When you begin to
get into multilingual and multiregional SEO, you know that you have
taken a step forward as an SEO expert. Why? Well, because you are probably
dealing with a large, complex site that demands the expertise of someone who
knows what they are talking about. If you are dealing in multilingual or
multinational SEO, then you are managing a complex website strategy that serves
multiple locations and languages — not just one.
Lucky for you,
most everything you need to know about multilingual and multiregional SEO is
listed in this post. So, even if you are a first-timer, you now have a tip
sheet that can guide you down right path. Please keep in mind that multilingual
and multiregional SEO are always changing — so, make sure to verify your
strategy with the most up-to-date materials before making any drastic
decisions.
What Are Multilingual SEO
& Multiregional SEO?:
- Multilingual SEO is practice
of offering optimized website content in a variety of languages.
- Multiregional SEO is the
practice of creating optimized website content that is tailored specifically to
multiple geographic regions.
These two
strategies often have overlap, which is why we are covering them both in this
post. They also tie in with other aspects of online marketing, such as
conversion rate optimization, pay per click and content strategy.
First, Ask Yourself: Where
Are You Targeting?
The first thing
you need to do is determine what regions you are targeting. Next, you need to
decide which languages you are going to make available to those regions. This
is critical, because it allows you to lay out the entire project.
Domain & URL Structure:
After you
determine the language and regions, you need to choose your domain and/or URL
structure strategy.
Google’s Official
Webmaster Central blog states, “It’s difficult to determine geo-targeting on a
page by page basis, so it makes sense to consider using a URL structure that
makes it easy to segment parts of the website for geo-targeting.”
I strongly agree
with this — if you can map out the right location structure first, the rest of
the project will be much easier. But, before we start to map website
architecture, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each URL or domain
option.
(Note: The
information below is taken directly from Google.)
ccTLDs
(e.g., example.de,
example.fr)
Pros (+)
- server location
is irrelevant
- legal
requirements (sometimes)
Cons (-)
- potential
availability issues
- ccTLD
requirements (sometimes)
Subdomains
With gTLDs
(e.g.,
de.site.com, fr.site.com, etc.)
Pros (+)
- can use Webmaster
Tools geotargeting
- allows different
server locations
Cons (-)
- users might not
recognize geotargeting from the URL alone (is “de” the language or the
country?)
Subdirectories
With gTLDs
(e.g.,
site.com/de/, site.com/fr/, etc.)
Pros (+)
- can use Webmaster
Tools geo-targeting
- low maintenance
(same host)
Cons (-)
- users might not
recognize geo-targeting from the URL alone
- separation of
sites is more difficult/less clear
URL
parameters
(e.g.,
site.com?loc=de, ?country=france, etc.)
Pros (+)
·
none (not
recommended)
Cons (-)
- segmentation
based on the URL is difficult
- users might not
recognize geotargeting from the URL alone
- geotargeting in
Webmaster Tools is not possible
We’ve now outlined
the pros and cons of the most popular methods for geo-targeting in a URL or
domain; but, which is the best option for you?
The answer to this
question always depends on the goals of the website and who you need to target
through SEO and other integrated marketing methods to reach those goals.
Top-level domains are a strong indicator to Google, so they can be a good
option. However, subdomains and subdirectories have their advantages, as well.
We’ll explore those in a moment.
Important Information about
Top Level Domains:
Some domains are
generic and others are location-specific. According to Google, these are the
generic top-level domains (gTLDs) which do not specific a country. Google
treats the following as gTLDs that can be geo-targeted in Webmaster Tools.
Generic Top
Level Domains (gTLDs)
.aero
.biz
.cat
.com
.coop
.edu
.gov
.info
.int
.jobs
.net
.mil
.mobi
.museum
.name
.net
.org
.pro
.tel
.travel
Regional
Top-Level Domains (rTLDs)
According to
Google, these domains are associated with a region, but they treat them as top
level as well (much like .com or .org).
.eu
.asia
Generic
Country Code Top Level Domains (gccTLDs)
Here is a list of
the ccTLDs. Keep in mind that Google is always changing this list. Also, this
list is specific to the Google
search engine.
.as
.bz
.cc
.cd
.co
.dj
.fm
.la
.me
.ms
.nu
.sc
.sr
.tv
.tk
.ws
An
Argument for Subdomains or Directories:
In my opinion,
your best option for a large website is going to be either a directory or
subdomain structure. From an SEO and analytics tracking perspective, things can
get very messy when you have multiple top-level domains. I recently worked on a
large client that had a mix of these strategies and it was pretty tricky.
According to
Google:
If your time and
resources are limited, consider buying one non-country-specific domain, which
hosts all the different versions of your website. In this case, we recommend
either of these two options:
- Put the content
of every language in a different subdomain. For our example, you would have
en.example.com, de.example.com, and es.example.com.
