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Thanks Chris Menke! Checking out the videos now!

Hi pikka, I believe there is no fixed rule for the name of the subfolder. However, it would be useful to keep it consistent (es-es, en-gb, de-at) and short. There's a question previously on Moz that dealt with this: http://moz.com/community/q/best-url-structure-for-multinational-multilingual-websites Hope that helps

Cheers Guys,Thanks for clearing that up!

John is correct. Cannonical tags aren't necessary as it helps consolidate signals. Therefore to answer your question, implementing HREF lang tags will result the current page ultimately replaced with the appropriate country level page. However this does not mean you shouldn't stop to optimise and bring a local flavour to your content, because you are still competing against other websites and keyword research trends might vary also. Your effort wouldn't be as great, but I still suggest you do on-page. Finally make sure that the HREF lang tag is consistently and in the same manner on all sites and includes all country level pages. A mistake I have made in the past is just putting it on the AU for example, however the global site still existed in the AU SERP's. Hope this helps and good luck with your efforts. Regards, Vahe

Hi SamuEU, In general it is not good to have your home page be redirecting anywhere else on your website, often times spammy websites use re-directs to take users to a different page they may be hiding from search bots.  I would suggest creating the new keyword-relevant URL, but also creating an entirely new keyword-relevant page to gain traffic directly from the search-engines, then link to it in a way that makes sense from your home page.  This is a more natural way to use a keyword-relevant URL to gain search traffic. Good Luck!

It looks like you have a few followed site-wide footer links; the type I advice people to watch out for. Then there are a couple press release links passing equity. I wouldn't be surprised if Google simply devalued some links. Keep doing great work and adding unique value for your users, and avoid link schemes. You'll get there eventually

Sri, That's what penguin is all about and why so many sites are scrambling to build links in ways that don't rely on paid links, link schemes, or other links specifically placed to manipulate page rank. With these changes, webmasters now have to really focus on creating content that is editorially link worthy in its own right, not on links that they themselves can drop into content on other sites. This video tells the story of how and why we want to move past the old methods of link building: A Manifesto of Content Marketing - Moz

Yes this is my issue more So what would you do in this case ?

Hi Nikita If the co.za site objective is a brochure site and focused on attracting business in the SA market then keep the co.za site but make sure that the content is not duplicate to .com. The blogposts you have about "Burger King Cape Town" is perfect, since its related to the local market. For .com you want online tutorials so the focus of the 2 sites are different and therefore the keywords co.za and .com needs to rank for are different. Hope this helps.

Found one: freelancer.com <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.com/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.com/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-AU</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.com.au/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-NZ</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.co.nz/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.co.nz/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-GB</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.co.uk/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-HK</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.hk/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.hk/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-SG</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.sg/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-PH</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.ph/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.ph/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">de</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.de/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">de-DE</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.de/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.de/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-CA</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.ca/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-ZA</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.co.za/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.co.za/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-IN</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.in/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-JM</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.com.jm/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.com.jm/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.com.es/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es-ES</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.com.es/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.com.es/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es-MX</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.mx/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es-PE</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.com.pe/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.com.pe/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es-EC</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.ec/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es-CL</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.cl/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.cl/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-PK</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.pk/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">id</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.co.id/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.co.id/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">id-ID</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.co.id/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en-BD</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.com.bd/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.com.bd/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">es-UY</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.uy/" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">pt</a>" href="[http://www.freelancer.pt/](view-source:http://www.freelancer.pt/)" /> <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">pt-PT</a>" href="http://www.freelancer.pt/" />

Yes - forget the 302, I get nothing but headaches from them.  I would not use a 301 either as a permanent redirect would not be accurate in how you are relating one page to the other.   I think you need to consider if this needs to be automatic or not (regardless of how you forward people).  I would suggest using a Javascript based approach - here are the details on why. Here is an article from Bill Hunt http://searchengineland.com/understanding-the-seo-challenges-of-language-detection-47524 he mentions how you can use an automatic IP address or a browser language based approach to send people to the proper page.  There is a problem with this for the spiders. "Both of these methods are problematic for search engines, because spiders often crawl from a specific location and don’t signal language preference in their server request. For example, if Googlebot, crawling from Mountain View in California, requested a German language page on a site using IP detection the web server would detect an request from a IP in the U.S. and the crawler would be routed to the U.S. version and potentially never see the German language version. The same scenario on a site with browser detection would not detect any language preference and thus route the spider to the default version of the site which is typically English for US companies and the local language version for many country installations of scripts and web servers." Matt Cutts mentions this in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7paVYBgH0Hw for using IP as (in 2011) Google was only crawling from US IPs. Bill Hunt in his article mentions a solution, don't redirect the spiders "The easiest search workaround for either of these detection methods is to simply determine if the requester is a search engine and exempt them from any redirection, giving them the page they want. Note I did not say redirect them or any other action that could be misconstrued by conspiracy theorists as cloaking but simply let the spider have the page it requested. This will ensure spiders can index your local language content." If that gives you concern about to handle the automatic redirect - see the bottom of http://moz.com/community/q/what-countries-does-google-crawl-from-is-it-only-us-or-do-they-crawl-from-europe-and-asia-etc Hannah Smith from Distilled suggests using a Javascript overlay or some other "chooser page" to direct them to it.  If you link up everything correctly, Google can crawl both versions of the site, but only the user is shown something dynamic to direct them where they want to go.   This also ensures that if there are any errors in either the IP address shown or the default language in the browser, you have a way to fail gracefully and allow the user to select where they want to go on the site. Good luck!

