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I can't speak to this specific traffic source, but it's very, very common to see strange bumps in traffic from unusual sources for short periods of time. 100 different reasons this could happen. Strange web configurations that accidentally link to you from every page of thier site, odd redirects, spambots gone bad, etc. Almost always, it's harmless and you can typically ignore it, although it can play havoc with your reporting.

As I understand it, you are asking about rendering the same content to two different domains that differ entirely in the tld (.au & .nz). Based on my reading of Google webmaster guidelines, if the only difference is the domain and what country the visitors are from, you should not have any issues so long as you use rel-alternate-hreflang as you described. If you have multiple domains targeting the same users, just be sure to add a rel="canonical" tag. Google's webmaster guidelines state: "Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this might not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers." source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en#3

Hi Tom, The php server request uri way would be a good option except that the URLs are different on the different domains. For example: www.example.com/about-us/ www.example.nl/over-ons/ Therefor i really need a way to define the correct url on a page by page basis. Manually doing this in Wordpress is going to be a pain.

Just for my own organization. I know that in all the Google examples, the x-default tag is at the bottom. Overall, I don't believe it makes a difference.

As Matt Cutts repeated several times, Google is smart enough to recognize when it comes to a domain, and in this case you will not be penalized. The problem is that the same Google will choose a main content (only one of the three), and the other will not look, that is, you will not be positioned. The quality work means creating quality content and original. I guess that although the three countries speak the same language the texts should not be the same.

No problem. Though tonight I'm devoting most of my attention to getting sloshed. Our friends of the alternate en variety are getting knackered. I would do that at a bar, but they would do it at a pub.

Hi there, The best way to solve Google's search result misalignment issues is by using hreflang annotations in order to specify the language and country target for each one of your different sites pages and refer to Google to the relevant version in each case. Please check: Google's specification to use hreflang annotations. Examples of misalignment situations (as yours) and the explanation on how to use the hreflang annotations with a tool. More examples on how many different sites use hreflang annotations I'm pretty positive that if you use the annotations correctly the situation will improve Thanks, Aleyda

I see what you mean there - thanks for sharing your expertise and views on this issue. Much appreciated

I'd agree, it's hard work! But, that's why we get paid a nice salary, to figure out those difficult problems. If you have an idea of the Customer Lifetime Value, for that country, you can get some decent estimates from the expected increase in traffic when targeting that country specifically.

Thank you. Our server is fast, hosted in OVH France and we use MaxCDN. Using Magento we can achieve a very low TTFB and load time of around 180ms. We rank better for our kws in France than we do in other European countries although our site is not in French. Any ideas where I can find a map of european connectivity and hosting companies? Thanks for your help, I think that we are heading in the right direction!

Thanks for the added insights Ricky! This lead me down another path to do some additional research on ccTLDs. Total international SEO rabbit hole so this could be fun.

Thank you everyone for your help and feedback.

Hi Fisken, The best way to proceed depends on who you want to target: If you look to target a global or location independent English speaking audience (they might be in any country, the US, UK, Europe, etc.): Using a .com (or any generic domain, which won't be restricted to a specific country) will be the best way to go. If you look to target only English speakers located in Sweden: The easiest way would be to enable a sub-directory in your current .se domain: yourbrand.se/en/. If a sub-directory is not possible, then you can also enable a sub-domain for the new language, although if the site is small, I would recommend the sub-directory as it's easier to set and it inherits in a direct way the current popularity you have from your current version. This is not so straight-forward when working with sub-domains. Please, keep in mind that this option is only good if you really want to just target English speakers located in Sweden, not abroad; as if you keep your English version inside your .se domain it will be automatically geotargeted to Sweden. If you look to target a specifically located English speaking audience abroad: Use the country specific ccTLD to target its English speaking audience. For example, if you want target specifically people in the UK or Australia, the best would be that you use a .uk or a .au ccTLD for each case. Choose this option only if you really want to focus your English speaking version to people located in a specific country. For more international SEO information, please take a look at: International SEO Fundamentals International SEO Checklist  7 International SEO Factors  If you have any doubts, just let me know!

I was thinking about your first opinion, however on that way, only home pages of the three regional versions will receive link juice from blog posts, and other pages won't I'm not sure if the link juice accumulated to the home page will be well passed to other pages on this way.

Hello! Thanks for the question. The simple answer is that you should have a different web property (root domain, subdomain, or subdirectory) for each of your target audiences. So, if your main website (home office, perhaps), is in the UK, then the main site should remain .co.uk (or wherever). Then, use a different property for each targeted country. There are three main methods: **1. Separate root domains.**This would be creating and using example.co.uk and (for the Philippines) example.ph. 2. Separate subdirectory/subfolder. Put the Phillippines at example.co.uk/ph/ 3. Separate subdomains. Put the Phillippines at ph.example.com SEOs and digital marketers will argue forever over which one is best. I'll point out some general differences and points since I don't know your specific situation. Separate root domains and subdomains are essentially entirely-separate sites in Google's eyes. This is good to use when you have a lot of specialized content for each targeted country. It's also usually easier to use different design templates on different domains and subdomains. The bad side is that links pointing to one root domain or subdomain may not "benefit" the other root domain or subdomain. Keeping everything on one root domain in other subdirectories/subfolders can be a lot more simple to manage. Plus, all links to everywhere on the root domain generally "help" everything on the root domain. However, you will often be limited to using the same overall design template. Regardless of what option you choose, you can configure the geographical targeting of each rootdomain, subdomain, or subdirectory in Google Webmaster Tools. There are additional things you can do regarding language targeting (if you so choose -- sometimes more than one language is spoken in a given country). For more information on all of this, I would review this page of introductory guidelines and the related links. Some more detail from Google. A Webmaster Support question. For an "international SEO checklist," I'd suggest this post by Moz Associate Aleyda Solís. Good luck!

Hi, I totally agree with the fact that it difficult to build up authority for multiple sub domains as for sub directories. But as of now the website is to be operated from a single TLD. Thank for the answer cheers!

Already done. They also included the tip in their newsletter for beta-testers.

Hi Gianluca & Eric, Gianluca you are correct reading the question the first time I assumed it would be best to allow each language to have a chance to rank. Clearly I should have focused on a method of getting the site to rank using what must be considered normal dialect as it is that popular. I agree Google will figure it out. In addition, I agree with everything you said below if you want to rank for a country use its dialect in H1 title tags everything listed below. thank you for clearing that up Gianluca. All the best, Thomas

1 install across multiple domains can be done via domain mapping - and I recommend you do that. The cctld domains will help you rank locally and having 1 wp installation requires much less maintenance. In addition, use a plugin like WPML to easily manage multiple languages and let it handle the SEO for you (by setting up proper sitemaps and hreflang tags)

6 Months later how well does it do ?