spanish search engine help please

[chris knight]

Hi Guys
First time on here
i was wondering if anyone can help, i need to get my website on to spanish and portugese search engines, i am up to date with all the technqiues used in this country such as PFP and positiontech but there are a number of issues i need help with:

1) is there a way i can get rapid inclusion in any of the spainsh or portugese search engines?

2) what are some of the main spanish and portugese search engines i should be aiming for? is it specific spanish search engines i need to target or is it the likes of google, and yahoo but the spanish version. i heard that google has around 80% of the spanish market?

3)should my optimisation be in spanish and english bearing in mind i want spanish business as thats where i will be based?

4) do i need to register a spanish domain?

5) do espotting and overture operate PFP in any spanish or portugese search engines?

A lot of questions i know but it is unchartered territory for me any help on this would be mosty useful, as ive never done it b4.

Thanks

chris

[heini]

Hi Chris, welcome to WebmasterWorld.
For a start I recommend this thread, very good info on what engines deliver traffic on the Spanish market.

Do you need a .es? First those are hard to get unless you are based in Spain. It's certainly recommendable as it provides the best way to get recognized by search engines and users as Spanish site. But generally a .com will do.

[conor]

.es are troublesome, you really need a spanish company, but the recently released third level - .com.es are pretty easy, more or less like registering a .com but with more confirmation emails.

The TLD does give some help, a Spanish IP adress and a seperate spanish site are pre-requisites if you want the market.

Google and MSN deliver most of my spanish traffic. Niche Directories are hard to find but can deliver good trafic. FAST, AV etc deliver too, but not much ...

[yowza]

try these. that should get you started. you can also find links from the sites that are listed there. i hope you read spanish or portugese.

www.searchenginecolossus.com/Spain.html

www.searchenginecolossus.com/Portugal.html

[chris knight]

Hi Guys

Thanks for your useful info. In terms of getting into MSN and Google etc is it just a case of maunually submitting as i would in the uk indexes? also is it worth usuing a PFP campaign such as overture.es?

Regards

Chris

[conor]

Same as you would if the sites were English.

[chris knight]

Thanks for the info guys.

one last question really, does my optimisation have to be in spanish? i guess it does? or would i need to do english and spanish? also i dont speak a word of spanish im doing it for a guy who works in spain - if i dont use him for whatever reason are there any good translation programmes?

Cheers Guys

Chris

[Rumbas]

>does my optimisation have to be in spanish?

Oh yeah. Searching in spanish, wouldn't you expect some spanish language sites? ;)

>any good translation programmes

NO! The only way to go with a professional site is through a human translator. Period.

[PatrickDeese]

Unless you want your text to read worse than the instruction manual cheapest chinese knock-off widget, you do not want to use auto translation.

I can cite dozens of examples, but here's a recent one I saw on a site:

The phrase "privacy policy" was translated as "politica de intimidad". "Intimidad" does not mean privacy, it means "intimacy". The only "politica de intimidad" you would ever encounter would probably be included on the price sheet of a Spanish speaking brothel.

Don't mix languages on the same page - always have your languages on separate pages. The search engines don't like the text on a page to be in different languages. Basically you are diluting your kw density and also making hard for the bot to identify which language your pages are written in.

I have a site written in 4 languages, by the way.

[Tor]

does my optimisation have to be in spanish?

Get help from a Spanish SEO if you can afford it. ;)