International Subdomain Headache

[Ask4443523]

My client set up a separate domain for their international clients, then set up separate subdomains for each country where they're active (so, for example, the original site is xx.com and the global is xxworldwide.com, with subdomains like mx.xxxworldwide.com).

They auto-translated a large amount of content and put the translations on those international sites.  The idea was to draw in native speakers.

Now, I don't think this is a great practice, obviously, and I'm worried that it could hurt their original site (the xxx.com in the example above).  My concern is that Google will see through the translated text, since it was handled with Google Translate, and penalize both sites.  I don't think the canonical tag applies here, since Google recommends a no-follow for autotranslated text, but I've also never dealt with this type of situation before.

Anyways, if you made it through all of that, congratulations.  My question is whether xxx.com is getting any negative effects other than a potential loss of link juice -- and whether there's any legitimate way to present auto-translated text with a few minor changes without incurring a penalty.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Auto-translated can never be a good idea, but what you could do is add just the rel canonical for hreflang on the site. Then it would make sure that you can target these specific languages.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hey there John

I would advise you to take a look a the following resources:
Use hreflang for language and regional URLs (Google)
International SEO Guide (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)
How to Build Links for International SEO - Webinar (Moz)

All of the above can get you headed in the right direction and lay a great foundation. Hope this answers your question! Good luck!

[cfguti]

@Martijn told you the key, is not a good idea, use the flow in

https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/choose-your-international-strategy-tool/

and the resources of @Patrick

Also take a look to these tools:

http://www.internationalseomap.com/hreflang-tags-generator/

http://www.themediaflow.com/tool_hreflang.php

To not make a mistake with the hreflangs

Hope it helps