Which will rank higher: Non-mobile friendly site in native language vs. mobile friendly global site in English?
-
Hi, we are currently implementing a mobile site, e.g. m.company.com. The global mobile site will only be available in English.
We have local subsites of the desktop site, e.g. company.com/fr. The local subsites are not mobile friendly.
If a user does a search for a brand term in France, **which site will rank higher in SERPs? **If it will be the global site, is there anything we can do (other than making them mobile friendly) to make the local sites rank higher?
Would it be the mobile-friendly site, even though it is only in English, because the local site would be penalized for not being mobile friendly? Or would it be the local site, because Google will give priority to the fact that it's in French, which matches the language of the person searching?
-
No, it doesn't change my answer, but it's a good distinction to make. It sounds like the international expansion is in process. If the client needs geo-targeted content (sounds like they might), the countries need to be treated differently. Each subfolder as it's own site really. But it sounds like the translation is a good place to start for the time being.
For the mobile, my answer remains the same. There isn't anything other than making the translated content mobile or responsive that will help the traffic.
-
Thanks Kate. The content is very similar between countries, to the degree where I thought it was translated verbatim at first. Looking deeper, I see that there is some slight variation between offerings.
The client is only using language codes: en, it, fr - except in China, where they have two versions of the site (zh-hans and zh-en. The second code, zh-en, is incorrect).
All the content is set up under subdirectories, e.g. site.com/en rather than microsites en.site.com.
Does this change your judgment?
-
Lots going on here. First, let me clarify, your client's desktop content is only translated? They don't change the content and the offerings don't change by country? There is a very important distinction here. Language and country are two different things.
Regardless, if the mobile site is only in English, because of mobilegeddon, if they think they are penalized, it's because they lost mobile traffic or are seeing declines. This is only because there is not good mobile content in the users language. Once that is available, I expect the traffic will rise. It's not a penalty like duplicate content isn't a penalty, it is just not optimal.
For anyone doing brand searches, I think the answer is it depends. If Google thinks the user is okay with the English mobile site, they will show that. If the user has only ever searched in their particular language, and that's not available on mobile, they might show the desktop local site (better but not perfect) or they might test showing the English mobile site. I think you'll see both over time until the mobile issue is fixed.
-
In the Abercrombie case, the site that comes up in the search results is the EU mobile site, with German language. When I click on it, it seems that they are automatically redirecting me to abercrombie.com; not the English version of m.eu.abercrombie.com. I find automatic redirects annoying - in this case, I'm intentionally trying to hit the German site and I can't.
We are in development of the new global mobile site. The existing desktop site is being "punished" for not being mobile-friendly. Hence why we are creating a mobile site in the age of responsive design
-
Hi Jennifer,
How can you still be in development and in the same time be "punished" for not having a mobile version?
To answer your question - Abercrombie is doing something similar as your client is doing. On the desktop version they have 5 languages - the mobile version is only English. If you search on Google.de (desktop) - you get the German version. If you search Google.de on mobile - the titles in the search results are German - however the site which is displayed when you click on the links is the one that is optimised for mobile (= English version)
I guess this will be similar in your case - desktop searches will go to the translated version - the mobile searches will go to the mobile version (even if it's not in the language of the searcher).
Dirk
-
According to the client, the site is being penalized for not being mobile friendly; but there could be other reasons. The desktop site has 10-12 versions, set up as subdirectories.
If the native language site will come up first, the client is fine with doing nothing. If not, they want us to redirect the users as you described. But since we're still in development, we're not sure what the answer is.
Do you think it's most likely that the native language site would come up first?
The long-term plan is to create responsive sites, for better SEO and UX, so this is just a temporary interim solution.
-
Your site will in no way become penalized for not being mobile friendly. "mobilgeddon" was an effort to get more people to switch to mobile friendly designs and is still only a factor within Google's algorithm. You should be thinking about switching to mobile (responsive ideally) for a better user experience - not because of Google.
You mentioned that the global mobile version will only be available in English. Does this mean you have other languages on the desktop site? If so I would rely exclusively on the non-mobile pages utilizing the hreflang tag (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en) and then when you eventually make the other language pages mobile friendly switch the hreflang to point to those page.
