Was Geotargeting subfolders in webmaster tools deprecated?
-
I know that you used to be able to geotarget subfolders on your site to certain regions. We recently made some site-scale updates to make all of our regional pages appear in the appropriate subfolder (for example:site.com/france, or site.com/germany).
I recently got admin rights to our site's webmaster tools account that allows us to make these setting changes, but the geotargeting options are only available for the entire site. It still implies on the multi-region site page that you should be able to do this: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192
| Subdirectories with gTLDs | example.com/de/ |
- Easy to set up
- Can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting
- Low maintenance (same host)
|
- Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone
- Single server location
- Separation of sites harder
|
Is this deprecated? Is there something I need to do to enable setting regions by subdirectories?Thanks
-
But wouldnt "Your website" also contain all the urls of Your website/France ?
My post is very much related: http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-handle-subdirectories-in-moz-and-webmaster-tools
-
Hey Alexander,
Yes
All of the subfolders will be treated as separate websites.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
ah - thats great! so does that mean that we have to treat each as a separate site in webmaster tools?
-
Hi Alexander,
In your webmaster tools you will have to register your sub-folder as well, so you will have the following:
1. Your website
2. Your website/France
3. Your website/Germany
now you can adjust the sub-folder's geo-targeting to the desired country
I hope this helped,
Istvan
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
-
Baidu Webmaster Tools: How to setup in "Site Properties" the field "Affiliate subject"?
Hi ,
International SEO | | lcourse
finally I managed to setup my site in Baidu Webmaster Tools with the help of a freelance staff member in China. Site is verified and sitemap submitted. In section "Site Properties", field "Affiliate subject" I can't figure out after extensive search what I need to setup here for a foreign company without any presence and without company registration in China. Anybody can help? When I click on this field, it indicates "Site association subject is a necessary link for mobile resources to enter search." so my site will not show up in mobile results without it? Grateful for any tips on how to resolve this piece of puzzle of the baidu setup.
Thanks0 -
Country subfolders showing as sitelinks in Google, country targeting for home page no longer working
Hi There, Just wondering if you can help. Our site has 3 region versions (General .com, /ie/ for Ireland and /gb/ for UK), each submitted to Google Webmaster Tools as seperate sites with hreflang tags in the head section of all pages. Google was showing the correct results for a few weeks, but I resubmitted the home pages with slight text changes last week and something strange happened, though it may have been coincidental timing. When we search for the brand name in google.ie or google.co.uk, the .com now shows as the main site, where the sitelinks still show the correct country versions. However, the country subdirectories are now appearing as sitelinks, which is likely causing the problem. I have demoted these on GWT, but unsure as to whether that will work and it seems to take a while for sitelink demotion to work. Has anyone had anything similar happen? I thought perhaps it was a markup issue breaking the head section so that Google can no longer see the hreflangs pointing to each other as alternates. I checked the source code in w3 validator and it doesn't show any errors. Anyway, any help would be much appreciated - and thanks to anyone who gets back, it's a tricky type of issue to troubleshoot. Thanks, Ro
International SEO | | romh0 -
Geotargeting in Webmaster Tools - Is there an expected ranking benefit in the geotargeted region ?
