Question regarding geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools.

[TranslateMediaLtd]

I understand that it's possible to target both domains/subdomains and subfolders to different geographical regions in GWT.

However, I was wondering about the effect of targeting the domain to a single country, say the UK. Then targeting subfolders to other regions (say the US and France).

e.g.

www.domain.com -> UK
www.domain.com/us -> US
www.domain.com/fr -> France

etc

Would it be better to leave the main domain without a geographical target but set geo-targeting for the subfolders? Or would it be best to set geo-targeting for both the domain and subfolders.

[DaveSottimano]

Hi there, your suggested setup is perfectly fine. You're able to, and allowed to target the root domain to a specific country, while targeting subfolders to others. The geotargeting on the main domain's URLs will be overridden if you specify a different target for subfolders, for example:

if you target www.domain.com -> UK, then

• www.domain.com/this -> UK
• www.domain.com/that -> UK

and if you target www.domain.com/us -> US, then

• www.domain.com/us/this -> US
• www.domain.com/us/that -> US

Does that make sense?

[TranslateMediaLtd]

Hi David,

Thanks for your response. That makes perfect sense.

I assumed that to be the case but thought it was worth checking before making any changes.

I suppose by adding appropriate hreflang="x" mark-up combined with the geo-targeting of root domain and subfolders - that should be enough to inform search engines of our intended geographical targets.

Strangely there wasn't a lot of information out there about this specific question - so thanks again.

Yusuf