Update: A very heartfelt thank you to everyone who left comments giving me suggestions and pointing out my errors in the original version of this post. It is great to have a network of people who go out of their way and take the time to offer me constructive criticism. It is very much appreciated and helps me make my work better so other people can get the most out of it. Specifically, I want to thank RedCardinal, robbothan, salomonitc, PowerfulSEOTools and Robert Chapman.
This structure of URLs is one element of a big problem called internationalization. The internet evolved (or was intelligently designed for those not down with the Darwin ;-p) in a way that made TLDs (Top Level Domains like .com, .info, or .org) almost completely useless for determining the intent of a website. (The exception to this is regulated TLDs like .gov, .edu and some country specific TLDs) In theory, a .com is supposed to only be used by companies and .org by nonprofit organizations. Obviously, this does not happen. Combine this with the current trend to misuse country specific TLDs (ccTLDs) for shorter domains names (Hint: Bit.ly has nothing to do with Libya) and you can easily see why the semantic value of TLDs has became a relatively poor metric for categorizing websites.
So what are you supposed to do as an SEO who wants to build a search engine friendly website with international versions of content? Prepare to summon your inner SEO scientist. You are going to need to pick between three very different options depending on your circumstance.
SEO Guide: International Versions of Websites
Task: Weigh the following options and decide which is best for your organization.
Subdomain – uk.example.com/
Great option for websites where strong international push is expected from within the company.
Pros:
- Maintains some of the metrics (domain trust, domain popularity) of the root domain.
- Users will easily understand that this is the country specific version of a site they are familiar with.
- Each subdomain can be hosted on a server with a corresponding country IP address
Cons:
- While you maintain some of the value of the root domain metrics, you do lose a significant amount.
- Higher risk of mislinking. Many linkers will link to the “www” of the site out of habit.
ccTLD – www.example.co.uk/
Great option for websites that have a strong attachment to country of origin and are vastly different from their foreign counterparts.
Pros:
- Very obvious and intuitive to the user.
- Good chance of getting correct links.
- Provides the ability for each domain to be hosted on a country specific IP address. This can be essential for ranking in country specific search engines.
Cons:
- Completely different domain than its foreign friends, amigos and amis. This means they do not share any of the benefits of inbound links.
Subfolder – www.example.com/uk/ or www.example.com/en-gb/
(See meta content below for explanation en-gb)
Great option for an already well established website that is looking to expand into new international markets.
Pros:
- All links to any version of the site help boost the domain. It’s a rising tide raises all boats situation.
- Less prone to linking mistakes as this format follows the standard website convention www.example.com.
Cons:
- In my experience, this option has not performed as well in country specific search engines.
- Potentially confusing for users looking for a ccTLD (ex. .co.uk) version of the site.
- Not able to have different country sites hosted from different country specific servers with proper IP addresses.
Other Considerations:
Google Webmaster Tools:
Google provides a service for making the problem of internationalization a little less nasty. If you sign up for and verify your website with Google Webmaster Tools, you have the option of geotargeting your website. See below:
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Language:
Language is a extremely important hint to the engines about how and where to rank content. Quite frequently this is done poorly with similar languages (US English vs UK English) and results in duplicate content problems. To prevent this be sure to make it as mind-numbingly easy for the engines to determine which language speaking group of users is being targeted. To do this, combine the URL conventions above with some of the tactics below.
IP Addresses:
The IP address of your server makes a big difference in country specific search engines. If you have a small to medium sized site, make it a priority to get a server hosted in the same country as your primary audience.
Meta Content:
Declaring a meta content attribute helps make it easier for engines to understand which language is being targeted. This also makes it easy to make it clear which version of a language is being targeted. For example, the UK version of English is shown below.:
You can find the entire list of language codes at Microsoft’s Developer Center.
Links from Websites Hosted in Targeted Country:
There is an ongoing debate in SEO about whether or not this helps. While I have seen evidence that this is helpful for local search (think cities rather than countries) I have not seen any convincing evidence for this helping in international search. That said, I still do recommend it as a low level priority tactic. Additional relevant links is always a good idea.
What If I Am Lazy and Don’t Want To Think Through All of The Options?
First, consider a new career (perhaps a politician?) and then go with the following configuration:
- Use the subfolder option ( Ex. www.exmaple.com/en-us/my-page/ )
- Verify each country specific homepage with Google Webmaster Tools
- Assign each country specific homepage to the correct country
- Automatically redirect users based on IP while defaulting to one version (For many sites this will be English but this is not universal)
- Include links to alternative language versions of the site on the top of every page (Many sites use images of flags to do this)
- Set the meta content attribute for all appropriate pages
This is not the best option for all situations, but it will suffice for most. (How bout them apples?)
More Resources:
Geolocation & International SEO Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any internationalization tips, tricks or advice that you think are worth sharing, feel free to post them in the comments. This post is very much a work in progress. As always, feel free to e-mail me or send me a private message if you have any suggestions on how I can make my posts more useful. All of my contact information is available on my profile: Danny Thanks!
