Targeting International Markets on the Web

[ColeLusby]

Hello Moz community,

I have a popular news website that we are looking to target multiple countries (all English first).

So I know (1) a hosting provided (ip address) in that country and (2) a target extension (.co.uk) will help us. Am I missing anything else that can help when targeting international markets?

What I'm struggling with is the duplicate content. I can't copy the content over to the extension because of the bad practice of duplicate content.

Is it possible to have the same content on both websites and let Google know that it lives at the .com extension? If so, would those websites containing duplicate content still rank?

And we would want to target different languages later (for example Spanish). This would be different content because it is in a different language, correct?

Thanks for your help Moz community!

Cole

[Travis_Bailey]

There's no short answer to this one. And honestly, it's Friday, but it sounds like you might not have known where to start. Here are four solid resources that will help you get started:

• Google Internationalization Guide
• Google hreflang Guide
• Google Multi-Regional Site Guide
• Moz Blog: Getting hreflang Right

You can use rel alternate hreflang across domains, but that will eventually prove to be a PITA. That should more or less handle your first three questions.

Secondly, if you do offer content in Spanish - make sure it's translated by a fluent speaker with excellent writing skills. Also, just to be fussy, there is a difference between Spanish spoken in Mexico and the Spanish spoken in Spain. Don't believe me? My family hosted a student from Barcelona. Another family in the same town hosted a student from Mexico City. There's a difference in language - fo sho.

It's kind of like how au, ca, uk and us en aren't the same.

[ColeLusby]

Travis, thanks for the grind. I'll look into it.

[Travis_Bailey]

No problem. Though tonight I'm devoting most of my attention to getting sloshed. Our friends of the alternate en variety are getting knackered. I would do that at a bar, but they would do it at a pub.