International Sites - Sitemaps, Robots & Geolocating in WMT

[CarlWint]

Hi Guys,

I have a site that has now been launched in the US having originally just been UK. In order to accommodate this, the website has been set-up using directories for each country. Example:

• domain.com/en-gb
• domain.com/en-us

As the site was originally set-up for UK, the sitemap, robots file & Webmaster Tools account were added to the main domain. Example:

• domain.com/sitemap.xml
• domain.com/robots.txt

The question is does this now need changing to make it specific for each country. Example:

The sitemap and robots.txt for the UK would move to:

• domain.com/en-gb/sitemap.xml
• domain.com/en-gb/robots.txt

and the US would have its own separate sitemap and robots.txt. Example :

• domain.com/en-us/sitemap.xml
• domain.com/en-us/robots.txt

Also in order to Geolocate this in WMT would this need to be done for each directory version instead of the main domain? Currently the WMT account for the UK site is verified at www.domain.com, would this need reverifying at domain.com/en-gb?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

[kojikawano]

Thanks for the insights. Very helpful. What about the robots.txt, though? Should it stay under http://www.example.com, where crawlers can find the file?

[RobertJakobson]

Yes, that's how I did it.

[CarlWint]

Thanks for the response, much appreciated.

Would this mean that the sitemap featured at www.domain.com would need to reference each directory version (UK & US etc etc), leaving the en-gb & en-us to reference just their own?

[RobertJakobson]

Hi, here's what Google officially has to say:

Webmaster Tools data and reporting work best on a site level. For example, if your site http://www.example.com has separate sections for different countries, we recommend adding each of those subsites or subfolders as a separate site. For example, if you have a travel site with specific subfolders covering Ireland, France, and Spain, you could add the following sites to your Webmaster Tools account:

• http://www.example.com
• http://www.example.com/france
• http://www.example.com/ireland
• http://www.example.com/spain

Following this I have solved the exactly the same problem you had for a client.  And it works perfectly.

• _The question is does this ["sitemap"] now need changing to make it specific for each country. _What I have done is add the sitemaps for each subdirectory as well as the main domain. It works (tracking and all that) and is easy to do.
• _Also in order to Geolocate this in WMT would this need to be done for each directory version instead of the main domain? _Yes, that is the way to go.
• _Currently the WMT account for the UK site is verified at www.domain.com, would this need reverifying at domain.com/en-gb? _Yes, it does. And so do every other subdirectory you add down the line. That allows precise international targeting per subdirectory via the hreflang and country targeting settings and setting the main GWT site for the root domain to be for global traffic.