Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
SEO for Subdomains for different languages .com/fr, .com/es
-
Hi All,
I was wondering how best to to approach optimisation of a site that exists on a single .com domain, but has different subfolders for different languages.
The site is a .com and it has subfolders for French, Spanish, Russian and English. The business is situated in France and the vast majority of clients are French and English speakers.
I've read that it's possible to geo target these subfolders using webmaster tools however I believe this is an inferior method of optimisation than having tld's. Just wondered if anyone had experience of htis and could provide any advice ? As they won't be rebuilding the site for another year or so I wondered if there were any quick wins?
My second question is to do with how best to set these campaigns up within SEO Moz. would it be better to track at a subdomain or subfolder leverl (for different languages)?
If someone could advise I would greatly appreciate it!
Thanks,
vantresca
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thanks very much for the helpful response. I agree with your recommendation, linking building across authoritative sites for each of the languages targeted is probably the best way to approach this.
Interestingly, Google Analytics indicates that the vast majority of French (language) visitors are indeed from France, with less than 6% coming from other french speaking countries, so I think it makes sense to register a country top level domain in future to ensure the best chance at competitive visibility here (and in the UK, US).
What you've written about Yandex is very interesting. I myself am new to global SEO so will be doing research. I will also email seomoz to see exactly how best to handle the subfolders.
Thanks again!
-
Hi Vantresca.
I think it is better to clear thing about how International SEO works.
First of all I see a contradiction between your question (when you talk about geo targeting folders or better using cTld), then in this answer here above, when you talk about languages.
Remember: to target a country is not the same as targeting a language speaking population. The example you give (French) is quite clear about this difference.
That means that if you are targeting a language and the people talking that language, the first thing you must discard is the use of an Country level domain name, because that would mean you are targeting the country of the cTld (.es.> Spain - .fr = France...).
But that mean also that you should not have to indicate to Google to geo target any subfolder for any particular country. Ideally every language folder of the site should have to be crawled and shown globally, in order to be found by all the people speaking those language (i.e.: French, Canadians of Quebec, but also all the African nation speaking French..
More over, you cannot use any classic geo targeting signal, as currency, addresses or else.
And, also, you should pay attention to the version of the language used, as - for instance - the french spoken in Quebec is really different from the one spoken in Paris. In that case you should use the most "standardized" version of french, a neutral french.
So... if your site has French, Spanish, English (or Russian I'll talk later), and you want those languages ranks well in every possible country those languages are spoken, the only tactic you have to use is link building, creating as much campaigns as the languages are and not thinking in outreaching sites from France, again taking French as an example, but from sites of every country were French is an official language.
About Russian, my suggestion is to prioritize the migration to an .ru domain if you think to compete in Yandex, as Yandex give a clear preference to Russian country level domains.
Related to your question about if it is possible to create a campaign on a subfolder level, honestly I cannot answer that question, as I've never had that need. But I would address the helpteam regarding this doubt, because they can tell you in details if Roger-bot will crawl your data (as you have requested) or not. You can contact them at help@seomoz.org
-
Hi Kane
We're a Belgian marketing and communicationagency and we're using SEOmoz for multi-language sites. We've got the same question as vantresca.
We'd like to run a campaign for www.masser.be. This site exists both in Dutch (NL) and French (FR). We were also thinking to run seperate campaigns. One for www.masser.be/nl and one for www.masser.be/fr.
Since you were going to defer someone else's opinion in this multi-language questions, we were wondering if you did so already?
Kind regards and thanks already.
Kim
-
Sorry, I can't help much re: multiple languages and how you should be tracking. I would probably track each subfolder as a separate campaign, but I'm going to defer to someone else's opinion on this question, since I don't deal with multi-language sites.
-
Thanks very much for this Kane!
This article is very helpful as I do think geo targeting can be limiting for languages like French that aren't restricted to a single geographic region.
In terms of the campaign set up within SEO moz, is there any point in tracking sub folders separately? I am considering geographic targeting for the russian language version (.com/ru) and it probably makes sense to track this separately for visibility on Yandex, right? What do you think?
-
Google Webmaster Blog posted this recently: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html
They don't explicitly say that doing this will result in 'geo-targeting,' but if a site is presented as the "version for users in Mexico, in Spanish", you can bet that Google will likely be showing that content to Google.com.mx searches.
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
-
Changing the language of the website meta title and description?
Hello, Moz community! I'm planning to change the language of my website title and description from English to rank better for queries on the local language. Do you think this would increase the local language ranking? And in case I need to switch back to English, let's say in 2021, would it be difficult to regain the current rankings? Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. Thank you!
International SEO | | vhubert2 -
International SEO - how likely is it autoredirect via IP Address will impact rankings?
Hello, We're looking to internationalise our site so that US visitors will see the US branded version while everyone else will see the global version (currently at .com). This question specifically is about location-based auto-redirects. The literature I've read (including Google) recommends against auto-redirection: "Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language. These redirections could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site." Insofar as I understand it the theory goes as follows. Google crawls mainly from the US Auto-redirecting by US IP to the US domain will also redirect the Googlebot crawlers Because of this the crawlers will only see the US site / domain and not original .com website Crawlers can't index what they can't see Drop in rankings for the original site However, one of my colleagues has pointed out to me a company which does use auto-redirects. If a user is in the UK and type in their website they will be redirected to the UK version of the site, US will be US etc. I have checked their rankings and they are still ranking highly for relevant terms. I have been asked why they have been able to do this without impacting their visibility. Any ideas? Given their success have the risks of auto-redirecting have been overstated? How can we ensure US visitors land on the correct internationalised domain without auto-redirects in place? Looking forward to your thoughts on this as well as your experiences. Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Direct traffic is up 2100% (due to a bot/crawler I believe)
Hi, The direct traffic to website www.webgain.dk has increased by over 2100% recently. I can see that most of it is from US (my target audience is in Denmark and the website is in danish).
International SEO | | WebGain
What can I do about this? All this traffic gives my website a bounce rate of 99.91% for direct traffic. I believe it is some sort of bot/crawler. 2100percentboost.png0 -
How to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
Dear all, what is the best way to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries? What must I add to my code of websites my .nl domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? What must I add to my code of websites my .be domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | HMK-NL3 -
Should product-pages with different currencies have different URLs?
Here is a question that should be of interest for small online merchants selling internationally in multiple currencies. When, based on geolocation, a product-page is served with different currencies, should a product-page have a different URL for each currency? Thanks.
International SEO | | AdrienOLeary0 -
Optimizing terms with accents/tildes in Spanish
Hello all, quick question. We are optimizing for a keyword that includes an accent in Spanish. Is it better to use the accented or regular form (i.e. inglés vs. ingles)? Also, is there any distinction between accents (áéí...) and the ene (ñ) in terms of strategy/best practices? Does this accent issue have a huge impact on ranking?
International SEO | | CuriosityMedia0 -
Country specific domains pointing to a .com site
Hello, I am new to seo so please be easy if this happens to be a "silly" question. My company has a .com site. We are expanding into global markets, focusing on specific countries right now. General question: Would I be penalized for duplicate content if I purchased country-specific domains and pointed them to the .com site? Thanks, Jim
International SEO | | jimmer0 -
Australia specific SEO tips?
For those who are conducting SEO here in Australia: A lot of the info I read, and there is a lot, is generally from the States or UK it seems. Are there any things in particular I should look out for when doing SEO in Australia? Are there any SEO tips that are particular to Australia only? What directories are a must in Australia?
International SEO | | iSenseWebSolutions0