Small question about geo targeting
-
I have geo targeted my domain for my country in Google's Webmaster Tool. Does it mean that I have blocked visitors from other countries.
-
Thanks @Hannah @Moosa @Mark @Martijn @Deb for replying. I think that it is just a hint for google but it doesn't mean that it is going to block you from other countries. More than just a selection in the web master tool I think google will directly analyze your website and decide for which country your website is more "relevant" and of more "value to visitors".
-
Whilst one would hope that Google pay attention to geo-targeting via Webmaster Tools, in my experience it makes no material difference to rankings - either in your desired target or elsewhere.
There's been some debate as to whether or not it only influences 'Pages from the UK' (or whatever your chosen target) - however I've not seen proof it actually influences that either.
In short, if you geo-target via webmaster tools you're not blocking visitors via any other locations.
That said - it is worth noting (as I've alluded to above) geo-targeting via Webmaster tools isn't particularly effective in terms of actually establishing a geographic target for your website. As such if you're serious about establishing a geographic target this might not be the best way.
-
Thanks Mark for the Google words and your insight about it but I am still not convinced with the ground realities...
Setting up a Geo target in Google webmaster cannot block you on other areas (this make no sense to me!). There is a strong possibility that US websites may not rank higher in UK search results but the website will be completely blocked (i don’t agree)
I have a website that has a preferred location as UAE and I can literally access that website from all regions... and on some general keywords it is ranking well in US although that is not my exact location...
-
of course not .. it means you are giving a strong hint to Google that your preferred country is for say is "India". So chances are that you will rank better in Google.co.in and searches made from that country ..
-
Hi Amit,
No, by enabling the country you target in Google Webmaster Tools you give Google a better idea on which language and which country you are targetting with your Web site. This
could
help you in the rankings for the specific region you're targeting. Google Webmaster Tools gave an even better explanation about Geotargeting which could be found here.Hope this helps!
-
Moosa, I don't think you're right.
If you have a bingo site, and you geotarget it to the UK, it makes sense that your site shouldn't show up very highly in US based results, because online bingo for money is allowed in the UK whereas in the US it's not. That's part of the reason they have the geotargeting tool - to focus your site on the country where it's relevant and not on other countries it isn't relevant.
Google writes here - Geotargeting settings. You can use the geotargeting tool in Webmaster Tools to indicate to Google that your site is targeted at a specific country. Do this only if your site has a gTLD (generic top-level domain name). However, don’t use this tool if your site targets more than a single country. For example, it would make sense to set a target of Canada for a site about restaurants in Montreal; but it would not make sense to set the same target for a site that targets French speakers in France, Canada, and Mali.
Here's more info:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=62399
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192
-
If you are going to select any particular region, you will never block from all other locations.. in my opinion, if you are going to select a targeted country this will help you with ranking better in that particular location but you will still be appearing in all regions and ranking for the organic terms accordingly.
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
-
Help with international targeting
Hi all! Okay, so we've got a site, let's say example.com - we sell training courses worldwide with a particular focus in just 8 countries.
International SEO | | JamieM1611
Historically, we've never targeted users in different countries effectively, we've just got the example.com that floats about ranking in different countries, but our content is dynamic (obviously a big SEO no-no - we pick up the IP of the user and show the content relevant for that country without the URL's changing)
This obviously presents an SEO flaw in that we can effectively target people in our key countries effectively. So, we're introducing the targeting as subfolders (/uk/, /ie/ etc) my questions are: 1. Would this be the correct implementation of hreflang AND canonical tags for the URL: https://www.example.com/es/ 2. The second thing I was wondering is the 'international targeting' in search console. We haven't (because of our current set up) set a target country for www.example.com (because of the lack of regional targeting and dynamic catch all) - would we be better leaving that untargeted and only specifying the regional targets for the new subfolder URLs (www.example.com/us/ /uk/ etc) or should we set the .com as the USA as default? We'd be a bit weary of doing this because most of our traffic comes from the UK and South Africa, so I'm assuming it would be best to leave this alone unless someone else has a different opinion? I know Googlebot almost always crawls .coms from US, which is why we were thinking of leaving the .com as the 'catch all' and specifying the US version. 3. Finally, we do have a lot pages which don't really change at all (like the about us page) would we give these any special directives to avoid duplicate content (as the content on these won't be changing at all?) or do we just keep the structure as shown above? I.E would the about us page (even though not changing) still be (with the canonical): URL: https://www.example.com/about-us/ (x-default) ? Thanks in advance!0 -
International SEO - Targeting US and UK markets
