International site: ranking in Korea and Switzerland

[Paul B]

I'm building a site that will be in English and Korean. The target market is Korea and Switzerland. The client has registered a .com TLD.

Where should I host this site for best SE ranking in Korea and Switzerland?

[Webnauts]

Korea or Swiss. Try to get backlinks from web sites originating from those countries.

[Paul B]

...and host it where?

[adbart]

I'd suggest putting a page up at the .com domain saying "Select your country". If users choose Korea, redirect them to .kr domain (or whatever Korean domains are, I assume they are .kr!) and host the Korean website in Korea.

Likewise, if they select Switzerland, take them to a .ch domain, and host that website in Switzerland.

[Webnauts]

Adbart I understood that our member want to have all in one?! :)

[Paul B]

Yes it is to one domain: a dot com.

One site in both English & Korean on one host. The Korean or English version can be the default - system language dependent.

The markets are:
#1 Korea
#2 Switzerland
#3 Asia
#4 Rest of Europe
#5 Rest of World

I have recommended hosting in Korea in order to get ranking in google.co.kr - assumed the prime SE to be in.

My question is "is this hosting selection correct?"

[Webnauts]

If you main target audience are Koreans, you should host the site in Korea.

But how can you make two languages default? Can you explain me that?

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

If you main target audience are Koreans, you should host the site in Korea.

But how can you make two languages default? Can you explain me that?

Thanks for that.

What I mean was that by using some Javascript in the pages header I can redrirect visitors depending on their browser language. So Korean users will see Korean pages (or at least the index page) by default and all others English by default...

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Paul B

What I mean was that by using some Javascript in the pages header I can redrirect visitors depending on their browser language. So Korean users will see Korean pages (or at least the index page) by default and all others English by default...

Avoid using redirects with JavaScript in general.
Better add a static link, maybe with a flag on the country somewhere at the top/left of the your pages. :)

[adbart]

I'd echo what Webnauts said about the javascript redirect...

However, going back to what I previously said, why do you want to keep everything on the same .com domain?

Why not simply register the .co.kr and .ch names and build two separate websites for each country? In my opinion it would well be worth the slight extra hassle and cost.

[keywordguy]

Originally Posted by adbart

I'd echo what Webnauts said about the javascript redirect...

However, going back to what I previously said, why do you want to keep everything on the same .com domain?

Why not simply register the .co.kr and .ch names and build two separate websites for each country? In my opinion it would well be worth the slight extra hassle and cost.

There are other considerations as well. Think about the recent earthquake that nocked out much Internet access in Asia and Australia. Many Asian/Australian websites that do business with the US are essentially out of business with US customer base until Internet access is restored. By hosting your site in the country of your target audience you can potentially reduce some outage issues. Also, country specific TLD's can be traced to country specific IP's or Class C. We already know Google and other SE's look at some of these variables. I would try to stack odds in your favor. Lastly, depending on how big your online operation is you might want to mirror your site here in the US and possibly Europe.