223 replies to this topic

[Randy]

Offtopic

I edited the url to the tool to break a live link Jeff.

When you type it in the forums with the http bit on the beginning the forum automatically turns it into a link. See the Linkng In Posts section of the [url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?act=boardrules]Forum Rules[/url] for why I broke the url.

[logos1234]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for a great thread! It's so long, I've forgotten what my problem is...oh yes... I was referred to this thread by Randy from this one I don't think this topic has been covered here.

I have a .net domain name and rank in 1st position for a couple of my main keywords in google.com and google.co.uk, which is great. Somehow Google knows that I am UK based, perhaps because my keywords target a UK county, although most of my links are from .com sites (how does it know I'm in the UK?). The site is hosted in the US. My problem is that I rank very well in yahoo.com but not uk.yahoo.com or MSN. Jill said that Google correctly sees my site as more relevant and Randy suggested that I need to give Yahoo! a clue that I am UK based. So, from reading the thread, should I park a .co.uk on the .net and then get links to the .co.uk from UK based sites. If I follow this method, will I need to get many links to the .co.uk or just a few? Is there any advantage to me hosting my site in the UK, does Yahoo! and MSN factor this into their results?

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere in the thread, I've read about 80% of it.

Many thanks

[livingdreams_sa]

I've read the whole thread, and I am extremely grateful for all the help from experienced people here.


First, I would like to comment this Ian's line:

With Google's webmaster tools, you also need a domain or subdomain.

It seams it's not necessary to have domain or subdomain - on the page that Incrediblehelp mentioned, i.e. Where in the world is your site? , there is following question and answer:

Q: Does the targeting work at lower levels in the path as well, such as www.example.com/sitearea/country
A: You can target any level of subfolders or subdirectories. Just add them each as a separate site in your Webmaster Tools account.


Second, on the same page mentioned above, miss Susan explains that the only effect of Google's Set Geographic Target tool is when user searches the google via "only show results from particular country" option.
If this is true, then there is no "local SERP boosting" for pages which you point out in the google's tool when user searches via ordinary (nonspecific) search. In another words, it is not possible to gain the same local boosting using google tool, as you can do using ccTLD and/or server's location. ??


Third, if I understood correctly, being geo-located for some country does not worse your position in other countries - true, or not true? (I.e. you will have the same position in google.de never mind if you are geo-located as uk page or not.)

I wonder is the same conclusion true for google geo-target tool, because of following citation from the same page previously mentioned (actually from video-file attached to this page): "... if I have a site in French language, and I target both audience in Canada and in France, I wouldn't want to set geo-target my site to France, because then I am maybe missing the French speaking people in Canada...". So, IF this is literally true, then it is very important - it means that your SERP position on google.ca depends (in negative way) on the fact are you google-tool-targeted for France or not.


Fourth, I don't understand what is the difference between "hosting" method and "IPGeoLocation" method in Ian's post:

The common denominator being that if you want to do geolocation on your site with either traditional methods (hosting or ccTLD) or modern methods (Webmaster Tools or IPGeoLocation), ...

Is it that "IPmethod" gives the "artificial" IP address to the site, so SE thinks this site is hosted in the country matching this IP?


Fifth, does someone know is it possible to host sub-domains on different servers? E.g., to host de.example.com in Germany, es.example.com in Spain and uk.example.com in England?


Sixth... ehmm, that's it

[chrishirst]

Fifth, does someone know is it possible to host sub-domains on different servers? E.g., to host de.example.com in Germany, es.example.com in Spain and uk.example.com in England?

It certainly is.
Just add "A" records pointing to the host server IP on the authoritative DNS server.

[Paul SEO]

I have just read Ian's article - Only In Canada, eh?

Now I know why my web site don't show up when I hit the Page in Canada button with Google.

Can someone refer a good reliable Canadian Hosting company please.

Don't you think that instead of using the IP adress, Google should use the registrar informations?

Thanks

I was with a company called citymax.com that was located in Canada. The downside was no ftp .. a template driven site. If you dont need ftp .. the software was good.

[Randy]

1 & 2: Realize that anything you do in Webmaster Tools only applies to Google. It'll have exactly zero effect on every other search engine. And Google doesn't rule the roost in every country across the world.

3: It's true that setting up a geo-target doesn't hurt rankings in other countries or on the .com version as far as I've been able to tell. But I don't do much geo-targeting myself so you'll want to wait for someone else to chime in.

That's not to say it might not feel like it's hurting though in certain circumstances. Let's say in the example given the French language site happened to be hosted in Canada or had a .ca domain. In which case it would likely be getting a boost for French Canadian users searching for Canadian based sites. If you then used Webmaster Tools to set it to France in origin, it might well override the former Canadian setting. Causing Canadian listings to languish since it would no longer be considered a Canadian site.

