Doubt of multi country/language site
-
Hi !
We are building a site that is going to be available in some countrys with the same language (spanish), and we have some doubts about whih is the best way to do it.
Option 1) Subdomains: Example; españa.mydomain.com , mexico.mydomain.com (the problem here is that there are some problems with linkbuilding with subdomains)
Option 2) Language folders: Example; mydomain.com/es/es mydomain.com/es/mx (the problem here is that the prestige of the category in the url is going to be in 3rd position, example: mydomain.com/es/es/category and is not recommended for SEO)
Option 3) Country domains Example; mydomain.es<a></a> mydomain.mx (the link building is going to be much more, cause we have to multipliate the links that we need ffor being in a good position with the diferent domains of each country)
I am not sure of which one is the best option, what do you think?
The only thing I am sure is to use te TAG:
rel="alternate" hreflang="x" for not having duplicate content, because index and categories are going to be the same, the only thing that is going to change is the products of each country.
Looking forward to your suggestions!
Thanks, Regards
Exequiel
-
If yo want to use the subfolder version, it is perfectly possible and it is a good idea because all the links built for all the countries' subfolder are going to benefit all the other subfolders.
But be sure to do these things:
- In GWT geotarget every subfolder to its corresponding country doing so: once you’ve added your main site (e.g. domain.com) and verified it in Webmaster Tools, simply register a new site in the same account – but set the new site as domain.com/pe (or whichever your root subfolder is named). You can use that account to geo-target to Peru – the option is in ‘settings’ in the left-hand panel. You can repeat the same process for as many folders as you want to geo-target.
- About the Information Arquitecture, I don't like what you plan to do, as you are creating an uselless level. Instead do this:
- domain.com (your main country market)
- domain.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)
- domain.com/es-pe/ (Peru)
- domain.com/es-ar/ (Argentina)
- Use the rel alternate hreflang="x". Be aware to use the canonical only if really the content is identical. I suggest you to read this post by DejanSEO about the use or not of the rel canonical in conjuntion with the rel alternate hreflang > dejanseo.com.au/canonical-vs-hreflang/
- Remember all the classic ToDos of international SEO (currencies, phone numbers, addresses, local flavours of the language... as you know that Spanish in Argentina is not exactly the same to the one spoken in Mexico...)
- Remember to create sub-link building campaigns for any of the countries you are targeting, in order to give to any of your country subfolders.
-
Hello Exquiel,
The truth is that each way of doing this has different advantages and disadvantages. I tend to agree that for you Option 2 is the best, but this blog post by Sebastian Aroca lays out the differences very well:
Hopefully this will help you make the best decision for your company.
-
Hi Exequiel,
I had be running with a .co.uk for years and we decided to introduce a .ie website both English Language, and I went for option 3, correctly geotargeting both websites correctly.
For the first few months the .ie website began to rank extremely well, now there seems to be some issues with the .co.uk website, some of the keywords I was ranking well for top5 for highly competitive keywords have vanished, this is not because of the Google Penguin update it's because Google has messed it up, so I have needed to go with TAG: rel="alternate" hreflang="x" on both websites, however it's still not solved the problem, I think I will need to go for canonical on the .ie website, meaning keywords ranking well in Google.ie will fall away.
Not sure if the above helps.
-
option 2 is best. you're worried that the content is a few folders deep? Don't be, just provide a clear path to get to those pages.
