How will Google deal with the crosslinks for my multiple domain site

[pimarketing]

Hi,

I can't find any good answer to this question so I thought, why not ask Moz.com ;-)!

• I have a site, let's call it webshop.xx

• For a few languages/markets, Deutsch, Dutch & Belgian, English, French.

• I use a different TLD with a different IP for each of these languages, so I'll end up with:

• webshop.de, webshop.nl, webshop.be, webshop.co.uk, webshop.com & webshop.fr

• They all link to eachother and every subpage that is translated from the other site gets a link as well from the other languages, so: webshop.com/stuff links to webshop.de/stuff

• My main website, webshop.com gets links from every other of these domain which Open Site Explorer as well as Majestic SEO sees as an external link. (this is happening)

My question. How will Google deal in the long-run with the crosslinks coming from these domains? some guesses I made:

1. I get full external links juice (content is translated so unique?)

2. I get a bit of the juice of an external link

3. They are actually seen as internal links

4. I'll get a penalty

   Thanks in advance guys!!!

[Alex-Harford]

It depends on how your content is translated - is it auto translated or a high-quality translation by a native speaker of the language? Google have said that auto translations can be a really bad experience - so in this case your translated content could be ignored, and maybe your sites could be penalised if it looks like you're generating the content to spam links. If your translations are good quality, you should not have a problem - but you do need to send the correct signals to the search engine crawlers.

• Markup your content or sitemaps with the hreflang attribute. Note the 2 values when targeting particular countries e.g. hreflang=”fr-fr” if your content is for French speakers in France and hreflang=”fr-be” for French speakers in Belgium. The language and country codes are linked from the above page.
• You should also have a Webmaster Tools account for each TLD, and geotarget the domains to the relevant country.
• Country-specific addresses, phone numbers and currency on each translated website can all help send the right signals about your content too.

Google's advice is here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192

In answer to your question, I'm not sure, just make sure you do everything properly to avoid potential problems. I'd say it won't be 1 or 4.

[pimarketing]

Thanks Alex, that is definitely something I'll have to look into. All pages are translated by hand.