One Domain Different language - Optimization Challenge

[romy]

Dear All

I have a important question here: I have a website www.mysite.com single domain but in different language.. Language change is describe by cookies/session but not multiple urls. Now I want to start content strategy for this want to rank few important keywords for different country search engine e:g "widget" need to rank on google.ru, google.com, google.my what strategy is advisable.

One challenge/problem - languages. At the moment on our site language is set by 'cookie', therefore Russian market page and English market page will have the same URL, which is not nice for SEO. Is there any thing I can do without creating a new sub domains or directories or cctlds? Is there any way wherein I can keep my single domain and still do the optimization for particular keyword to particular country?

[edited by: aakk9999 at 8:47 pm (utc) on Nov 28, 2013]
[edit reason] exemplified keyword [/edit]

[aakk9999]

If a language change is done via cookie/session, then Googlebot will only see the default language.

A new cctld, subdomain or folder based URL would be the best for language change. However, if this is not practical, then the only alternative is to add a language parameter in URL (e.g. ?lng=ru). This is not the best solution, but is better than having it in cookie/session only.

If you want to keep your current URLs the same, then you can add the language parameter only for the languages other than default language. You would then be employing the logic that if there is no parameter in URL, use "default" language (the language the site is showing in SERPs now). When the parameter exists, then the page is in that alternate language based on a parameter.

After doing this change, do not forget to link internally to language specific URLs.

But this all together looks like a bodge. The best would be to go the route of subdomain/sub-folder/ccTLD.

Here is Google's advice on this subject:

Multi-regional and multilingual sites
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192 [support.google.com]
.

[Trueman]

I have written a post about it before on how I have implemented new languages in a single domain:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld, romy!

I want to start content strategy for this want to rank few important keywords for different country search engine ... need to rank on google.ru, google.com, google.my what strategy is advisable

in order to geotarget urls in GWT you will have to separate your urls by subdomain or subdirectory.
a query string parameter will not work for GWT geotargeting.
further, if you want to locate your servers in the targeted regions, you will need to have those urls on a separate hostnames (subdomain or ccTLD).

[romy]

thank you for your answers..

Now I have come to conclusion to use:

http://ru.example.com/markets/xxx/ or http://www.example.com/ru/markets/xxx/

and place this link in html head..

which will be more better in terms of localization

[edited by: aakk9999 at 3:38 pm (utc) on Nov 29, 2013]
[edit reason] Replaced mysite . com with example . com to avoid auto-linking [/edit]

[aakk9999]

As phranque said, subdomain is better if you plan (now or in the future) to host the site in the country the site targets.

Especially as, in your case, Google has not "seen" other languages yet. Putting other languages onto subdomain(s) would leave the current domain the same as it is now (this would remove the risk of Google re-evaluating the site because the main domain got sudden influx of pages in other languages). This influx of other pages also changes PR flow within the site.

Using subdomain removes this risk.

[romy]

As phranque said, subdomain is better if you plan (now or in the future) to host the site in the country the site targets.

aakk9999 - no plans to host the site in the target country..I will go with subdomain, will there be any issues to geotarget in WMT

[aakk9999]

As you have .com domain (gTLD), there will be no issues with regards to geotargeting in WMT. Just add each subdomain to WMT, verify the subdomain and then set up geotargeting.

[romy]

Thanks alot aakk9999