Hi Wagada, if you consider that this question as been answered, please indicate it as such. If not, please ask for more specific answers

Take a look at this video from Matt Cutts outlining their position on translated content. In addition, as to the question of canonical element and hreflang you'll see that Google removed this portion from their guidelines with an update saying 'to simplify implementation, we no longer recommend using rel=canonical.' Check out the piece for the current position. I also had advice direct from Christopher Semturs from Google who said directly to me "the golden rule I personally recommend to everybody using hreflang: In doubt, don't use rel-canonical."

I don't hesitate to link between one of my sites and another when the site that is being linked to has strong content that will provide further information of interest to the reader. I don't have a lot of these links. Just a few. I could count them on my fingers. I would hesitate to place footer links, blogroll links or other copious amounts of links between my own site. Those are not offering specific guidance to the visitor. I also have an information site where I run banner ads that click to a retail site that I own. These banner ads compete with Adsense on the basis of value using the DFP ad server. If you have any concerns about the links between your sites you can always add "nofollow".

You will need an AdWords account but you should be able to sign up and never run a campaign but still have access to the Keyword Planner. I hope that is true... but I tried using it yesterday and it was horrible.  Worthless.

Just something to add if you want to consider this in your planning scope. My proffesional opinion is surely sub-folders, keeping away from sub-domains (unless for a very specific reason needed). 1. If you are building a multilingual site, you should also consider how you will be building back-links through various methods (content development, company blog, etc) and will those be done in each language to support the authority needed to build rankings in each language you are working to expand on? 2. If you are going to be building different divisions of the domain (Chinese, and perhaps later going French, German, etc), consider building out TLD's for each domain that's needed in specific languages and focus on building those separate sites. That way you can focus on content development, social media and marketing efforts specific to each language, thus improving your options for the search in each country. Just some thoughts to think about depending on the scope of your project and sites. Cheers!

As far as I'm aware, you would need a separate version of your page to be displayed. You can then geo-target these pages within Webmaster Tools or use the rel="alternate" hreflang="x". Check out this for more info - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en Hope this helps.

Hello, you're welcome I am very happy I could help you. I would never be afraid to ask a question and it will always be answered in my opinion. Here is more info http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/AuQ_Q4mLags/mzDbXdGRq-EJ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/whats-most-effective-for-geo-targeting/6920/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/emerging-trends-in-the-world-of-search-engine-optimization/64299/ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google_Webmaster_Help-Tools/Jm2IX1iZbo4 Worth a reading http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017091.html I have been here a few years, and everyone helps a lot. I agree with you it does mean if using multiple TDL's is the right thing DynECT is #1 Ultra DNS is good but cost is high http://www.neustar.biz/enterprise/resources/dns-services/ultra-dns-directional-dns#.UeL59GR4a64 I also know that it can be expensive. I would use the DNS made easy system to reroute your domain queries as the Geo targeting on system only cost $50 a month per a domain Or http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/services/global-traffic-director/ The Global Traffic Director service is $660.00 per domain per YEAR added onto our Business Membership Save money (not as fast but still good Geo DNS) using Zerigo $20 a month as many domains a you want or EasyDNS $9.99 a month http://www.zerigo.com/docs/managed-dns/setting_up_geodns https://web.easydns.com/enterprise_dns/ Route 53 is a good DNS service but can be limited http://www.cyberciti.biz/cloud-computing/aws/route-53-geodns-tutorial/ For domain names I would bet you can get what you want using http://www.eurodns.com/ http://www.namecheap.com/ https://iwantmyname.com/ Hope I saved you money on DNS and other costs I think buying the domains are the best way as you can use the same content once translated on all sites. if I can be of anymore help let me know. All the best, Thomas

There are no such errors under "Crawl" section. 5x64.png

Yes that's a good point. So if you are just translating content but not targeting it to specific countries only, you can use href lang to specify the language, without specifying the country. E.g. would specify French Canadian content but would just state that it is for all French speakers. In this case, you wouldn't need different top level domains to target each country, which is probably more than what you need! Hope that helps.