International SEO Question

[PhilipDunn]

Very interesting topic. I'm confused here.
What's wrong if the site url is www.somesite.com and with suffix for each language? like www.somesite.com/fr www.somesite.com/vn etc. (CMS provides that)

Mizu,

I am not sure if you have completely read through this thread. From what I am gathering, is that there are many opinions about how to best optimize for foreign languages. I have the country specific folders as you suggest, and rank well. Others believe that it helps to do other things, like country specific TLD's, hosts, etc., as suggested in the posts...

[mizu]

newoptimizer,
I tried my best to understand all considerations.

They do not want to build new websites with URL's and hosting done in those nations.

That's the line I was referring to. I admit, I've overseen your earlier comment offering the same solution.
So, nothing wrong with doing it like that, guess?

[PhilipDunn]

Mizu,

I am leaving my sites as they are for now, with the country specific folders. But I may eventually do a test for comparison, trying a country specific TLD and host..

New

[aditd]

I feel like links from websites hosted in those specific regions would help. We are debating doing some foreign SEO outsourcing too.

This is also my opinion about this.
Seo outsourcing would be a must as you will have to rank well for German keywords ( example ). No you have to know German to advertise on German sites. If it's western Europe and Africa ... you have around 10 different languages here.

[PhilipDunn]

I don't understand how it works, but I've actually seen the site go up in rankings in foreign engines, when doing seo on the English version. (I have a site in English and translated in 4 other languages, all hosted on the same domain.)

[deepsand]

Seo outsourcing would be a must as you will have to rank well for German keywords ( example ).

I see an ample number of non-English sites rank rank on the English SERPs of Google's .com TLD

[kgun]

What will help you is backlinks from domains names of that specific country, for example links from .fr website will improve your ranking in google.fr

You can buy links with the rel="nofollow" attribute in my Norwegian / English mini network. It is not cheap since purchasing power and the wage level is among the highest in the world. Pm me with a price offer if you are interested.

[solicitation removed by mod]

At the end of the day Clay is right - you will only be able to do the job properly with proper architecture and targeted content structure.

I get the impression that this is something you've been tasked with - if your employer / client isn't keen on committing the necessary resources, then I suggest you will need to manage expectations somewhat.

Here

http://www.web3logistics.com/#unicod...ilingual-sites

is a resource on setting up multilingual sites.

You should have the domain name of specific country like if you want to rank in Google.co.uk then you should buy .co.uk domain and website should be placed at the Uk server. You should try to submit website to local UK directories.

Definitely agree. In Norway there is a strong quality assurance on a .no domain. It can not be registered by anybody. You have to have a company registered i Norway to buy .no domains. That is a strong guarantee against fraud and spam. No serious Norwegian company will risk being realted to spam / scam.

Today you can register 20 .no domains under one registered company.

[kgun]

According to http://netmarketshare.com for Spain, France and Italy Google has 97% of the browser share, and Germany 95% (for comparison, the US is 74% and the UK 88%).

Of the browser share? Portals are important here.

Mizu,

I am leaving my sites as they are for now, with the country specific folders. But I may eventually do a test for comparison, trying a country specific TLD and host..

New

Do you own a Norwegian company? Only companies registered in our http://www.brreg.no/english/ central register can acquire .no domains as far as I know. I don't know wheter a foreign company can register at .no domain. May be some foreign companies have tried it.

I don't know how strict the rules are in other European countries.

[PhilipDunn]

Do you own a Norwegian company? Only companies registered in our http://www.brreg.no/english/ central register can acquire .no domains as far as I know.

kgun,

No, just have a client that is marketing a service in several languages, french, german, italian and spanish..

[kgun]

Google.no indicates that foreign companies can register .no domains. But I don't know how that is done legally. Google may have set up a Norwegian department or a Norwegian sister company or they may even be able to register a .no domain under their company name.

Nevertheless most Norwegians use google.no when the search for Norwegian companies / information. I don't know any that use Google.com to that. But as explained portals like this http://www.startsiden.no/ are important here. If you are looking for things to buy / sell, http://www.finn.no/ is an important site.

I always reccomend a new site owner to start submitting their site to http://www.startsiden.no/ to get one link.

Compare this

båter til salgs (boats for sale)

query on google.no and google.com. The SERPs are different.

First two hits on Google.no

http://www.finn.no/baat

http://www.startsiden.no/nettguide/b...tmarked_-_bat/

Google.com

http://www.finn.no/finn/boat/used/browse1

http://www.finn.no/baat

http://www.zett.no/vis/rubrikk/baat.html

http://www.startsiden.no/nettguide/b...tmarked_-_bat/

The results on Google.com are confusing.