Webmaster tools International Targeting
-
Hello there,
If we have country specific websites such as:
usa.domain.com (For the US)
uk.domain.com (For the UK)
fr.domain.com (For France)
Should each of the above sub-domains be set up separately in webmaster tools?
With "target users in" for each of the specific countries?
Thanks
-
Correct, apart the last phrase (If the content is similar/duplicate, also make sure you're setting up hreflang tags).
If content are duplicated, than use cross-domain canonical, being the href of the canonical tag the one of the most important site.
Hreflang, though, must be implemented in order to tell Google to show one URL to its specific geotargeted audience, despite of the canonicalization being present.
Why, because hreflang and rel="canonical" are two different things and hreflang does not substitute rel="canonical".
-
Yes, it should. Target each internationally & specifically. Sitemaps for each, as well.
If the content is similar/duplicate, also make sure you're setting up hreflang tags.
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
-
International Site - Language Targetting
Hi Mozzers, I am currently conducting a technical site audit on a large website. Their main content and audience is in the US, but they have started to add translated versions of the content in different languages (about 30 different languages). Also, they are not using cookies or scripts to auto-populate the language on the page, and the pages seem to be getting indexed just fine. Currently, they have their language distinguished by sub-folder (i.e. example.org/blog/by-language/spanish/), which I plan to 301 redirect to example.org/blog/es/ for each language. However, they are not implementing any sitemaps or hreflang header tags. I have not dealt with this in the past as all of my work has been done on smaller US sites, so I wanted to verify the steps I plan to take to ensure this is a solid approach. 301 redirect example.org/language/spanish/blog/ to example.org/es/blog/ Recommend adding hreflang markup into the header for each language. (They have a lot of pages, so they may not implement this if it is too much work.) Highly recommend adding XML sitemaps for each content version of the site using the media flow HREFLANG Siitemap Tool. Setting up multiple Webmaster Tools accounts and geotargetting them by language. I would also add the XML sitemap for each language. Is this a solid approach, given the information above? I want to make sure I am fundamentally sound on this before suggesting so many large changes. Thank you in advance for any thoughts / wisdom you can instill! ---------------------additional information--------------------- If I am hearing you correctly, I would only submit one XML Sitemap for international content. It would look something like the below image. I would only use one GWT account to upload the file, and I would not need to add any additional markup on each page, as it will be located in the hreflang xml sitemap. Finally, would it be a good or bad idea to 301 redirect their naming convention to a new, shorter one? example.org/by-language/spanish/blog/this-is-an-example --> example.org/es/blog/this-is-an-example bpXAYlr.png
International SEO | | J-Banz0 -
International SEO
Hi If you were developing a US version of an existing UK site then is this the correct format/instructions for on-page SEO. Ive taken quite a lot from Aleydas great post: http://moz.com/blog/the-international-seo-checklist but just want to confirm below is a good overall checklist to provide to clients developers ? Create US & UK country & language subfolders such as: domain.com/en-us/ and domain.com/en-gb/ Add 'rel=alternatehreflang' attribute according to google guidelines Add individual site map to each subfolder or will the hreflang attribute do or vice versa or both best? Don't redirect users via IP sniffing their location and serving up country/language version. Instead obviously link between language/country versions with a crawlable and very visible menu. Use the meta content language/country by adding the 'country-language' meta-tag in your html head Create individual profiles in GWT & GA for each country/language version and geotarget accordingly Localise content: spelling, currency, contacts etc Anything else re on-page/technical im missing ? Many Thanks
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence
Dan [edited to fix formatting]0 -
Understanding the "Index Status" Data Inside Google Webmaster Tools
Currently there are total 2,787 Articles added to my Blog. The Index Status shows the following report under Index Status>Advance Total Indexed = 12,505 Blocked by robots = 8,659 And when I do search for site:techmaish.com in Google.com, it shows; About 12,200 results (0.15 seconds) Now my question. 1:- Is it normal Or there is something wrong? 2:- If there is something wrong then what is that? Thanks in advance. _ Attached is the screenshot of my GWT._ 7dk.png
International SEO | | techmaish0 -
International algorithm update release dates.
