons to share with us. Can you give an update, or mark your question as answered?
Thanks!
-
As an update (and perhaps by asking reminding me of something I once read), IP delivered content isn't the way forward. Spiders by definition originate with their own IP and would therefore be directed to content for that locale.
Strategically I think the solution works (from an SEO perspective the categorization element alone is important) but IP served content is not the way forward.
The core question is still brand vs product site then... arsebiscuits!
-
I guess another element to consider if using auto-detecting an IP and serving up content is how links are made into the new site.
One excerpt (from the 'Art of SEO no less) indicates that links from the target country will serve to identify the site as being targetted for that country. Makes perfect sense.
But- if you serve dynamic content, then an inbound link could conceivably just be made to the core domain rather then the absolute link with the country mirror parameters:
i.e.
link from German site --> productA.brand.com (and then the user gets re-directed to country mirror)
or
link from German site --> productA.brand.com/de/de (absolute link)
In the first example I'm not sure where the link juice would ultimately be attributed to.
-
Hi Russ and thanks for the reply.
That is basically the current model but the products themselves are then split further across business streams which is an issue and could be improved with your suggestion.
However, the real issue is the weakness of the brand in many countries (compared to the brand value and awareness of the main products which are not unique to the company). When this is coupled with one of 37 product lines being so much more well known then the others, each local site becomes 'categorized' according to this major product.
Looking at the link profile of a particular country site (or checking it on the Google Adplanner) you see that the site categories (i.e. how the site is viewed by search engines) are based around this one product and this hinders performance for the other products served on the domain.
This is why we want to create individual domains/sites (on sub-domains) for each product, so the content and link profile will be dedicated to each individual product. In other words, a product rather then brand based site.
The worry with auto-geotargetting and serving up content based on IP via content mirrors is that this could be seen as cloaking and may affect search performance.
Although, that said, IBM seem to do a good job of serving localised content and using their ccTLD portfolio (ibm.de --> ibm.com/de/de ). The only thing is they are so clearly a brand first site and don't need to rely on search to generate traffic.
I hope that is a bit clearer- this is a nightmare topic to articulate!
-
Perhaps I have misread, but what is the problem with doing...
brand.ccTLD/productA/
Where all ccTLD's point to the same server and the only thing different between the two is that when language differences are in place, it grabs from a separate database table and language-file based on the ccTLD. This would allow you to keep just 1 server, still have keyword-optimized content, etc.
You wouldn't be able to really build off of the domain authority, but separating into sub-domains will essentially segregate the authority as well.
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
-
Who is the best SEO expert in the World?
Hey everyone, i am creating a blog post on Top SEO Experts in the World. I need your recommendation who is in the top 10 list? Your suggestions is highly appreciated for me. Thanks!
International SEO | | gxpl090 -
Multi National Company that Doesn't Want to Implement International SEO
I have got an interesting situation where I have a client who wants to merge two ccTLD's into one. They currently have .fi and .com and they want to merge both sites to .com .fi is for finland and .com for USA. They want to merge the sites and the original plan was to use subfolders for each country and pair with hreflang. However the team now wants to merge both sites with NO subfolders differentiating between finland or the US. My understanding of International SEO that this is the most opposite from best practices, but is there any specific reasons why they wouldn't want to do this? I'm struggling to find any specific reasons that I can cite to the client that would argue why we should at least do a subfolder or some sort of international seo strategy.
International SEO | | JKhoo1 -
Question regarding international SEO
Hi there, I have a question regarding international SEO and the APAC region in particular. We currently have a website extension .com and offer our content in English. However, we notice that our website hardly ranks in Google in the APAC region, while one of the main languages in that region is also English. I figure one way would be to set up .com/sg/ (or .com/au/ or .com/nz/), but then the content would still be in English. So wouldn't that be counted as duplicate content? Does anyone have experience in improving website rankings for various English-speaking countries, without creating duplicate content? Thanks in advance for your help!
International SEO | | Billywig0 -
Setting up international site subdirectories in GSC as separate properties for better geotargeting?
My client has an international website with a subdirectory structure for each country and language version - eg. /en-US. At present, there is a single property set up for the domain in Google Search Console but there are currently various geotargeting issues I’m trying to correct with hreflang tags. My question is, is it still recommended practise and helpful to add each international subdirectory to Google Search Console as an individual property to help with correct language and region tagging? I know there used to be properly sets for this but haven’t found any up to date guidance on whether setting up all the different versions as their own properties might help with targeting. Many thanks in advance!
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
International SEO Setuo
Hi Guys i have a client who is looking to be found in multiple English speaking countries I.e .co.uk, .com and .com.au At first I advised they would need unique content for each to avoid duplication but then the client showed me this site http://welleco.com/ this is setup via shopify on a multisite. All the sites have the same content and are all indexed. My question is can this be done in WordPress? Via something like WPML. And would it need to have seperte hosting and a seperate site or can this be done by something like IP redirect. Can someone advise if this is good practice or maybe suffer other ways? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | nezona1 -
How to handle different content on same domain internationally?
Dear community, I have encountered a unique situation and I am unsure as how to proceed, I have a U.S. based website for intentions of this question is www.musicstore.com. The customer has decided to offer their products up for sale internationally, however, has two business requirements, one is that his international presence differs with product offering and content then the domestic version and two, that they both live on the same domain of www.musicstore.com without any reference to offering a differing international presence. Many of his products are offered for purchase directly overseas, while not against his suppliers rules, it is frowned upon. All this said, now to my question. I'm currently running a Magento two website install. With GeoIP setting which version of www.musicstore.com is presented. Do I have to worry about different content being displayed on the same exact url even though the experience is completely location based? If it is a concern, any risks I should be concerned with. I could possibly do something along the lines of www.musicstore.com/in/ while this is not ideal for the customer, if it prevents many larger issues I'd steer the customer this way. I just want my customer to be able to sell his product internationally without upsetting his suppliers or making Google go, what does this site actually have. Hopefully I explained my question well enough for those who can help to understand. Please ask if you need any more information. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
International SEO | | swarming0 -
Shabaka domain - Impact on SEO
Hi All, I heard about shabaka domain names recently and am not sure if getting a shabaka top-level domain with arabic content help from a SEO stand-point? Currently my Arabic website is on this domain: http://www.tcf-me.ae/ Do you think it is a good idea to get a shabaka domain to target the GCC countries on our Arabic website? Or does it not matter? Thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help.
International SEO | | LaythDajani1 -
Weird Geo Rankings - Help Please!
So I've got a site - a .com, hosted in the USA with no geo target set in webmaster tools. I'm from the UK where the site ranks no 6 for its main keyword but in the USA it's ranking no 38. That's pretty much it! I can't get my head around why this would be - the US market is the main market for the product/service so I am thinking maybe it's just more competitive but surely many of the sites ranking in the States would be in the UK too. .... it's such a difference in rank! PS, the site was no 14 in google.com until penguin 2.0 but dropped although its .co.uk ranking has remained - another thing that has left me dumb founded! The website is www.options-trading.com and the keyword is "options trading". Any ideas?!
International SEO | | marcus810