What's the Best Strategy for Multiregional Targeting for Single Language?
-
I have a service based client who is based in the US but wants to expand to audiences in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Currently, all the content is in American English with international targeting in Google Search Console set to the US. I know that is going to have to change, but I'm unsure of the best strategy. Right now there are a few basic strategies in my head.
- Remove International Targeting in GSC and let her rip
- Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and add canonicals pointing back to original
- Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and risk duplicate content
- Have independent writers overcharge for English translations into different dialects and add hreflang tags
It's hard to come up with a perfect solution for content differentiation by region in order to implement hreflang tags with a region (en-au, en-ca, en-gb).
Remove International Targeting in GSC and let her rip
This one is pretty simple. However, I am completely unsure of its effectiveness.
Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and add canonicals pointing back to original
The point of adding canonicals is to avoid the duplicate content, but then my new subfolders do not get indexed. I'm unsure of what type of exposure these URLs would receive or how they would be valuable.
Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and risk duplicate content
High risk of a penalty with duplicate content, but my targeting will be the most efficient.
Have independent writers overcharge for English translations into different dialects and add hreflang tags
This is probably the safest bet, takes the longest, and costs the most money. However, how different will the content actually be if I change truck to lorry, trunk to boot, and optimization to optimisation?
Maybe I'm missing something, but this conundrum seems extremely difficult. Weighing the cost, time, and possible result is challenging. Hit me with your best answer and thanks for taking a look at someone else's problem.
-
The correct answer is
- Quit geo-targeting in GSC
- Implement hreflang annotations. Their same implementation will avoid the risk of Google considering the "duplicate" versions as duplicate
- DON'T CANONICALIZE ALL THE VERSION TO ONE YOU CONSIDER CANONICAL. Doing that will screw all the hreflang implementation and the other countries will always see the canonical Url (for instance the US one in the UK).
- Instead, work on canonicalization but version by version as if they were (and actually they are) different websites. This means self-canonicalization and/or canonicalization toward another url in case, you know, of parameters et al
- Try the most you can to localize the different versions of English you're using. This will improve the localization signals for Google (and will be appreciated by your users). However, if you cannot afford to do that, you're still safe because of the hreflang.
- Remember that the href of the hreflang annotations must always present a canonical Url. So, if you implement the hreflang in a canonicalized Url, its href will need to present the canonical url of the canonicalized page the hreflang is being implemented. If you don't do this, you will see "no-return" error in Search Console, and Google won't consider your hreflang implementation and, yes, it will start considering your versions duplicated content.
-
Hey Charles,
We're working on the same question, though the website for us already has separate TLDs for various countries (.com for US, .ca for Canada, etc.)
Most of our work re: SEO has been focused on US - nationally, regionally and locally - so international is a bit new for us, but something that I've found a lot of consistent information on.
On to your questions (from my point of view, as you wish to take it)...
#2 and #3 options are what I would recommend doing from a technical/setup perspective, with option #4 being the recommended approach from a linguistics perspective.
There are references to use of canonicals for internationalization in GSC help docs, that would lead you to potentially want to do #2 vs #3; however, I've read a lot of input on this topic over the past few weeks, and non of the recommendations I've seen thus far say that canonicals are required.
At the end of the day, I'd lean to implementing option #3 first (remove int. targeting in GSC, do your subfolders per country, add hreflang tags and do not do canonical referencing to US version).
Depending on the outcomes from that, I'd potentially look into adding the canonicals to further over the specificity needle (I'd test this on a few pages first to see what the impact of this change would look like).
In addition to #3, I'd also go for manual translations of content by translators, allowing room for creating more "uniqueness" in terms of localization of how the content is interpreted, as well as the fact that it's native to the country for that version of the page (if I had the means and control to do so). This obviously can be a huge thing, as you mentioned re: cost, but would ultimately provide the best UX, IMO.
One possible cost-effective route for doing the translation would be to tap into local university students (junior/senior level?) via professors, and have them do for credit and/or less pay than you would a professional translator. If time isn't a huge issue for this portion, I think you could have the best of all worlds from this.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Kyle
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
-
Important pages are being 302 redirected, then 301 redirected to support language versions. Is this affecting negatively the linking juice distribution of our domain?
Hi mozzers, Prior to my arrival, in order to support and better serve the international locations and offering multiple language versions of the same content the company decided to restructure its URLs focused on locale urls. We went from
International SEO | | Ty1986
https://example.com/subfolder to https://example.com/us/en-us/new-subfolder (US)
https://example.com/ca/en-us/new-subfolder (CAN)
https://example.com/ca/fr-ca/new-subfolder (CAN)
https://example.com/de/en-us/new-subfolder (Ger)
https://example.com/de/de-de/new-subfolder (Ger) This had implications on redirecting old URLs to new ones. All important URLs such as https://example.com/subfolder were
302 redirected to https://example.com/us/en-us/subfolder and then 301 redirected to the final URL. According to the devs: If you change the translation to the page or locale, then a 302 needs to happen so you see the same version of the page in German or French, then a 301 redirect happens from the legacy URL to the new version. If the 302 redirect was skipped, then you would only be able to one version/language of that page.