It's not really a situation where the setting is causing harm or some type of penalty, but that the site might not get the Boost it had been getting previously.

4: As I understand it, the difference between Hosting and IPGeoLocation is a technical one. It's hinted about in that same post where Ian mentioned he has a patent pending technology that would allow one to set all or part of a site so that it appears to resolve to an IP number, which may not be its actual location.

The distinction being that if you Host your site on a UK based server the entire server should have UK based IP numbers to which sites are attached. Utilizing the method Ian hinted at with an IPGeoLocation component would allow you to host your site on say a US based server, with its US based IP numbers, but using a bit of DNS trickery you could make all or part of the site appear (to the search engines that key on IP) like those pages were on a UK hosted machine with a UK IP number.

It's a fairly elaborate thing, as you might imagine. Which is probably why it took someone Ian to come up with the slick bit of trickery.

5: As Chris already said, it's completely doable. Heck, before I sold it off, I used have a site that was an affiliate for a well known flower grower and that's the way they set up things. I didn't have to upload a single file or do anything with the store. I just set up a store.domain.com subdomain on my server and pointed the subdomain's A record over to the place they told me to on their servers. Easiest store I ever built!

[logos1234]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for a great thread! It's so long, I've forgotten what my problem is...oh yes... I was referred to this thread by Randy from this one I don't think this topic has been covered here.

I have a .net domain name and rank in 1st position for a couple of my main keywords in google.com and google.co.uk, which is great. Somehow Google knows that I am UK based, perhaps because my keywords target a UK county, although most of my links are from .com sites (how does it know I'm in the UK?). The site is hosted in the US. My problem is that I rank very well in yahoo.com but not uk.yahoo.com or MSN. Jill said that Google correctly sees my site as more relevant and Randy suggested that I need to give Yahoo! a clue that I am UK based. So, from reading the thread, should I park a .co.uk on the .net and then get links to the .co.uk from UK based sites. If I follow this method, will I need to get many links to the .co.uk or just a few? Is there any advantage to me hosting my site in the UK, does Yahoo! and MSN factor this into their results?

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere in the thread, I've read about 80% of it.

Many thanks

I've reread parts of this thread and digested the following, although I want to be clear before I take action:

The order of preference currently is:

1. A ccTLD (for all 3 search engines)
2. IP address (for all 3 search engines)
3. Inbound links (for MSN and Yahoo).

Please could someone clarify if in my case the correct thing to do is to host my site in the UK rather than the US and so get ranked in uk.yahoo.com and MSN.

Much appreciated

[htjohnson]

Well, I just finished reading all 14 pages of this thread (yikes!) and cannot find a clear answer to my question.
I hope someone can help me.

I am helping a friend with her site. She has a resort in Honduras. I am helping her optimize her site (which is a .com), but she has also asked me to help her get her site found on Canadian and European search engines.

I understand how to help her be found by parking a country-specific .tld, but how should I do this for multiple countries and languages. All the information is the same, and the advice, as I understand it, is to not just offer an identical page in several languages with the country-specific .tld pointing to it.

So how should I advise her?

Also, what are the best free translators?

Thanks a ton!

[htjohnson]

Hi All -
I am really trying to be patient

But I am hoping someone can answer my question that I posted on Tuesday. (Above)

Thanks

[Randy]

Well, Ian is the reigning expert in this field but I'll give it a shot based upon what my understanding of the subject.

All the information is the same, and the advice, as I understand it, is to not just offer an identical page in several languages with the country-specific .tld pointing to it.

When a page is basically the same content but in a different language it isn't considered to be duplicate content from everything I've read on the subject. Even if it exists on the same domain name. So if you're changing languages they should each be seen an individual and unique, even if the content is the same.

The part I'm not sure about is what would happen if you were parking say a .ca or .co.uk on top of a .com where all of them are showing the exact same English content. Hopefully Ian or someone with more hands on experience will have an answer to this question.

As far as

Also, what are the best free translators?

There are none that are suitable, let alone best. This is something where you need a real person who understands both languages to do the translation for you. If you don't, your foreign language text is probably going to end up being really wonky. At best it's probably going to end up being really confusing for visitors who speak the foreign language fluently. At worst you could end up saying something that's the opposite of what you want, without realizing what you've done.

[htjohnson]

Thanks Randy!
I appreciate your insights and maybe Ian with share his thoughts with me too!

Cheers.

[Randy]

I think something I just re-found should be helpful for your main question.

In a post on his blog, one that started out being about subdirectories and subdomains, Matt Cutts was asked a question in the comments that went like

Link to source

What about a website in different languages? Would you create subdomains for each, folders or just use ccTLDs?

