Multi country targeting for listing site, ccTLD, sub domain or .com/folder?

[Mulith]

Hi

I know this has been covered in a few questions but seen nothing recent that may take into account changes google may have applied.

We would like to target multiple english speaking counties with a new project and I'm a little unsure as to whether ccTLD, subdomain or subfolders are the best way to publish country specific information.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Francisco_Meza]

I would pick subfolders. Here's why. IN GWT you can set country targeting for specific folders.

This video, by Susan Moskwa, is VALUABLE for any international SEO: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

At 4 min 22 secs she talks about using sub folders to geo target in GWT. It's a must watch for anyone who is thinking about international SEO.

[Mulith]

Yes Tom, thanks that has helped.

I wonder whether a mixed strategy might be more effectiveby:

• Using ccTLD for competivie markets  subdomains

• Subdomains or Folders for non competitive markets that can be swayed by by DA

When a market starts to increas ein competitiveness then a shift to a ccTLD can be done for greater targetting.

Would this make sense from an SEO point of view?

[TomRayner]

From an SEO perspective, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with using any of the possible solutions.

Having every language in a sub-folder means that you'll get all of the countries links sitting on the same root domain.  That, in turn, could make the root domain very powerful - although any negative stuff could also be passed around, so you would need to be extremely on top of things.

A ccTLD might give a slight weighting to ranking in that country's search engine equivalent - although the .com TLD is widely accepted as global, so this is somewhat moot.

Taking SEO out of the equation, however...

I've seen a lot of case studies and market research that indicates most people will trust a localised URL and TLD if they're looking for a service.  So if you look at it from a user experience point of view, having a ccTLD makes your site at the very first glance look like you're in that country, you've invested in it and its people and you could be trusted.

There's no real right or wrong here and a .com/subfolder system may well provide the most SEO strength - but it could also lead to a penalisation if just one country is out of line.

Hope this helps.