-
Put the content
of every language in a different subdirectory. This is easier to handle when
updating and maintaining your site. For our example, you would have
example.com/en/, example.com/de/, and example.com/es/.
A directory
structure would be my preferred choice, in most cases. It is very clean, and I
like how the directories add to the overall authority of the entire site. This
is basically the case with subdomains, as well; but, let’s be honest:
subdomains are more “separate” than a directory structure as far as
content segmentation is concerned.
ccTLD & Webmaster Tools Geo-targeting:
It has to be noted
that the use of a ccTLD is generally a very strong signal for users and search
engines; so, if you really want to target a particular region, there is nothing
wrong with using a ccTLD. (Though, as mentioned above, you should be prepared
for the fact that issues can arise with tracking, SEO and branding if you are
using multiple ccTLDs — this is why many multilingual/multinational SEOs prefer
directories or subdomains.)
However, it is not
necessary to use a ccTLD in order to geo-target a particular country. Google
Webmaster Tools allows for manual geo-targeting of gTLDs (such as .com and
.net) with the Set Geographic Target tool.
To set up geo-targeting
in Webmaster Tools, follow these steps:
- On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you
want
- Under Site configuration, click Settings
- In the Geographic target section, select the
option you want
If you want to
ensure that your site is not associated with any country or region, select Unlisted.
Google points out
that it generally does not make sense to set a geographic target if the same
pages on your site target more than a single country. This is because your geo-targeting
settings might limit the reach of your content.
Is Server Location A Factor?
Many people think
that server location is a big deal for this multilingual or multiregional
search, but the degree to which this is true has recently changed due to the
wide adoption of new technologies.
According to
Google, “Server location (through the
IP address of the server) is frequently near your users. However, some websites
use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country
with better webserver infrastructure; so, we try not to rely on the server
location alone.”
This is something
which has evolved over years; you can see an older video here when
things were much different. I really wish Google would take these old videos
down, as they throw people off.
Specifying Regional Landing Pages With The
Rel=”Alternate” Hreflang Annotation:
Now that we’ve
discussed URL structure, server location, and geo-targeting in Webmaster Tools,
it is time to talk about hreflang markup. The rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”
annotation is used to help Google identify which URLs should be served to which
visitors based on language and geographic location. This is useful when you
have multiple versions of the same content that has been translated or
otherwise adjusted to target users in a specific region.
According to Google, there are 3 ways that we can
implement this markup:
·
HTML link
element in header. In the HTML
<head> section of http://example.com/us, add a link element pointing to
the Spanish version of that webpage at http://example.com/us-es, like this:
<link
rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es” href=” http://example.com/us-es” />
- HTTP header. If you publish non-HTML files (like PDFs), you can
use an HTTP header to indicate a different language version of a URL:
Link: <
http://example.com/us-es>; rel=”alternate”; hreflang=”es”
- Sitemap. Instead of using markup, you can submit language
version information in a Sitemap.
Out of the options
above, most go with the HTML link element, the sitemap or both of those items.
It is important to
note that there are specific hreflang supported values for language and
region. For example:
·
de: German
content, independent of region
·
en-GB: English
content, for GB users
·
de-ES: German
content, for users in Spain
X-Default Hreflang
Attribute Value:
So, what happens
when someone visits your site from a country that you don’t have a landing page
for? Perhaps you’d want them to land on a generic home page, or a page where
they can select their country or language.
Thanks to a new
bit of markup from Google called “x-default,” you can now specify a default
page for users outside your target regions. When specifying your
region-specific landing pages with hreflang, you would use the value
“x-default” to indicate which page is the default in situations where you don’t
have a region-specific landing page. Thus, you might have a cluster of
HTML link tags that look like this:
<link rel=”alternate”
href=”http://example.com/en-gb” hreflang=”en-gb” />
<link rel=”alternate”
href=”http://example.com/en-us” hreflang=”en-us” />
<link rel=”alternate”
href=”http://example.com/en-au” hreflang=”en-au” />
<link rel=”alternate”
href=”http://example.com/” hreflang=”x-default” />
Above,
http://example.com would be the default page for users outside of Great
Britain, the United States or Australia.
Quick Note On Base On-Page
Elements:
When it comes to
the meta information on these pages, it is generally a good idea to vary them
based on language and region. Make sure to have a template, or unique content,
depending on how large your website is, and consider altering the following
elements:
User IP & Use Agent Detection:
User agent
detection is the process of detecting the device a person is using and
delivering content based on the best practices for that device. IP location
detection is the practice of detecting the location of a user and delivering
content based on what is more relevant for that IP location. If you implement
this correctly, there is a good chance you will lower bounce rates, increase
conversions and show the user what they are looking for more quickly.