Matt answered with:

Link to source

Keonda, great question. If you have sites with say French and German versions for a business, my preferences would be:

1. ccTLDS such as example.fr or example.de
2. After than, subdomains such as fr.example.com or de.example.com.
3. If that’s not possible, I’d use subdirectories such as example.com/fr/ or example.com/de/ .

So the long and short of it is using ccTLDs as you propose is not only okay, but is the Best Case solution. You can just park/redirect those ccTLD addresses to a subdirectory or subdomain on top of the .com and you're off to the races.

FWIW, I don't do a lot of International stuff myself, but have heard from several dozen people who work in the International field that it's a great strategy. In all cases where before their .com struggled in the global markets they inhabited because of the .com nature of their site, once they put in the work to translate their content and put it up on a ccTLD --even if the content was hosted on a US server with their main .com site-- everyone reported seeing significant traffic and conversion increases from search engine traffic.

The folks I've talked to about it who work in International marketing say it's not a matter of a little improvement. It's orders of magnitude improvement. I can tell you the two Fortune 500 type sites I have worked with who have done this saw improvements on the order of several thousand percent range for each of the regional markets they targeted. All without doing anything more than translating copy, setting up the ccTLDs and making sure their already existing link pop got spread to the regional addresses via smart use of internal linkage.

[htjohnson]

Randy -
Thank you so much .
I feel confident moving forward with this approach.

[livingdreams_sa]

Thank you a lot for your replies Randy and Chris! I am sorry for not answering sooner.

I believe that I have a useful things to share here. I am in the same situation like htjohnson from previous posts, i.e. I run the site which offers the same content in different languages. I am far away from being an expert, but I spent approx. 10 days investigating and thinking what is the best approach for me. So, my conclusions are:

Let's say I have a product called "bingle" and I have bingle.com site. Since I want to offer my product worldwide - in 60 countries, I want to take advantage of search engines local-boosting.

First, since I am interested in long-term business, I will not make duplicated content, e.g. I will not make two identical pages in German language - one for Germany and other for Austria. (Although it is maybe true that there will be no negative effects because of that.)

Depending of how much I want to invest, there are two approaches:

First approach is the best, and most expensive – it includes ccTLD registrations. In this case I will register all ccTLD domains in which I am interested in for now, as well as for the future. Why all? Picture this annoying situation: I already have 30 ccTLD domains (bingle.de, bingle.hr etc.) and now I want to expand my business to new country – Bulgaria. But, in the meantime someone had already registered bingle.bg . Of course I could choose different name for .bg TLD, but this is not the way for good branding (just imagine google site called google-co-uk.com). Or, I could try to buy bingle.bg from its owner (complicated and frustrating).

If I don’t want to invest so much money in the start, there is second approach:
To make sub-domains, i.e. de.bingle.com, hr.bingle.com etc, and to host it in different countries. You can say this is even more expensive (to host sub-domain in another country) than to register ccTLD. That’s true, but if I am starting only with two or three languages, than it is much cheaper. (Or, if Ian’s patent become available, then – wuala! ) And when the business expands to new country (new language), there is no problems like in previous approach.

Remark: I am really suspicious regarding google’s geo-targeting tool. First, I haven’t found the evidence that this tool will bring you local-boosting at all. (Maybe the reason is that I was not looking too hard for the evidence ). Second, I am not so sure as well that it will not effect page’s position in other google domains (with all respect for Randy's opinion).
One really good thing is to hire professional like Ian for advice and help. It is better to pay some amount of money for consultation, than to invest days of effort for searching and experiment for different answers (and possible to get the wrong ones )

So, that’s it, basically

Only just few more I hope useful tings.

What to do with eg. with Spanish language, since I want to be present with my product in Spain, as well as in Brazil or in other Spanish-language countries? Well, in this case I can choose which Spanish-language country is my priority, and make local-boosting for this country.
Another approach is useful if I do business with hotels – in this case, I will make one sub-domain (or ccTLD) for Spain hotels, and another sub-domain for Brazil hotels. But, now another question rises: Where to put a page in Spanish which represents a hotel from London?? In this case, I would put it on Spain sub-domain, because it is more interesting for Spain people. (I am a little bit tired, and usually this is when my English is getting worse, and worse, and horse.. )

Interesting little thing: Did you know that you can put the “.de” in the very name of the html file? For example, the address of one German page can be:
de.bingle.com/products/bingle-live.de.htm
This is maybe irrelevant for SEs, but it can be very relevant for Germans looking in SE results


I hope something of this can be helpful. Cheers!

[torka]

What to do with eg. with Spanish language, since I want to be present with my product in Spain, as well as in Brazil or in other Spanish-language countries?

Just as an FYI: the language of Brazil is Portuguese, not Spanish...

--Torka