Hi Is there an expected ranking benefit from geotargeting regional focused subfolders or domain mapped TLDs' in the target countries ? Or does it just prevent these pages from showing up in other regions search results ? For example i have a client with a main .com site targeting english worldwide generally, then a /tr subfolder in turkish to target Turkey. Then another subfolder /de targeting german in germany (but the de has also been domain mapped to .de top level domain too). Im leaving the main .com site non geotargeted since its job is to achieve english language results wherever possible and wandering whether to geotarget the turkish subfolder & german tld The Turkish regional subfolder & the German tld are achieving some ranking results already in their target countries googles, but also getting traffic from other countries too (which im happy to get, dont really want to stop this traffic unless there really is a local region ranking benefit for the main target country by gwt geotargeting). So should I use GWT international targeting tool or not ? Since the tld site is clearly on a german domain with german language pages and the Turkish subfolder /tr site is in Turkish the i presume Googles got no probs working this out which is demonstrated by the regional & language ranking results So I presume if achieving results in target countries already then no real need to set international taregt in GWT especially if it may stop traffic from other regions too. BUT if its likely to improve those rankings further in the main target countries googles significantly then i would happily cut off or reduce the other region traffic in favour of higher rankings and hence targeted traffic from the main target country .All Best Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Webmaster tools - a drop in Views and Searches
Hi everybody I'm experience a very odd thing in Webmaster Tools (and Google Analytics). 4. March I can se a drop of views from about 2000 views a day to 250 views a day and the days thereafter they views are close to zero. Also some of the search term looks weird after this and is terms like w www.youtube.com, youtube musicas and youtube i put a spell on you, placing them in SERP in top 10 and refering to our /Youtube site (which is a blank site with no content). 5. March we got some new content on our site regarding danish flyers, and even though Webmaster Tools shows that our views are close to zero, Google Analytics shows an increase of trafic to our site from search terms from about 150 visits 4. March to about 600 visits 16. March. So what Webmaster Tools shows about views do not make any sense to me and especially not why we would rank on the term Youtube. I have also searched on some of these Youtube search terms and I can't see us ranking in SERP on these terms in top 10, but in Google Analytics I can see that we have got visits on these Youtube search terms. The domain we are using is an old domain that hosted an e-mail and chat site and I am a bit worried about the external links to our site. But the external links that Webmaster Tools and Open Site Explorer shows I don't see as bad links and the site has not had anything to do with Youtube clips. Our site is a https site - I don't know if that could have anything to do with it? So I'm really puzled about why Webmaster tools says our Views have dropped to zero, why Google Analytics says there is an increase of trafic from search to our site and what Youtube search terms have to do with our site?
International SEO | | Bulpen0 -
What does it involve when creating subfolders, I believe I may have been given false info
Hi, Please can you help, I believe I may have been given false information about the way sub folders are added to a site. My company are a global company and we would like to start targeting individual country's more effectively with the use of sub folders using our existing domain. However, I have been told by our external web development company that in order to do this we need to create separate websites (eg, www.mycompany.de, www.mycompany.en etc) and then re-direct them to folders within the .com site. Is this the correct way to produce sub folders? If not how is it done? I'm sure that this would be an incredibly expensive venture for us, but yet an incredible profitable one for them.
International SEO | | CoGri0 -
Geographic Target set up in Google webmaster tool
Hi, When i launched my web site 3 months ago ( I'm am very new to SEO) I have set up the geographical target section in Google webmaster tool for US. Now, I'm thinking to change it to some other geo target to see if i can get more traffic. However, recently few of my prompted keywords got really well in Google US ranking. Here are my Questions: if i will change the geo settings in webmaster tool will effect the ranking i already managed to achieve in US? In the list of all the countries in Google webmaster tools what does is mean "unlisted"? Can i select more than one country to target and if I can how? Thanks!! Raviv
International SEO | | Indiatravelz0 -
Geotargeting two locations using root and /country
Hello, I am in the process of turning my UK targeted website into a global website in multiple languages. I will be using the new HREFLANG tag but I'm wondering about geotargeting. I've set this up in Webmaster Tools as: example.com = UK content
International SEO | | Seaward-Group
example.com/us = US content
example.com/de = German content
example.com/es = Spanish content
example.com/fr = French content
example.com/it = Italian content
example.com/nl = Dutch content Will the root UK content override the following sub directories that are set as a different location because its not /uk? Thank you.0 -
Geotargeting Issues
I have a different problem then most. My international website (www.solmelia.com) is showing number one in english for "SOL MELIA" in the Mexican google search engine. Plus the 3rd listing on google.com.mx is our homepage in spanish but it is showing up as a 401. We need to redirect the ccTLD (www.solmelia.es) to our current spanish version that is actually a subdomain (es.solmelia.com). Please let me know how I can fix both issues.
International SEO | | Melia0