One SEO professional was curious about an international SEO implementation they are working on.
Their site currently has a strong US presence with a .com domain. There is no international SEO implementation at the moment.
However, they are working to build out an international presence into Canada and the UK, and they are at a crossroads today.
Their main question is: should they use a ccTLD, or just keep the .com as they build things out internationally?
They are a real estate company, so their pages are location-specific. They are probably going to end up in about a dozen countries within the next year or two.
Their thought process is being able to take advantage of targeting locally within Google Search Console by using the ccTLDs.
However, they are unable to do that with a global .com.
Technology is not an issue for them.
Either way, it works. So they just want to determine whether there is an advantage of going with the ccTLD for international SEO implementations, and if it’s easier for Google, based on how it’s done.
John explained that there are several things that come into play when it comes to international SEO.
One is the aspect of having multiple sites versus having one really strong website.
If you have a dozen different locations, then it’s less of an issue. Perhaps it’s something that will work out in the end.
The other problem is with geo targeting, Google does use that when they recognize that people are looking for something local.
Either way they go, John recommends making sure that Google can figure out what the site is targeting, and ccTLDs are the easiest way, because this makes things super obvious.
John believes that using ccTLDs in the international implementation is a good approach.
The one thing that he wouldn’t do, however, is use URL parameters or something like that.
If you use random URL parameters, this makes it harder for Google to do any geo targeting.
This happens at approximately the 20:17 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John. Good morning. Hi. So we have a pretty strong US .com presence with no real international implementation at the moment. But we are starting to build out into Canada and UK and we are kind of at a crossroads today. Should we go with ccTLDs, or keep it under just the.com? We’re a real estate company, so our pages are pretty location-specific.
We’re probably going to end up in about a dozen countries within the next year or two. So my thought process is being able to take advantage of being able to target locally in Search Console, where with the ccTLDs, where I can’t do that with a global.com. And technology’s not an issue for us. So you know, either way, kind of works. So just wondering, is one, you know, is there an advantage of going one way or the other?
Or is it easier for Google one way or the other?
John 21:16
I think there are multiple things that kind of come into play. One is probably also the aspect of having multiple sites versus having one really strong website, kind of like with the previous question. If you’re talking about a dozen different locations, maybe that’s less of an issue.
Maybe that’s something that works out. The other thing is with geo targeting, we do use that when we recognize that people are looking for something local. So either way that you go, I would try to make sure that we can figure out what geo targeting to use for the website, and ccTLDs is super obvious. So that’s, that’s, I think a good approach. Subdomains is an option, subdirectories would be an option.
What I wouldn’t do is just kind of use URL parameters or something like that, where it’s like, well, you have your main Global website, and you can search for an individual country, and then somewhere in the URL that country is also mentioned. Because that would essentially mean that we can’t do geo targeting at all, for the web. Right.
SEO Professional 6 22:23
Right. Okay. Yeah, right now we’re doing like the, you know, the dev site is like /frca. Or we’re looking at the .ca for Canada.
But it’s just we’re trying to figure out which makes sense. We have like, our US site has 40 million pages, our Canada site would probably have a half a million pages with only, you know, 5 percent of them are actually one to one, because they’re location specific.
So I don’t know if that might make any difference.
John 22:56
Now, I think from a technical point of view, they would all be kind of equivalent, it might be that from an SEO ranking point of view, you could have some advantages by kind of building on your existing domain.
But it, I think it also depends a little bit on what your marketing goals are. If you want to really position these as like, we’re the real estate company for Canada, then you kind of want to have your own domain. If you want to position it as like we’re a global company, and we also do Canada, then having that within your existing domain might be okay.
So I think from a technical point of view, like all of these options are open, which way you go is kind of almost like a strategic decision.