For instance:
http://example.com/subfolder/state/city --> 301 redirect to {LEGACY URL]
https://example.com/subfolder/state/city --> 302 redirect to
https://example.com/en-us/subfolder/state/city --> 301 redirect to
https://example.com/us/en-us/new-subfolder/city-state [NEW URL] I am wondering if these 302s are hurting our link juice distribution or that is completely fine since they all end up as a 301 redirect? Thanks.1 -
How to best set up international XML site map?
Hi everyone, I've been searching about a problem, but haven't been able to find an answer. We would like to generate a XML site map for an international web shop. This shop has one domain for Dutch visitors (.nl) and another domain for visitors of other countries (Germany, France, Belgium etc.) (.com). The website on the 2 domains looks the same, has the same template and same pages, but as it is targeted to other countries, the pages are in different languages and the urls are also in different languages (see example below for a category bags). Example Netherlands:
International SEO | | DocdataCommerce
Dutch domain: www.client.nl
Example Dutch bags category page: www.client.nl/tassen Example France:
International domain: www.client.com
Example French bags category page: www.client.com/sacs When a visitor is on the Dutch domain (.nl) which shows the Dutch content, he can switch country to for example France in the country switch and then gets redirected to the other, international .com domain. Also the other way round. Now we want to generate a XML sitemap for these 2 domains. As it is the same site, but on 2 domains, development wants to make 1 sitemap, where we take the Dutch version with Dutch domain as basis and in the alternates we specify the other language versions on the other domain (see example below). <loc>http://www.client.nl/tassen</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="http://www.client.com/sacs"
/></xhtml:link<br> Is this the best way to do this? Or would we need to make 2 site maps, as it are 2 domains?0 -
Setting up a website targeted for the US
Hi, As an English company we have a co.uk domain with .com domain pointing to this. We are now looking to launch a separate (new) website targeting the American market and I have been asked to do the following: If an American or Canadian IP address visits the .com website it automatically goes to our newly created website i.e. website 2. If a non-American or non-Canadian IP address goes to .com it automatically goes to the original website i.e. website 1. If a user is on website 1 and clicks an American flag it takes the website user to website 2. If a user is on website 2 and clicks on the UK flag it takes the website user to website 1. Can anyone advise the best way to go about doing this as I feel that this could effect our search rankings. I am concerned how the search engines will penalize website 2 (original site) which has good rankings. Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | Cybertill0 -
Shall I automatically redirect international visitors from www.domain.com to e.g. www.domain.com/es? What is best SEO practice?
We have chosen the one domain approach with our international site having different language versions in subdirectory of main domain:
International SEO | | lcourse
www.domain.com/es
www.domain.com/it
etc. What is SEO-wise best practice for implementing international index pages. I see following options: entering www.domain.com will display without redirection the index page in language of user (e.g based on IP or browser) in www.domain.com
Example: www.booking.com entering www.domain.com will always show English index page.
Additionally one may display a message in the header if IP from other country with link to other language version.
Example: www.apple.com entering www.domain.com will always redirect automatically to country specific subdirectory based on IP
Example: www.samsung.com Any thoughts/suggestions on what may be best solution from a SEO perspective? For a user I believe options 1) & 3) are preferable.0 -
Same language manage many country
Hello, I would like to hear how you would handle the following situation. I make website for people with a .be domain that also want to score in .nl . Both countries speak dutch. There are however slight variations between the two countries. For some it does not matter for others it can be handy. Ex. A specific product might be called diffrent in one country then the other. The main problem is for those that have a .be domain will not score on a .nl domain and visa versa. This due geo targeting. What would you do? Imagine we already have a .be domain (.be == belgium, .nl==Netherland both speak dutch) A: Buy a .nl and copy and show the same content on .nl as .be
International SEO | | nono_1974
B: Buy a .nl and make new content (lots of work)
😄 Buy a .EU, .com adres and Geotarget nl.somedomain.eu , be.somedomain.eu . But what about the content The main problem is double content and targeting the two countries.0 -
Targeting an Specific Country Audience - Domain Q
Hiya everyone! I know this might entail a novice SEO question, but i am having some doubts. Hope you can give your opinions. Its kind of technical question regarding domain and country targeting. I have a Steel Construction company targeting only the audience of the particular country. Last year, i bought the targeted domains for my brand (company name), as in domain.country specific TLD, Should i use these domains, redirect them, or something? Would that help?. I currently use domain.com, but i am constantly being beaten down by websites with domain specific with overly thin content, no PA or DA, and 0 links to their site. Should i use my country specific domains, would that make a difference? Note: I also run some marketing campaigns for charitable foundation i started, and i used country specific domain and server, and with little effort i ranked top 3 in most of the desired terms. Any help or comment is appreciated, Thanks!
International SEO | | JesusD0 -
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.
International SEO | | ksbnok0 -
What's the best strategy for checking international rankings?
Hi There- I am looking to optimize sites serving the UK and Austrailia markets. I feel like I have a good handle on how to go about doing that, but what I am fuzzy on is, what's the best way to monitor the SERPs for the keywords I am targeting. I know based on experience that if I just search google.com.au from here in the states, my results will be 'americanized' and may/probably won't accurately reflect what someone would see if they were search from Austrailia. Are there any good tools or tactics for seeing what searchers in the countries I am focusing on woudl see? Thanks! Jason
International SEO | | phantom0