Hi folks, i have a client who is based in italy and they set up a site that sells travel experiences in the sout of Italy (the site currently sit on a server in Italy). The site has been set up as gTLDs: www.example.com They only want to target the US and the UK market to promote their travel experiences and the site has only the english version (the site does not currently offer an italian version). If they decide to go for the gTLDs and not actually change to a ccTLDs (which would be ideal from my point of view) how are the steps to be taken to set this up correctly on GSC? They currently only have one property registered on GSC: www.exapmple.com therefore i guess the next steps are: Add new property - www.example.com/uk and and set up geo targeting for UK Existing property - www.example.com/ set up geo targeting for US In case the client does not have the budget to optimise the content for american and british languages, would still make sense to have 2 separate property in GSC (example.com for US market and example.com/uk for UK market)? Few considerations: Add canonical tag to avoid duplicate content across the two versions of the site (in the event there is no budget to optimise the content for US and UK market)? Thank you all in advance for looking into this David
International SEO | | Davide19840 -
Google Search Console "International Targeting" is reporting errors that are not present on my site
We are currently handling search for a global brand www.example.com/ which has presence in many countries worldwide. To help Google understand that there is an alternate version of the website available in another language, we have used hreflang tags. These hreflang tags are implemented only via the XML sitemap across all geo-locations. Under the “Search Analytics -> International Targeting” section, in Google Search Console, for the Malaysian website (www.example.com/my/), there are a number of “no-return tags (sitemaps)” errors arising. For example, for India as a geo-location, there is one ‘en-IN’ – no return tags (sitemaps) errors listed. The error is listed below: Originating URL - www.example.com/my/xyz/ Alternate URL - www.example.com/in/xyz/ When the XML sitemap for the URL – www.example.com/in/ was checked for the hreflang tags, it was noticed that the implementation of hreflang tags for the URL – www.example.com/in/xyz/ was perfectly fine and it was providing a return tag to the URL – www.example.com/my/xyz/. After the code level verification, it was identified that the implementation of hreflang tags was perfectly fine via the XML sitemap. Even though at the code level it was verified that the implementation is fine, the error still persists in Google Search Console. Kindly suggest a solution to this situation, and also advise the effects of these errors on search engine performance
International SEO | | Starcom_Search0 -
Redirection Question - Can Anyone Help?
Hi Community, I have 2 job boards. Job board A is a .co.uk domain. Job board B is uk.com domain. Job board A displays jobs in the UK but has an international jobs section. Job board B focuses entirely on international jobs. To cut a long story short we are shutting down Job board B as we are going to just be using Job board A in future. In terms of redirection, would it be best to: 1. 301 redirect job board B domain to Job board A. (www.jobboardb.uk.com -> www.jobboarda.co.uk) or 2. 301 redirect job board b to the international jobs section on job board a (as this is the most relevant place for the user to go I am thinking to go with option 2, but I read somewhere that it wasn't best practice. Any help is much appreciated.
International SEO | | SO_UK0 -
Multi country targeting for listing site, ccTLD, sub domain or .com/folder?
Hi I know this has been covered in a few questions but seen nothing recent that may take into account changes google may have applied. We would like to target multiple english speaking counties with a new project and I'm a little unsure as to whether ccTLD, subdomain or subfolders are the best way to publish country specific information. Can anyone shed some light on this?
International SEO | | Mulith0 -
Best domain for spanish language site targeting ALL spanish territories?
hi, we're have a strong .com domain and are looking to launch a site for spanish speakers (ie latin america + spain). we already have various subdirectories for some foreign language sites (eg. ourdomain.co.uk, us.ourdomain.com, ca.ourdomain.com, ourdomainchina.com, ourdomainindia.com etc) we already have a B2B site ourdomain.com-es which will remain the same. I'm thinking best practice would be to launch translated copy for the following: ourdomain.com/es ourdomain.com/cl ourdomain.com/mx ourdomain.com/pt etc etc firstly is this the best option? secondly, i'm really interested to hear whether there is a less time/resource intensive route that would give us visibility in ALL spanish speaking territories? Also - if we go with just one of the above (eg ourdomain.com/cl) how likely are we to get traction in other spanish speaking territories? any help much appreciated!
International SEO | | KevinDunne0 -
Geo Targeting for Similar Sites to Specific Countries in Google's Index
I was hoping Webmaster Tools geo targeting would prevent this - I'm seeing in select google searches several pages indexed from our Australian website. Both sites have unique TLDs: barraguard.com barraguard.com.au I've attached a screenshot as an example. The sites are both hosted here in the U.S. at our data center. Are there any other methods for preventing Google and other search engines from indexing the barraguard.com.au pages in searches that take place in the U.S.? dSzoh.jpg
International SEO | | longbeachjamie0 -
Internationally targetted subdomains and Duplicate content
A client has a site they'd like to translated into French, not for the french market but for french speaking countries. My research tells me the best way to implement this for this particular client is to create subfolders for each country. For ease of implementation I’ve decided against ccTLD’s and Sub Domains. So for example… I'll create www.website.com/mr/ for Mauritania and in GWT set this to target Mauritania. Excellent so far. But then I need to build another sub folder for Morocco. I'll then create www.website.com/ma/ for Morocco and in GWT set this to target Morocco. Now the content on these two sub folders will be exactly the same and I’m thinking about doing this for all French speaking African countries. It would be nice to use www.website.com/fr/ but in GWT you can only set one Target country. Duplicate content issues arise and my fear of perturbing the almighty Google becomes a possibility. My research indicates that I should simply canonical back to the page I want indexed. But I want them both to be indexed surely!? I therefore decided to share my situation with my fellow SEO’s to see if I’m being stupid or missing something simple both a distinct possibility!
International SEO | | eazytiger0