International Websites - Hosting, Domain Names, & Configuration
-
What is the best way to configure a website that targets a number of countries and languages around the world?
For example, Apple has websites optimized for just about every country and language in the world (see: https://www.apple.com/choose-country-region/).
- When you choose the UK it takes you to: https://www.apple.com/uk/
- When you choose China it take you to: https://www.apple.com/cn/
- Etc.
When you go to apple.co.uk it forwards you to the UK version of the website. The same is true for apple.cn.
Is this the ideal way to set it up?
I have also seen websites that have each version of the website on its own TLD such as exampleBrand.co.uk and exampleBrand.cn - in this example they don't forward to the .com.
My concern with Apple's solution is SEO and hosting. Do consumers favor seeing their country's TLD in search results over exampleBrand.com/uk? For hosting, shouldn't the mainland China version of the website be hosted in China? Is it possible to just host a folder of a website in a certain country such as the cn folder for China?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I was unable to find much info on this.
-
Apple is doing what is doing because it decided to go the subfolders way for their main website, but they obviously own also the ccTlds for brand protection and redirect them.
Once, though, it was using subdomains for its ecommerce part (now they are subfolders under each country section.
Actually, it is not correct to say that one solution (subfolders, ccTld or subdomains) is better than another. It all depends on the specific business needs and, secondly, on technological needs.
However, it is true that when a company is starting an internationalization of its business, a better option is going with subfolders, so to give them some strength via internal linking, while not forgetting to improve the popularity and authority of the country targeting subfolders with localized link building and digital PR campaigns.
On a middle/long term, though, and traffic and conversion metrics justify it, it may be better to move the subfolder to a unique domain name geotargeted to the marketed country. The reason of this choice can also be found out of the SEO world (i.e.: in the UK the marketing strategy is different than in the USA because of nuances of the same UK market or different seasonality).
Regarding hosting... having a site hosted in the country the site itself is targeting is not anymore a ranking factor in International SEO since when cloud hosting became mainstream.
However, it still remains a (tiny) geotargeting signal for Google, as they repeated sometimes on Twitter and Google Hangouts.
-
In the case of markets where Google is not the main search engine, but others like Baidu in China, Naver in Korea, Yahoo in Japan and Yandex in Russian speaking countries, then I would strongly suggest to go for ccTlds, because those search engines do not work the same way Google does (hence, SEO it's different. A good example of this is Naver).
-
Hi!
It's actually all going to depend on your company/industry/audience. Apple does it the way they do as they need to do it that way as a global retailer that has the resources to market to different country markets.
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/guide-to-international-seo
Try that and let me know what questions you have. Inside that article is a link to a tool to help you figure out how best to set up your site structure.
-
I would choose to do it with subfolders and not different TLDs for each country. I found a pretty interesting post found below that can add some perspective:
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/international-seo-domains-or-folders
His response is very thorough and answers your question much better than I ever could.
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
-
What’s the best tool to visualize internal link structure and relationships between pages on a single site?
I‘d like to review the internal linking structure on my site. Is there a tool that can visualize the relationships between all of the pages within my site?
Web Design | | QBSEO0 -
Question Concerning HTML5/CSS Templates & Google Mobility Issues
Hi all, Looking for some kind of solution for a responsive update for a site and I am wondering if there are any templates (not Wordpress) that are both great SEO wise and would also pass muster with the impending Google update for responsiveness? I was looking at things like Canvas and Porto ( http://themeforest.net/popular_item/by_category?category=site-templates ) but can't find any discussion on whether or not these things have been addressed with any of these templates. If any of you have suggestions or other places to look for something that could possibly fit the bill (even if temporarily) I would be very appreciative. Thank you so much in advance!
Web Design | | Pixelwik1 -
E-Commerce Website Architecture - Cannibalization between Product Categories and Blog Categories?
Hi, I have an e-commerce site that sells laptops. My main landing pages and category pages are as follows:
Web Design | | BeytzNet
"Toshiba Laptops", "Samsung Laptops", etc. We also run a WP blog with industry news.
The posts are divided into categories which are basically as our landing pages.
The posts themselves usually link to the appropriate e-commerce landing page.
For example: a post about a new Samsung Laptop which is categorized in the blog under "Samsung Laptops" will naturally link somewhere inside to the "samsung laptops" ecommerce landing page. Is that good or do the categories on the blog cannibalize my more important e-commerce section landing pages? Thanks0 -
White Text / Black Background & SEO Impact
Does anyone know of any testing / studies with evidence that Google prefers dark text on a light background vs. light text on a dark background? I have a website that currently has light text on a black background, and really like the way it looks, but am concerned that the style may be hurting SEO. Moreover, redesigning something inverse with the same quality would be a large project and fairly costly, so I'd like to make sure the benefit will really be worth the cost before moving forward.
Web Design | | Bromtec0 -
Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
Hello, We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design? Thank you! Best regards,
Web Design | | Tiberiu
Tiberiu0 -
How to serve a Mobile & Full Site using one URL?
Hello, Does anyone know of any resources or tutorials that outline how to serve a smartphone-formatted website using the same URL as the full site? I know that one solution is using media-queries to serve a seperate CSS stylesheet, but you still have the full HTML source code. In other words, I might want to serve a smartphone & desktop user different content, but under one URL. WP Touch (Wordpress Plugin) is a perfect example of what I mean, but how is it technically achieved? It serves two different sets of HTML for smartphone & full, but using one URL http://www.bravenewcode.com/store/plugins/wptouch-pro/
Web Design | | petecampbell-bmi0 -
Changing a domain for local.
I have a client that currently is using a sub-domain site from our local news paper site. The domain authority looks huge, but it is not really their own domain. I know in the log run it best to change the domain name. I am afraid of a significant drop in Google Places traffic when I change to a new domain. Has anyone dealt with type of situation?
Web Design | | Joshen0 -
HTML5, semantic web & SEO
HTML5 is supposed to revolutionize the way browsers, web clients and services are supposed to "understand" information on the web. I have been planning on converting my site to HTML5 ever since it went into a working draft last spring, however I wanted to know if upgrading to HTML5 would offer any SEO benefits or if it would actually have a negative effect on how my site is perceived on the web. I guess my real question here is "Do search engines recognize HTML5 sectioning?" Is content found in semantic sections like <header>, <footer>, <nav>, <aside>, treated any different than content inside generic HTML4 containers like, or ? </aside> </nav> </footer> </header>
Web Design | | TahoeMountain400