Geo-targeted Organic Search Traffic to a sub-domain

[ontarget-media]

For a client of ours, we are likely to create a sub-domain that is to be targeted at a specific country.

Most of the content on this sub-domain will be from the main site, although with some specific differentiation to suit that geographic market.

We intend to tell Google through Webmaster Centre that the sub-domain is targeted at a specific country. Some questions:

a) Any idea how long it could take before google gives precedence to the content in this sub-domain for queries originating from that particular country?

b)  What is the likely impact of content duplication ? What extent of differentiation is necessary from a search engine perspective?

Thanks.

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

As soon as they index it it will take precedence in that country for geotargeting. You can increase the likelihood of differentiation or non duplicate content by using top level domains and  by adding geotargeting keywords to your sub domain content. See the specific examples below:

Use top-level domains: To help us serve the most appropriate version of a document, use top-level domains whenever possible to handle country-specific content. We're more likely to know thathttp://www.example.de contains Germany-focused content, for instance, thanhttp://www.example.com/de or http://de.example.com.

Minimize similar content: If you have many pages that are similar, consider expanding each page or consolidating the pages into one. For instance, if you have a travel site with separate pages for two cities, but the same information on both pages, you could either merge the pages into one page about both cities or you could expand each page to contain unique content about each city.

Source for above comes from google on duplicate content relating to different countries.

Hope this helps.....

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Manoj, in your case I suggest you to use the rel="alternate" hreflang="x" geotargeting tag, apart from targeting the subdomain to the desired country (and the main site set as "global").

The use of the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” is strongly suggested in the case a website as an “incomplete” international version for very different reasons:

• Template translated, but main content in a single language;
• Broadly similar content within a single language, but targeting different countries (i.e.: US, UK, Australia…)

But remember that Google suggests to use it also in the case the site content is fully translated (i.e.: all the Spanish version has content in Spanish, and so on).

This rel, then, seems very appropriate for the Sitecore site.

How to implement it

Two options:

• HTML link element. In the section of any page.

In this case, for instance, in the section of www.domain.com we should add as many rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” as the different country versions are present in the site.

I.e.: http://es.domain.com” />

Please note that if  exist multiple language versions (“set” in the Google slang), every set must include the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” to every other language versions.

I.e.: if we Global, UK and FR versions of the site apart the Spanish one, the Spanish version will have to include:

Obviously, every single URL must have the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” tag pointing to the corresponding URL of any other language version.

• HTTP header, in the case of not-HTML files (as PDF)

As it is implicitly said, this tag is used on a page level, not domain one. That means that every single pages must be correctly marked-up

Same content and same language on different pages and language versions

If, as it happens in case, some pages show almost the same content in both the domain and subdomain, hence it is highly suggested to use also the rel=”canonical” in order to specify to Google what the preferred version of the URL is.

As Google itself says here, Google will “use that signal to focus on that version in search, while showing the local URLs to users where appropriate. For example, you could use this if you have the same product page in German, but want to target it separately to users searching on the Google properties for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.”

Don't forget

Don't forget that your main site is set a targeting all the web, also the country targeted by your sub-domain.

That means that if you will perform an active link building campaign for the sub-domain, in order to provide it of an equal if not higher strenght respect the main site.

[ontarget-media]

Thank you for your response; it's helpful.

By any chance, are you able to point me to any case study that shows the time it took for the geo-targeted sub-domain to get all the traffic directly from the search engines?

Our concern with using a new TLD is the time it will take the domain to acquire authority and attract traffic of its own from the targeted geography.

[ontarget-media]

Thank you, Gianluca. Your detailed response is much appreciated.

Would you be able to give any indication on the time it could take for the sub-domain to get all the search traffic directly for queries originating in that country?

Any case studies or references you will be able to point me to?  That'd be great.

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

If its not too competitive then it shouldnt take you more than 30-60 days for a geo-targeted domain.

There is no case study to look at because each situation is so different.

[ontarget-media]

Thanks.