as far as duplicate content goes, if you are geotargeting each section you're fine
Option 2) Language folders: Example; mydomain.com/es/es mydomain.com/es/mx (the problem here is that the prestige of the category in the url is going to be in 3rd position, example: mydomain.com/es/es/category and is not recommended for SEO)
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
-
Confusing mixture of cross-domain and multi-language - HREFLANG
Hi Mozzers, I am working for an international client, in a highly regulated industry. As such, their international set-up is slightly confusing. They currently operate websites across multiple countries (with ccTLDs), as well as a global .com. E.g: domain.co.uk domain.it domain. es domain.com etc. Additionally, they offer multiple languages across each of these domains, which often cross over. E.g: domain.co.uk/en/, domain.co.uk/fr/, domain.co.uk/de/ domain.es/en/, domain.es/es/ domain.it/en/, domain.it/it/ domain.com/en/, domain.com/es/, domain.com/fr/, domain.com/de/ They are not currently using HREFLANG of any sort. Using EN as an example, this results in 6 URLs showing the same content, albeit for different languages/locations: Main URL domain.co.uk/en/category-A/ hreflang="en-GB" Multi-lingual variants from same domain... domain.co.uk/fr/category-A/ hreflang="fr-GB" domain.co.uk/de/category-A/ hreflang="de-GB" Cross domain variants from other ccTLDs... domain.es/en/category-A/ hreflang="en-ES" domain.it/en/category-A/ hreflang="en-IT" domain.com/en/category-A/ hreflang="en" Can anyone cleverer than myself confirm that the above would be the most effective set-up for this scenario, with each URL referencing each other in this way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pan12340 -
Multiple Ecommerce sites, same products
We are a large catalog company with thousands of products across 2 different domains. Google clearly knows that the sites are connected. Both domains are fairly well known brands - thousands of branded searches for each site per month. Roughly half of our products overlap - they appear on both sites. We have a known duplicate content issue - both sites having exactly the same product descriptions, and we are working on it. We've seen that when a product has different content on the 2 sites, frequently, both pages get to page 2 of the SERPs, but that's as far as it goes, despite aggressive white hat link building tactics. 1. Is it possible to get the same product pages on page 1 of the SERPs for both sites? (I think I know the answer...) 2. Should we be canonicalizing (is that a word?) products across the sites? This would get tricky - both sites have roughly the same domain authority, but in different niches. Certain products and keywords naturally rank better on 1 site or the other depending on the niche.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
SEO and former site
Hi, my client had a site built and hosted with Avvo but we now shut it down and are using a new server. My concern is that Avvo's internal link structure is causing SEO issues. For example, his site will list for "San Diego Criminal Defense Attorney", but is then removed for no reason. Far worse, while he had the AVVO site, it would never rank at all on Google. He's got great content, and no spammy links. This is the site: www.thesandiegocriminallawyer.com. Any thoughts of what I could do to disavow the AVVO pages that Google still has indexed? Does it matter? Or, is it simply a function of time? Thank you for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
How come this site does so well?
Hi Guys, It's bugging the crap out of me why this site does so well http://www.stagedinburgh.com/ when I look at it's link profile its so weak and terrible plus many links comes from the sites they own. Somehow the site out ranks many sites for search terms like edinburgh stag party, edinburgh stag do, edinburgh stag weekends. Am I missing something? They seem to only have links from 13 domains and they aint great. What am I missing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PottyScotty0 -
Severe health issues are found on your site. - Check site health (GWT)
Hi, We run a Magento website - When i log in to Google Webmaster Tools, I am getting this message: Severe health issues are found on your site. - <a class="GNHMM2RBFH">Check site health
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
</a>Is robots.txt blocking important pages? Some important page is blocked by robots.txt. Now, this is the weird part - the page being blocked is the admin page of magento - under
www.domain.com/index.php/admin/etc..... Now, this message just wont go away - its been there for days now - so why does Google think this is an "important page"? It doesnt normally complain if you block other parts of the site ?? Any ideas? THanks0 -
Changing Site URLs
I am working on a new client that hasn't implemented any SEO previously. The site has terrible url nomenclature and I am wondering if it is worth it to try and change it. Will I lose rankings? What is the best url naming structure? Here's the website http://www.formica.com/en/home/TradeLanding.aspx. (I am only working on the North America site.) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
Domain w/ Identical Content to Site we are Optimizing
Hi Guys, We've been optimizing a client's site for about a year or so now and on a call the other day the client brought up that he owns and operates another site that's marketing the same product, but to a difference audience (we work on the direct to consumer side, this is a distributior focused site),with the same exact content as the site we are optimizing. Obviously this is a major duplcant content issue and we need to get it resolved very quickjly. We have already reccomendt to the client that we re-write content, but this is where my questions comes in - Which site should we rewrite the content on? The site we are optimizing is the more impoorant of the two, while we still want the other site to hold rankings we dont want to end up accidently optimizing the other site wherein the site we are working on full time suffers a lost when a "compeiting" site creates compeltely new content and may, accidentally, end up ranking higher than the site we are focusing on full time. As links also play a role, would that be a KPI to look at here in determining which site gets new content and which does not? In this scenairo, would would you guys recommend? Just want to make sure I'm dotting all my I's, and crossing T's here. Many thanks to all in advance, Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Havas_Disco0 -
Migrating a site
Hello, I have what a I think it's a noob question.. I have a medium size website and need to put it into maintenance for the next 2 months, and afterwards activate a completly new site. My client asked me to do this, cause the same people whoe run the constant flow of information on the site, are the ones who are going to develop the new site, so he wants to just close it out So... what are the steps for doing this with minimum impact on any SEO advances made this past months?.. How do I tell the search engines, Hey, just under maintenance for a while....then... i'm back in the game but this is my new structure. and the old one should go here
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniel.alvarez0