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.
Website Target in Europe
-
Hi, I am planning a site to target in Europe and I expect to translate my site into ten different languages namely English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish.
I am doing some study of this case in targeting different countries for SEO, most of the advise are the following:
a. Build 10 different websites and target different geographical location in Google Webmaster
b. Get 10 different country specific domains for 10 different websites
I would like to hear any suggestion if there is anything better than this ? I had all the materials and translation ready but building 10 different websites or getting 10 different domains are very time consuming and costly.
I would be appreciated if any one had any advise for me to make the website more management friendly.
Thank you.
Tom
-
I really think the biggest factor is whether all the content is going to be exactly the same but translated in dif. languages or you are creating a product or service that spans 10 different countries.
For example; if you are creating a site about how to stop smoking or about the same products and you translate that to 10 different languages then I suggest using Ryan's approach.
If however you are creating something country specific, like a directory for businesses in each specific country then I would simply run with 10 domains (if you're lucky enough to find the same name with each ccTLD for the countries you're targeting)
I'm guessing that if you are willing to make the effort to redo the content in so many languages then the financial payout should warrant spending the money to buy 10 domains + hosting etc.
If you specified the topic of your site someone who's already done it might offer better advice, hope this helps
-
If you were to ask for the best possible SEO performance without consideration to other factors, then the 10 website approach, one for each ccTLD and hosting in its local country would be my recommendation.
Realistically speaking, a single .com address can be provided and you can target each individual country from the same domain with sub-folders i.e. mydomain.com/uk/. Some advantages of a single domain:
-
certificates only need to be purchased once (i.e. Verisign, TRUSTe, etc) and they will apply to the entire site
-
the site only has to be built once and not 10x
-
maintenance of a single site is much easier then maintenance of 10 sites
-
the hosting, domain acquisition costs, etc. are all preferable with one site
As long as your site is properly translated (i.e. human translation which is properly adjusted for each country) and the appropriate SEO adjustments are made, the site can compete. Keep in mind it is preferable to translate for countries, not languages. In other words, there is a difference between Spanish for Spain and Spanish for Mexico. Be sure to properly account for each country's individual dialect, currency, units of measurement, etc.
The ccTLD is one signal used by search engines to help determine relevancy. The hosting location is another. I lack experience with the .eu domain so I cannot comment on using that tactic. I feel the high costs and time requirements of producing 10 sites, hosting 10 sites, etc. outweigh the SEO advantages.
-
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
-
Is it worth maintaining multiple international websites
Hi I work for a British company which has two well established websites - a .co.Uk for the UK, and a .com for the US and rest of the world (in language directories). The Uk site is hosted in the Uk, the .com in US. The websites do reasonable well in Google on both sides of the Atlantic. The company is a small but quite well known brand. The company is now thinking of redirecting the .co.Uk to the .com as it would be cheaper to maintain. What would you advise? Thanks.
International SEO | | fdl4712_aol.com2 -
International SEO - Targeting US and UK markets
Hi folks, i have a client who is based in italy and they set up a site that sells travel experiences in the sout of Italy (the site currently sit on a server in Italy). The site has been set up as gTLDs: www.example.com They only want to target the US and the UK market to promote their travel experiences and the site has only the english version (the site does not currently offer an italian version). If they decide to go for the gTLDs and not actually change to a ccTLDs (which would be ideal from my point of view) how are the steps to be taken to set this up correctly on GSC? They currently only have one property registered on GSC: www.exapmple.com therefore i guess the next steps are: Add new property - www.example.com/uk and and set up geo targeting for UK Existing property - www.example.com/ set up geo targeting for US In case the client does not have the budget to optimise the content for american and british languages, would still make sense to have 2 separate property in GSC (example.com for US market and example.com/uk for UK market)? Few considerations: Add canonical tag to avoid duplicate content across the two versions of the site (in the event there is no budget to optimise the content for US and UK market)? Thank you all in advance for looking into this David
International SEO | | Davide19840 -
Hreflang for bilingual website in the same region/location
Hi everyone, got a quick question concerning the hreflang tag. I have a website with 2 different language versions targeting to the same region(Reason: The area is bilingual however not everyone speaks the other language fluently) Question:
International SEO | | ennovators
Can I use hreflang in that case like: Many thanks in advance0 -
How To Rank A UK Website On Google.com (US)
Hi, I've done some research on this but couldn't find any definitive answer I can trust! We have a client who resides in the UK. They have '.com' domain, hosted on a UK server, using UK spelling. Their business objective for this year is to expand in the USA, including the opening of a warehouse over there. They are wanting us to rank their website on both Google.co.uk and Google.com (North America); besides changing the geolocation settings in GWT's, and building links from .com websites is there anything else we can do to increase their visibility on Google.com? Many thanks in advance, appreciated!
International SEO | | Webpresence
Lee.0 -
Two versions of a website with different languages - Best way to do it?
I'm working on a website for a Swedish artist and her page is in Swedish, everything is in Swedish on the site, even though it's not a lot of text on the site. We would like to have the site in English too, or another version of the site in English on a separate domain, what's the best way to proceed from here? The domain name is a .se (swedish domain), would it be better to create a another domain and host the english version of the site on a .com domain? Or will we bump into problems with duplicate content if we create a replica of the swedish site in english. We're using wordpress and I know that there's translation plugins out there, is that a good option? I'm a bit clueless on how to proceed and would love some help or guidance here.
International SEO | | Fisken0 -
How do I get a UK website to rank in Dubai?
We are trying to get a UK-based children's furniture website to rank in Dubai. We have had a couple of orders from wealthy expats in Dubai and it seems to be the correct target market. Does anyone have any specific knowledge of this area? We are promoting the same website as for the UK market. Also does anyone know any user behaviour stats on expatriates using search engines? Do they carry on using the version of Google they are used to, or do most change to the local version of Google? Thanks in advance
International SEO | | Wagada0 -
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 -
Spanglish? Picking keywords for an English website with a Spanish speaking search demographic
I'm putting together meta data for an English website whose target search demographic is the Hispanic market. The website has a Spanish translation as well. When I entered the website into the Google Adwords keyword tool to begin doing keyword research, all keywords returned to me were in Spanish. I am unsure if the meta data keywords I'm preparing for the page should be in Spanish despite the fact that I am preparing the meta data for the English version. Moreover, should there be any mixed Spanish English (Spanglish?) keywords as users might be searching under the English search but in Spanish or with queries that are partially in Spanish?
International SEO | | IMM0