Pointing your users in a different company expecting their native language to the mobile english only version I suspect would create extremely high bounce rates. You would be best off (IMO) just sending them to the non-mobile but correct language desktop page regardless of search being desktop vs mobile.
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 -
Hreflang vs canonical
I'm having an international Drupal website and the hreflang module is in use. However, I'm still not sure how to optimize the pages. Perhaps it's easier to ask with an example **International: **www.example.com/products/product1
International SEO | | Teklan
Here we have the master content of the product **US: **www.example.com/us/products/product1
Here we have exactly the same content as international. Nothing is localized. **UK: **www.example.com/uk/products/product1
Here we have almost the same content as on International. Here and there some local terms and extra text. **German: **www.example.com/de/products/product1
Here we have a translated version of the international page. Questions Do I add hreflang from all to all pages + to itself? Where do I add canonicals? How should I optimize the content on the US and UK pages?0 -
Duplicate Page Content due to Language and Currency
Hi Folks, hoping someone can help me out please I have a site that I'd like to rank in France and the UK but I'm getting a stack of duplicate content errors due to English and French pages and GBP and EUR prices. Below is an example of how the home page is duplicated: http://www.site.com/?sl=en?sl=fr
International SEO | | Marketing_Today
http://www.site.com/?sl=fr?sl=fr
http://www.site.com
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP?sl=fr
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?sl=fr?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR?sl=fr
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR
http://www.site.com/?sl=en¤cy=EUR
http://www.site.com/?sl=en¤cy=GBP
http://www.site.com/?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP
http://www.site.com/?sl=en?sl=en Each page has the following code in the that updates according to the page you are on: How do I simplify this and what's the correct approach?0 -
International Sites - Sitemaps, Robots & Geolocating in WMT
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!
International SEO | | CarlWint0 -
2 Domains, 2 Languages, but 1 WP Install?
I've got a case who wants to have one english website at one domain targeting Hawaii/ USA (bodywellnesshawaii.com) and a spanish speaking one (bodywellnesschile.cl) targeting Chile/ South America. What's the best way to go about this? Just clone the current bodywellnesshawaii.com site, translate it and have it live on a separate WP install? OR Is there a way in which we can use just one WP install with multi language and have each language live on separate domains? Not sure whether that's even possible, but it would be easier to add content/ maintain... Either one better for SEO? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | stephanwb0 -
Is it possible to geotag language folders on a .co.uk domain
Hi all, I'm going around in circles a little on this one, so I thought that I'd as as I haven't found anyone asking quite the same thing (sorry if someone has). I have a .co.uk site and would like to set up some different language variations. I've been looking at the subfolder route for now (budget is limited). Can I set a geotag in webmaster tools on a .co.uk site or does it need to be a domain that Google considers country neutral? Many thanks for any suggestions!
International SEO | | ceecee0 -
Multinational Sites - The main SEO issues
I currently work for the UK arm of a Company with headquarters in Germany - The have outlets in half-a-dozen European countries, and up until now each country has had it's own website. The group has decided that from next year they will close all the individual country sites and then run new sites each from a central .location, I guess with a shared database of products. I see the sense in having central stock control etc, but I'm worried about the SEO impact. I have searched Q&A and the blog but could not find much to help me. What I would like to do is to provide some advice and pointers at to what they should be aiming for, both in terms website structure and on-going SEO for each country. Any advice welcome, thanks in advance.
International SEO | | cottamg0 -
Do non-english(localized) URLs help Local SEO and user experience?
Hi Everyone, This question is about URL best practice for multilingual websites. We have www.example.com in English and we are building the exact replica of English site in German www.example.de. On the Geman site, we are considering to translate some portions of the URLs for example last folder and file name as seen below: example.de/folder1-in-english/folder2-in-english/folder3-in-german/filename-in-german.html Is this a good idea? Will this help SEO and user experience both? or the mixed languagues in URL will confuse the users? Google guidelines say that this should be ok. Would love to get feedback from SEOMOZ community! Thanks, Supriya.
International SEO | | Amjath0