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You'll need a local host or a country-specific domain for the last option...
Thanks
littlemike
Second, the most important thing to clear before discussing further steps is what stever said:
If you go to Google.fr, do you search in
Web ¦ Pages francophones ¦ Pages : France
Similar in Google.de etc.
You can do fine if your site have a structure like this.
mysite.com/se
mysite.com/dk
mysite.com/fr
And you could also add the site to odp without problem for each language.
But my advice would be that you buy a tld for each country, because some engines will be filtering for local domains and if you dont have that you will miss some of the traffic then.
If you got the budget let a local seo do some reserch for you in each country.
/Ove
Thanks
littlemike
Littlemike, I just cannot imagine that is the case, at least not when you search without restrictions. Check those radio buttons under the search box, if the first, left habded, buton is checked you get 99% the same results as when searching at Google.com.
Now when the second button is checked, saying results from language X only, your site should still come up. If not, there's something wrong with your site.
I'd definitely check that out before taking further steps.
2. Language: In some countries, whose language territory is the same as 'administrative' territory, parameter lang_XY is preferred. In this case, you don't need local hosting nor domain to be found by users in this country. Google recognizes language of your pages located anywhere in subdirectories of your main site.
3. Domain: many people looking for country specific information are not using offered checkboxes, but simply combine their query term with site:.tld, e.g.
3.1. "widgets site:de" or just
3.2. "widgets+de".
(For 3.2. case its enough to have www.de.yourdomain.com subdomain pointed to country specific site)
To get all: Host your intl versions with local webhosting companies (ensure that they are not resellers for some US space), register local domain addresses for them, e.g. 'www.yourdomain.de'
Littlemike
>ooking for country specific information are not using offered checkboxes, but simply combine their query term with site:.tld
Can't say I see that in my logs.
However, I'm sure with Littlemike's site stever has the answer. It's a problem with the setup of the site, eventually also timelines play a role.
"query" + tld brings a few referrals and easy to work in if your tld is a word. :)
Edit:
(Just think of all those line-breaks, heini...;)
widget.De-
marcation
Are you saying that a proper .de language header will get you listed in google.at under Seiten aus Österreich, for example? Because it doesn't matter for Seiten auf Deutsch.
I've no doubt that having a local tld might give a boost...but google seems to pick up the language and any references to a specific location pretty well
A lot of very good points already made here, but you should also take a look at some of the threads in European Forum:
EUROPE: The search engines you cannot do without #1 [webmasterworld.com]
A European SEO strategy primer [webmasterworld.com]
Is good SEO practise enough in Europe? [webmasterworld.com]
EUROPE - An overview by country [webmasterworld.com]
Multiple languages of the same content [webmasterworld.com]
And the European Library [webmasterworld.com] just to name a few.
Good luck :)
Littlemike
but google seems to pick up the language and any references to a specific location pretty well
Sure, it does well - I just thought you might have found an answer to something we've been discussing over in the European forum:
1. Search the Web - almost the same results as google.com
2. Pages in local language - local language (or a certain proportion of recognisable words) necessary
3. Pages from country - local hosting or tld necessary
Number 3 is the problematic one...