This is a very
common practice for mobile optimization (as we often detect location and
device), but it is also important for multilingual and multiregional SEO.
Google supports both HTTP redirection and JavaScript redirects.
Using HTTP redirection
HTTP redirection is a commonly used to redirect clients to device-specific
URLs. Usually, the redirection is done based on the user-agent in the HTTP
request headers. It is important to keep the redirection consistent with the
alternate URL specified in the page’s link rel=”alternate” tag or in the
Sitemap.
For this purpose, it does not matter if the server redirects with an
HTTP 301 or a 302 status code.
JavaScript Redirects
If HTTP redirection is difficult to implement, you can use JavaScript
to redirect users to the URLs pointed to by the link rel="alternate" tag. If you choose to use
this technique, please be aware of the latency caused by the client side of
redirection due to the need to first download the page, then parse and execute
the JavaScript before triggering the redirect.
There are many approaches to implementing a JavaScript-based redirect.
For example, you can use JavaScript to execute the media queries your site
already uses in the link annotations on the page using the matchMedia()
JavaScript function.
Outside of the
detection and redirects, you also want to make sure your website has good
internal linking and navigation so that the user can find the pages that match
their demographic.
Rel Author & Rel
Publisher Considerations:
It is interesting;
now that rel author and rel publisher can easily be implemented on any
website, people have to stop and think about whether they should implement it. This is a huge
topic, so for the purposes of this post let’s just consider a few elements from
the mutilingual and regional perceptive.
Rel Author
If you implement
rel author across an entire multilingual or multiregional website, you run the
risk of positioning a figurehead for your brand in the search space which may
not relate to everyone you’re targeting. If you are considering implementing
rel author, think about whether or not it makes sense to have one person’s
presence associated with all of your results. If it does not, consider if it
makes sense to break the rel author implementation up by region, language, or
on an article-by-article basis.
As rel author
becomes more advanced, we could see regional sales managers attached to certain
location segments of the website. There are some problems with this, however.
For example, generally, you need authoritative Google+ profiles — and even when
you have them, it takes some time before they show up in the SERPs. Rel author
can make sense for the right multilingual or multiregional website, but there
needs to be a clear strategy in place.
Example Rel Author
Rel Publisher
Rel publisher is
an easier sell than rel author, although I do think there is room for both on
the right multilingual or multinational website. Rel publisher causes a very
nice Google+ page along with updates to be displayed in search results — and,
you can segment your updates based on circles. So, as long as you have a good
language and region circle strategy in place, the rest of the rel publisher
strategy should be fine.
Example Rel
Publisher
Bing Multilingual & Multiregional SEO:
When it comes to
Bing, they love the language meta tag. But, they also pay attention to HTTP
headers, top-level domain and reverse IP lookup.
Bing Language
Meta Tag
Use the
“content-language” meta tag to embed a document location in the <head>
section of your documents:
<meta
http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en-us”>
The “content”
attribute is comprised of a 2-letter ISO 639 language code, followed by a dash
and the appropriate ISO 3166 geography code. For example:
·
de-at: German,
Austria
·
de-de: German,
Germany
·
en-us: English,
United States
·
es-ar: Spanish,
Argentina
Alternatively,
embed the document location in either the <html> or the <title>
element using the same format:
·
<html
lang=”en-us”>
·
<title
lang=”en-us”> Top Level Domain
According to Bing,
“Out of the top level domain categories distinguished by the IANA, only the
country code top-level domains (or ccTLDs) influence the document location. For
an overview of the currently assigned ccTLDs.
Reverse IP
Lookup
As we mentioned,
for each document added to Bing, the search engine does a reverse IP lookup to
determine the documents location; so, this is a small factor in Bing indexing.
A Note On Duplicate
Content:
One issue that
comes up a lot in SEO is duplicate content. Basically, if you have duplicate
content on your website or share content that is housed on another site, it
forces Google to pick the “winner,” if you will, only ranking that page. When
it comes to multilingual and multiregional websites, this can become an issue —
you will often have multiple versions of the same content for different regions
and languages.
The good news is,
if you implement the rel=”alternate” hreflang link element and x-default
hreflang annotation correctly, duplicate content should not be an issue. In the
past, SEOs would use rel=”canonical”, block pages with robots.txt, etc. But
today, the alternate/x-default is the best option.
Summary:
Mutilingual and
multiregional SEO is always changing. I expect this to be an expanding topic as
we move into the future of this crazy Internet world. One thing that I love
about how things are evolving is that if you pay attention to new strategies
for search, you are going to get other amazing ideas to improve your online
business.
For example, if
you are taking the steps to build out a better multinational and multilingual
strategy for SEO, you are probably working that same strategy into your other
online performance channels. The key is making everything work together and pay
off.
