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Hi there,

We're trying to solve a problem with one of our domains, we have a .eu CCTLD and we're trying to implement hreflang tags.

On our US and UK sites, we use "en-us" and "en-gb", but it's not clear how to approach this european problem, as there is not a "en-eu" tag.

The site is in English, but serves several European countries speaking different languages.

What's the best hreflang code to use in this situation?

Any help much appreciated,

Thanks!

It's hard to argue the contrary when Matt Cutts is saying "Go with CCTLDs", but I get the feeling that his point is an "all things being equal" explanation.

My problem is that all things are not equal. I have a mixed bag. I have an old strong .com (DA 90) and a long list of newer less strong domains (down to DA 27)

Re: one site ranking in multiple countries. Our .com already does this. As one example, the .com homepage ranks on the first page for one of our main head keywords in google.fr, whereas the highest ranking page on the .fr for the same keyword is at the top of page 3.

So "losing a ton of ground" doesn't make a lot of sense here, because traffic isn't going to gravitate towards local content if it's already lingering down around the third page.  Wouldn't it make more sense here, to have a french language version of the homepage on the .com and use hreflang to make sure that's the version that ends up in French search results?

I know that 301's don't pass all authority, but they pass some, my feeling is that 13 sites-worth of redirection will have a strong effect on an already strong .com.

Microsoft apply this exact model (one .com, multiple languages in subdirectories, relevant results in local search) and ok, they have a strong domain, but doesn't this show that this is possible?

It would be great to hear about actual experience of similar consolidation moves, successes or failures?

We currently have 14 international sites. (.co.uk, .fr, .es, .com.au, etc) and (language differences aside) the content is the same on all.

I want to move this content from example.co.uk to example.com/uk/ (and from example.com.sg to example.com/sg/) to consolidate our domain authority, for brand consistency, and to reduce the overhead of maintaining 14 different domains.  Our .com has by far the most domain authority (90) and often outcompetes newer smaller sites like .com.sg in local search) Other sites, however, (like .co.uk DA74) do quite well locally.

My goal is to improve the performance of those sites with a low DA, without hurting the larger sites, and also to avoid the disappearance of local content in local search. e.g. currently when a user searches for "widgets" they find example.co.uk/widgets/ but in future I want them to find example.com/uk/widgets

My plan is to redirect pages with 301 redirects, and use rel-alternate and hreflang metadata to manage indexing. So in the example above,  I'd 301 example.co.uk/widgets to example.com/uk/widgets, then use the following metatag on that new page to suggest that it is the UK english version (for users in the UK) of a canonical page in the .com:

(this is in accordance with the suggestion on this page http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077)

My question is: Am I going to severely damage the ranking of, e.g., UK pages in UK search engines by doing this? Is there a better way to do this?

Any input greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Dennis

Hi,

I just got a message from Google Webmaster Tools telling that there are "artificial or unnatural links" pointing to one of my subdomains, and that I should investigate and submit my site for reconsideration.

The subdomain in question has inbound links from 4K linking root domains. We are a certificate authority (we provide SSL certificates) so the majority of those links come from the site seal that customers place on their secure pages.

We sell certificates to a full spectrum site types, from all sizes of ecommerce sites to .edu, .gov, and even adult.  That said, our linking root domains have always been a mixed bunch, which tells me that these offending links were recently added.

Here are my questions:

1. Is it possible to slice my link reports with some sort of time element, so that I can narrow the search to only the newest inbound links?
2. How else might I use OSE to find these "artificial or unnatural links"? Are there any particular attributes I should be looking for in a linking root domain that might suggest it's seen by Google as "artificial or unnatural".

Any help with any aspect of this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dennis

p.s. I should probably state that I've never bought links or participated in link schemes.

I find the secret to getting there is to find the smallest possible task related to the work need to do. Start small and build up momentum - the key to having one of those magic hours.

Hi there,

First Q&A question

So I understand the problems caused by having a few secure pages on a site. A few links to the https version a page and you have duplicate content issues.

While there are several posts here at SEOmoz that talk about the different ways of dealing with this issue with respect to secure pages, the majority of this content assumes that the goal of the SEO is to make sure no duplicate https pages end up in the index.

The posts also suggest that https should only used on log in pages, contact forms, shopping carts, etc."

That's the root of my problem. I'm facing the prospect of switching to https across an entire site. In the light of other https related content I've read, this might seem unecessary or overkill, but there's a vaild reason behind it.

I work for a certificate authority. A company that issues  SSL certificates, the cryptographic files that make the https protocol work. So there's an obvious need our site to "appear" protected, even if no sensitive data is being moved through the pages. The stronger push, however, stems from our membership of the Online Trust Alliance. https://otalliance.org/

Essentially, in the parts of the internet that deal with SSL and security, there's a push for all sites to utilize HSTS Headers and force sitewide https. Paypal and Bank of America are leading the way in this intiative, and other large retailers/banks/etc. will no doubt follow suit. Regardless of what you feel about all that, the reality is that we're looking at future that involves more privacy protection, more SSL, and more https.

The bottom line for me is; I have a site of ~800 pages that I will need to switch to https.

I'm finding it difficult to map the tips and tricks for keeping the odd pesky https page out of the index, to what amounts to a sitewide migratiion.

So, here are a few general questions.

• What are the major considerations for such a switch?
• Are there any less obvious pitfalls lurking?
• Should I even consider trying to maintain an index of http pages, or should I start work on replacing (or have googlebot replace) the old pages with https versions?
• Is that something that can be done with canonicalization? or would something at the server level be necessary?
• How is that going to affect my page authority in general?
• What obvious questions am I not asking?

Sorry to be so longwinded, but this is a tricky one for me, and I want to be sure I'm giving as much pertinent information as possible.

Any input will be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Dennis