Questions created by SEOCT
-
International SEO - how likely is it autoredirect via IP Address will impact rankings?
Hello, We're looking to internationalise our site so that US visitors will see the US branded version while everyone else will see the global version (currently at .com). This question specifically is about location-based auto-redirects. The literature I've read (including Google) recommends against auto-redirection: "Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language. These redirections could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site." Insofar as I understand it the theory goes as follows. Google crawls mainly from the US Auto-redirecting by US IP to the US domain will also redirect the Googlebot crawlers Because of this the crawlers will only see the US site / domain and not original .com website Crawlers can't index what they can't see Drop in rankings for the original site However, one of my colleagues has pointed out to me a company which does use auto-redirects. If a user is in the UK and type in their website they will be redirected to the UK version of the site, US will be US etc. I have checked their rankings and they are still ranking highly for relevant terms. I have been asked why they have been able to do this without impacting their visibility. Any ideas? Given their success have the risks of auto-redirecting have been overstated? How can we ensure US visitors land on the correct internationalised domain without auto-redirects in place? Looking forward to your thoughts on this as well as your experiences. Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Multiregional / Multilingual SEO - What do you do when there is no equivalent page?
Hello, We're building out a small number of pages for the US in a sub-folder .com/us. The idea is to show US specific pages to users in that location. However, we also have a number of pages which we will not be creating for the US as they're not relevant. I am planning on geo-targeting the US folder to instruct the search engines that this subfolder should appear in the US SERPS but since it isn't an exact science, there is a chance that US visitors may land on these non-us pages which could potentially give them a bad user experience. What should we do in instances where a US user lands on a non-us page with no equivalent page? Any help would be much appreciated!
International SEO | | SEOCT1 -
Multiregional SEO - different website designs
Hello, when it comes to location & language targeting, is it possible to have different website page designs for their respective regions? So let's say we have one design for www.example.com/product-1 and a completely different design for www.example.com/us/product-1? Our branding is different for the US so would ideally like to use specific US designs for US pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | SEOCT0 -
International SEO - Hreflang tags and URL Structure
Hello, I wonder if any SEO internationalisation experts can help. We are a UK centric business with a .com domain which all our traffic currently goes to. We have been growing in the US and are therefore looking to internationalise our website by building out some US pages using the subfolder .com/us. Since the keywords we wish to target in the US are different to the keywords we are targeting elsewhere, when implementing hreflang tags is it possible to use a different URL for the US page? So let’s say we are targeting ‘estate car’ generally but want to target ’station wagon’ as the keyword for the equivalent US page, can the URLs be different? Example: General page: www.example.com/estate-car US: www.example.com/us/station-wagon Hreflang tags: Would that be the correct implementation? Any help or guidance would be much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | SEOCT0 -
International SEO - Alternatives to Automatic IP re-direct
Hello, When doing international SEO I've read that it's not good practice to automatically re-direct users to the correct part of the website based on their IP address. But what alternatives are there to this? Let's say you're targeting the US and the UK through multiregional SEO. What can you do to ensure that users from the US go to the US sub-directory and that users from the UK go to the UK sub-directory? In Moz's international SEO guide it says that: "If you choose to try to guess at the user’s language preference when they enter your site, you can use the browser’s language setting or the IP address and ask the user to confirm the choice. Using JavaScript to do this will ensure that Googlebot does not get confused. Pair this with a good XML sitemap and the user can have a great interaction. Plus, the search engines will be able to crawl and index all of your translated content." Can anyone explain this further? Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance
International SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Multiregional / Multilingual SEO - Subfolders Question
Hello all, I wonder if you can help me... I have a question about subfolders in multi-regional / multi-lingual SEO - more specifically in reference to targeting the UK and the US. Having looked at some global websites these are the types of implementations I've most commonly seen: UK subfolders .com/uk .com/gb .com/gb/en-gb | .com/en-GB .com/gb-en .com/en-gb .com/uk/en US subfolders .com/us .com/us/en-us | .com/en-US .com/us-en .com/en-us .com/us/en Are any of these approaches better than others or is it all a matter of personal preference? What's the reason for using .com/gb over .com/uk (or vice versa) for example? Secondly, my assumption is that the examples above which include language subfolders do so because these companies are targeting different speaking users within these countries. Would I be right to think that since the organisation I work for is only targeting the American speakers in the US, we wouldn't need to go so far as to have language subfolders in addition to location subfolders? Would be great to get some feedback / suggestions! Thanks!
International SEO | | SEOCT0 -
URL 301 Re-direct
Hello, If we publish a blog post with a url which accidentally contains a number at the end (blog.companyname.com/subject-title-0), is it best-practice to update the URL (e.g. to blog.companyname.com/subject-title) and put in a 301 re-direct from the old to the new one or should it simply be left as is? I've read that 301's lose link equity and relevance so is it really worth re-directing for the sake of a cleaner url? Thanks for your input! John
Technical SEO | | SEOCT1 -
Duplicate Page Titles For Paginated Topics In Blog
Hello, I've just run a site audit and it has come up with a duplicate title tag issue for the topics section of our blog. For example it is flagging that the following have the same page title. https://blog.companyname.com/topic/topic-name https://blog.companyname.com/topic/topic-name/page/2 How significant is this as an SEO issue and what are the ways we can go about fixing this? I look forward to any suggestions and guidance that can be provided. Thanks, John
Technical SEO | | SEOCT1 -
Is having the same title tag on a blog listing page and blog date archives an SEO issue?
Hi there, Can anyone answer whether having duplicate title tags on the blog listing page (e.g.https://blog.companyname.com/) and the blog date archive pages (e.g.https://blog.companyname.com/archive/2017/10) is an issue? If so why is it an issue and what are the best practices of dealing with this? Thanks! John
Technical SEO | | SEOCT1