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your advice would be valuable for many multilingual sites, would there be some consensus on this?
Let's take a fictious example:
Assuming a site of around 15 pages in English, 15 in French, and 15 pages in German.
The site offers services on 2 'themes': translations, and research.
What would be the best structure regarding:
1. URL names, file names and directory structure
2. internal links
3. external links
To start with my first proposition, based on the fact that each page should be as close as possible to the index page:
www.example.com/en-translations-kw1.html, www.example.com/en-translations-kw2.html, etc...
www.example.com/fr-traductions-kw1.html, www.example.com/fr-traductions-kw2.html, etc...
www.example.com/de-uebersetzungen-kw1.html, www.example.com/de-uebersetzungen-kw2.html, etc...
Same structure for the second theme...
Should pages only link within the same theme within the same language?
Should all pages link to the homepage where the choice of languages is given: www.example.com/index.html?
Can google consider pages with the same theme, but in different languages, still as pages with the same theme?
Are there better alternatives? I know there are in respect to good site structure for maintenance. But regarding SEO?
TIA! :)
some helpul links;
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
and many more to be found with the site search of WebmasterWorld.
Can google consider pages with the same theme, but in different languages, still as pages with the same theme?
That would be very clever of Google, one way would be to compare different language sub-categories in ODP to even know what theme a site falls in, another would be to give a unique digit to the same meaning of a word in different languages (Euroglot does this).
check this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
A few general ideas coming back:
1. url structure should be very short, with preferably no more than 3 levels deep. Files names reflected in the URL should contain the relevant context or theme keyword and specific keyword. Total URL length should not exceed 60 characters.
2. interlinking, crosslinking, and reciprocal linking between pages with different languages should be OK if done with measure and care of context and theme.
3. Anchor text linking is best with the right keyword.
4. External inbound links coming in from a high ranked page with few outbound links and a similar context, in the same language are very good.
Can anybody confirm if these are correct, and how to practically implement this in the best way on my example please?
1. In my opinion, Google does not differentiate between the level "deepness" (example.com/one/two/three/etc) of pages within a site. At least I have never seen proof of that - and there is also no logic in it. This "fear" comes from new, unspidered pages, where Google guesses the pagerank and automatically deducts 1 PR digit per sub-directory level down.
2. It is good to use keywords/themes in the url-path, but not to repeat them. Not that Google puts a lot (if any) weight on them, in ranking, but it can give the searcher a better sense of where he is "theme-wise".
3. Do not overestimate Google's theme-ranking sophistication (as yet). We have yet to see proof of Google taking general themes into account in ranking. In my opinion Google emphasises its ranking for page (B), on keyphrases in (parts of)titles/headings/anchortexts from high Pagerank pages(A) linking to pages with again the right keyphrases in (parts of) titles/headings/anchortexts on page (B). The power of Pagerank lies in the "voting power" towards other pages and not in ranking high because of a page's own (high) Pagerank.
Nevertheless if you are setting up a site, do by all means take theming into consideration as much as possible, for internal and external links. Sooner or later the algorithms will catch up and you will be ready.
4. Interlinking's main safe-guard (as you have probably read in the threads) is making sure things are done with reason. The best bet is to make sure that you link out and recieve sufficient (independant) external inbound links throughout the pages of all your interlinking sites.
For example, I would restrict interlinking between your sites to 30-40% % of all independant links. I have no proof for those percentages, but you can see sites interlinking strongly, but surviving within Google just because they have sufficient other incoming external links, plus links from these interlinked sites to independant sites.
Hope that makes some sense..
your comments and suggestions make sense and are very welcome.
As Google and other search engines are not intelligent enough yet to recognize similar themes through different languages, I guess it is best (for keeping the strengh of the links within a context or theme as high as possible), NOT to link intensively between different language pages covering the same theme. Keeping themed links within the same language pages, and linking to the homepage for any alternative language choice looks like the best thing to do for the moment? Except when the word is the same in different languages like :)
Indeed, in the threads you provided I read a project of an ex-Google engineer working at Stanford University now. This project proposed to include in the ranking process some algorithm calculating a value based on theme, context and ODP classification. It looks like Google and most search engines are clearing heading in that direction. Taking into account the complexity of this challenge in English alone, and adding the international languages complexity, one can expect it may take 10 years before this really works on a worldwide multilingual scale.
This is mainly the purpose of my thread. Discovering which long term (12-24 months) advice tips I can learn and share regarding international SEO strategy, web design and content.
