Global/international SEO campaign strategy with a single TLD

[MoRaja]

Hi All,

Have 3 seperate questions all relating to global/international SEO from a domain strategy point of view so will try to make them all short and 'to the point'.

The current URL is www.example.com. The site's content strategy and all marketing activity has always been for the UK. We're now launching in US with also long term plans to launch in other countries. Each country will have their own webmaster/conternt strategy/marketing team.

1st question

Which is better and why?

• www.example.com/us verses www.us.example.com

The US team are leaning towards (and rightly so) the folder approach as it will help the US section of the site benefit from existing domain authority, link profile and off-page SEO work already carried out to a route domain level. This will also not be regarded as a new site as it's www.example.com/us

On the flip side however the sub domain option although has no short term SEO benefits; will have a more sustainable SEO campaign for each country as they can be treated as individual sites/SEO campaigns. This also reduces some risk elements involved as each geo-specific team will only be concerned about their own sub-domain and not have route domain level control. I'm also aware that sub-domains will be treated as individual sites and therefore certain updates (such as Panda) will treat each sub-domain individually. So a possible negative impact on uk.example.com would not necessarily have an impact on us.example.com unless content strategy was the same.

2nd question

Assuming we decide to go for www.example.com/us (folder option). The site's current geo target market is currently set to UK on Google Webmaster Tools to route domain level. If www.example.com was set to UK and www.example.com/us was set to US on GWT, would there be a conflict? We want to ensure that the route domain level settings does NOT override any settings on folder level within the same domain.  Based on an answer from a top contributer of Google Webmaster Central, setting www.example.com/us to US would not be in conflict with settings within route domain level but I would love to hear/read from somebody that had actually gone through the process.

3rd question

We're considering implementing geo DNS so a US visitor accessing www.example.com will be redirected to www.example.com/us (or www.us.example.com) based on their location from their IP address. Reason being is we're trying to avoid a splash page with a choice of countries (UK or US) on route level (homepage) which is very commonly used by most sites with multiple geo specific target markets. We would be assuming that somebody from North America would be looking for the US site and therefore redirecting the visitor automatically to www.example.com/us. The SEO implications are however that a 302 redirect will be used and therefore redirects used based on the visitors location will not pass link value from the homepage towards landing pages. The homepage currently has very strong link juice and the site's general navigational structure is pretty good allowing the link juice to flow through from the homepage.

[gfiorelli1]

Well... what about the links in the footer of the home page? I don't like them, but that would help your "home page" issue.

Or, without giving up with the IP detection, still offer the opportunity to choose the territorial version using a selector?

[MoRaja]

Thanks Gianluca for your response.

Regarding question/answer 3, it still doesn't resolve the issue of being able to pass link value from the homepage as it will not serve any files from route level.  A 302 redirect would point to the relevant geo specific section of the site so all of the external links pointing to the homepage will reach a dead end due to a 302 redirect. The 'About' page is a good call for usability reasons but is nowhere near as strong as the homepage in terms of its backlinks profile and therefore would not resolve the issue.

[gfiorelli1]

Pardon me if I answer first to question 2, then to 3 and last to 1.

Question 2.

I would not worry about conflicts. If you assign to a subfolder a territory as target, Google is quite good in following the indication you give. Therefore, if the main domain .com is generally focused to co.uk and the /us sub-folder to the USA, Google will not have problem in targeting correctly the two. Just a suggestion: eventually specify in the header that the language used in .com us en-uk and in the /us is en-us... not that Google is really paying a strong attention to that signals, but I would use any possible additional suggestion of the target.

Question 3

You are right... but, if there aren't other reasons you don't want to show to an USA  users the Uk version of the site, why don't you think to put the links to the other language/territory versions of the site in a  "About us" page? In that page, editorially you could list the markets the site is active, and those link would be direct.

I say this also for an usability reason. I don't know how the site is going to be developed, but maybe it should be interesting for an usa user to read the british blog of the website...

Question 1

I agree with the USA guys: subfolder is better, because that way it starts his online life with a strong authority domain, so that any links the sub-folder will obtain will have a bigger power than if obtained being an sub-domain.

About your Panda fear.. .you are right to fear it, but the reaction - IMO - is not the correct one. If you fear Panda you don't have to react in a defensive way (going sub-domain), but in a pro-active and positive one: creating worthwhile and useful content, avoiding thin one, paying great attention to any duplicate issue and checking any other pandarank factor.

Ciao