One company, 3 countries, 3 sites - best solution?
-
Hi all, I'm working with a company that has 3 x websites all on separate WordPress platforms.
One is at .com, the others .fr and .de - they are essentially very similar.
I have suggested that it is worth exploring setting all of these websites up on the .com domain with country-specific directories to combine their authority and help all 3 websites naturally rank due to combining incoming links, authority etc.
Quesitons:
To ensure each country has control of their site, would you maintain a separate install of WP at each directory, i.e: .com/fr/ and .com/de or would you put it all on the same WP?
Would you go down this route of combining all 3 sites onto one domain with country-specific directories? What are the pitfalls?
-
Gaston, your answer is correct (albeit not complete... see my answer below).
Plus: when linking to posts and guides, even if they are by Moz, always explain why they can be useful.
-
The answer offered by Gaston is correct, but it's not the only option available.
You can consolidate the three websites under the .com one and geo-target the /fr/ and /de/ subfolder via Google Search Console.
However, I wouldn't install 3 different WordPress, but only one and use the WPML plugin (https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/), which works with no issues with all major WordPress plugins usually used for SEO (like Yoast SEO).
I don't pitfalls in a consolidation, but every international strategy really is unique and, not knowing the details of yours I cannot give you a firm positive (or negative) answer.
-
Hello Bee,
As for internationalization purposes, leave them in their own ccTLD. Just add hreflangs to the other country websites and you'll be just fine.
If you choose to go down the road of having all under a .com/country/ configuration, I'd suggest you installing separate wordpress on each country. Also, if you plan on expanding on more countries and having an overall control, take a look at Wordpress Multisite Network Administration.
Also, just for clarifying, take a look at these articles:
Multi-regional and multilingual sites - Google Search Console
International checklist - Moz Blog
Using the correct hreglang tag - Moz Blog
Guide to international website expansion - Moz Blog
Tool for checking hreflang anotations - Moz BlogHope it helps.
Best Luck.
GR.
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
-
Test site got indexed in Google - What's the best way of getting the pages removed from the SERP's?
Hi Mozzers, I'd like your feedback on the following: the test/development domain where our sitebuilder works on got indexed, despite all warnings and advice. The content on these pages is in active use by our new site. Thus to prevent duplicate content penalties we have put a noindex in our robots.txt. However off course the pages are currently visible in the SERP's. What's the best way of dealing with this? I did not find related questions although I think this is a mistake that is often made. Perhaps the answer will also be relevant for others beside me. Thank you in advance, greetings, Folko
Technical SEO | | Yarden_Uitvaartorganisatie0 -
Image Height/Width attributes, how important are they and should a best practice site include this as std
Hi How important are the image height/width attributes and would you expect a best practice site to have them included ? I hear not having them can slow down a page load time is that correct ? Any other issues from not having them ? I know some re social sharing (i know bufferapp prefers images with h/w attributes to draw into their selection of image options when you post) Most importantly though would you expect them to be intrinsic to sites that have been designed according to best practice guidelines ? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Best practice for author tags: G+ personal or G+ company page?
I work for a company that has a corporate G+ page. I have a personal G+ page. When I write articles for the company blog there are 2 questions that come up: (1) for the rel="author" tag within the blog posting on the company's blog, should I reference my personal G+ page, or the company's G+ page as the author? (2) which G+ page, mine or my company's, should share the link to the blog posting on the company's site? Or should both share it? My goal is to build up author rank for either me or the company I work for (don't care which) so that after a while the Google organic search listing will include the author thumbnail if the article ranks for the search query. I don't care if the thumbnail is me or my company; just trying to figure out how to best link everything to maximize the chance of getting an author thumbnail in the search rankings. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | scanlin0 -
Photography Sites with Same Developer - Why Is One Ranking & Other Not?
I'm currently confused about the difference in ranking between two competing sites, created by the same agency. http://jmayphoto.com/index2.php#!/home (302 redirected from http://jmayphoto.com...yeah) is not ranking well, and I'm not surprised. However, competitor http://www.shanrenee.com/ is ranking within the top 5 spots for a primary target keyword (dallas wedding photographer) and I don't understand how it's doing so well. I definitely see differences, but not enough to explain how Shan Renee is one page. What am I missing?
Technical SEO | | BrittanyHighland0 -
Canonicalisation - Best Approach?
Hi I have been reading into canonicalisation and I am looking for professional advice and guidance on the best approach as there are many conflicting views on how to implement a solution. I have added to the homepage http://www.cheapfindergames.com/" /> so that http://cheapfindergames.com and index.php redirects to the www version. Or would it be better using .htaccess if this is the case what code would be needed to achieve the above? Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | ocelot0 -
If multiple links on a page point to the same URL, and one of them is no-followed, does that impact the one that isn't?
Page A has two links on it that both point to Page B. Link 1 isn't no-follow, but Link 2 is. Will Page A pass any juice to Page B?
Technical SEO | | Jay.Neely0 -
My site ranking
Hello, I have a website and working more than 1 year ago,I worked hard last year and paid alot to make guys write articles from my website to other forums so my keywords rank high and got good visitors, then I get in much care in SEO and found SEOMoz with is very nice,when I downloaded the tool bar it was a shock to find my website is almost zero although the big effort I had, I can do more but I need to guide what I exactly need to improve my website,I almost read alot of the beginner PDF and got good information to work with and can hire people to help too. I did a real big work sharing my subjects and i can see them in top#5 google but for other sites and now i found I am still zero 😞 adding my links inside also didnt help or counted. attached the statistics of the website and the competitors site to let me know which important things to take care to jump over. would be very thankful for detailed help, Best Regards 1_01308477251.png 1_01308477465.png
Technical SEO | | nesr_20200 -
Site Relaunch
Hello, I recently launched my new site (Nov. 25, 2011) but still have the old site live because I still need old customer data from the old admin for customer service issues and I cannot delete the old front-end without deleting the old back-end!. I am seeing a lot of referrals coming from the old site IP address with many backlinks to the new site but dont know if this is actually hurting the new site due to duplicate content, ect .. Any input would be greatly aaaaaapreciated 😉 Thanks in advance, Byron-
Technical SEO | | k9byron0