Does anyone know if Google releases all algorithm updates worldwide or if they do it slowly across the globe? I have a SEO agency in Argentina and it does not seem like the algorithm updates hit us as they do in the USA. I’ll give you an example. Penguin 2.0 did not even create a dent in some really spammy websites that we watch. Thanks Carla
International SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Targeting France Best SEO practices
I've got a client with a large e-commerce site with a .com domain and they want to start targeting France. Other than building another site in Frence with a .fr domain, what would be the best course of action? I know that the obvious option would be to build a separate French site with a .fr domain but is there another more cost effective way? I tried doing a search for one of their key-phrases using the Google Global app (Google.fr) and they are ranking in pretty much the same position as for Google.co.uk. Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
International SEO | | FishEyeSEO0 -
Geo-targeting a sub-folder that's had url's rewritten from a sub-domain
I have a client that's setting up a section of his site in a different language, and we're planning to geo-target those pages to that country. I have suggested a sub-folder solution as it's the most cost effective solution, and it will allow domain authority to flow into those pages. His developer is indicating that they can only set this up as a sub-domain, for technical reasons, but they're suggesting they can rewrite the url's to appear as sub folder pages. I'm wondering how this will work in terms of geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I geo-target the sub domain or the sub folder i.e. does Google only see urls or does it physically see those pages on the sub-domain? It seems like it might be a messy solution. Would it be a better idea just to forget about the rewrites and live with the site being a sub domain? Thanks,
International SEO | | Leighm0 -
What is the best SEO site structure for multi country targeting?
Hi There, We are an online retailer with four (and soon to be five) distinct geographic target markets (we have physical operations in both the UK and New Zealand). We currently target these markets like this: United Kingdom (www.natureshop.co.uk) New Zealand (www.natureshop.co.nz) Australia (www.natureshop.com/au) - using a google web master tools geo targeted folder United States (www.natureshop.com) - using google web master tools geo targeted domain Germany (www.natureshop.de) - in german and yet to be launched as full site We have various issues we want to address. The key one is this: our www.natureshop.co.uk website was adversely affected by the panda update on April 12. We had some external seo firms work on this site for us and unfortunately the links they gained for us were very low quality, from sometimes spammy sites and also "keyword" packed with very littlle anchor text variation. Our other websites (the .co.nz and .com) moved up after the updates so I can only assume our external seo consultants were responsible for this. I have since managed to get them to remove around 70% of these links and we have bought all seo efforts back in house again. I have also worked to improve the quality of our content on this site and I have 404'ed the six worst affected pages (the ones that had far too many single phrase anchor text links coming into them). We have however not budged much in our rankings (we have made some small gains but not a lot). Our other weakness's are not the fastest page load times and some "thin" content. We are on the cusp (around 4 weeks away) of deploying a brand new platform using asp.net MVP with N2 and this looks like it will address our page load speed issues. We also have been working hard on our content building and I believe we will address that as well with this release. Sorry for the long build up, however I felt some background was needed to get to my questions. My questions are: Do you think we are best to proceed with trying to get our www.natureshop.co.uk website out of the panda trap or should we consider deploying a new version of the site on www.natureshop.com/uk/ (geo targeted to the UK)? If we are to do this should we do the same for New Zealand and Germany and redirect the existing domains to the new geo targeted folders? If we do this should we redirect the natureshop.co.uk pages to the new www.natureshop.com/uk/ pages or will this simply pass on the panda "penalty". Will this model build stronger authority on the .com domain that benefit all of the geo targeted sub folders or does it not work this way? Finally can we deploy the same pages and content on the different geo targeted sub folders (with some subtle regional variations of spelling and language) or will this result in a duplicate content penalty? Thank you very much in advance to all of you and I apologise for the length and complexity of the question. Kind Regards
International SEO | | ConradC
Conrad Cranfield
Founder: Nature Shop Ltd0 -
Targeting Different Countries... One Site or Separate?
I have a client who has 3 ecommerce sites. They are somewhat differentiated but for the most part sell the same stuff. Luckily 2 of them are quite authoritative, old and rank reasonably well. Most of the visitors and sales come from the US. He wants to start targeting Europe, Mexico and Canada. What are your suggestions for doing this? Are we better targeting on the main domains? Not really sure how to do that? Should we use a subdomain and a new store front for each geo? Should we use a .co.uk .co.mx and .co.ca each with a unique storefront? It looks like we are moving to a Magento platform so setting up multiple storefronts on a single database is not a big issue. Anyone have any experience with this?
International SEO | | BlinkWeb0