SEO
How Do I Structure A Global Site With Country-Specific Content?
This Ask an SEO question comes from Dan from Melbourne, who wrote in:
“What is the best site structure for a content/news-based website that wants to be international but also country-specific?
E.g., You want some content to be shared to the U.S., U.K., Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, but then some separate content that is mainly for U.K. or Australia.
Is it best to have main domain level site (.com) for global content and then also use sub-directories (.com/au/ or .com/gb/) for country-specific?
Do you also then have a separate home page for each country?”
Hey Dan, the good thing about this question is there is truly no wrong answer.
While international-based websites might be confusing and expensive to implement, you generally have the freedom to go about it however you feel best.
Occam’s Razor applies more than we like to think when it comes to SEO.
So yes, to answer your question, I think that’s the simplest approach, though it depends on the type of content you produce.
For example, suppose you’re uploading international news stories in English that will be read across the globe.
In that case, having a generic top-level domain (gTLD) will be the best route with subdirectories for each separate country you wish to target.
However, if you want to create localized content and appeal to specific audiences in different countries, then there are perks to using ccTLDs and subdomains, which I think warrant discussion.
Which URL Structure Is Right For Me?
Ultimately, I think two options will best suit your website, so the choice is up to you of which you think is best for your news organization.
gTLDs With Country-Specific Subdirectories
If you use a blend of international and localized content, investing in a top-level domain with subdirectories for different countries would be the easiest option.
Each country-specific landing page could have its own unique landing page with limited navigation that deals with specific content to that country, such as .com/au or .com/uk.
The benefits of this approach are that it’s incredibly easy to set up, and all domain authority will be shared across your entire website. Additionally, you could have the same team managing your local and broad-focused content.
Unfortunately, there are two drawbacks to this approach.
First, your subdirectories won’t have as much local feel, which could slightly impact UX.
However, the bigger concern is that your website architecture could become messy, especially if each subdirectory has its own navigation categories.
For example, many news organizations often feature top-level navigation bars that deal with specific issues related to that country.
Take this basic website structure from CNN as an example:
Be careful that all content falls under the URL structure: https://example.com/us/newsstory and not separate subdirectories within your country-specific subdirectory, like https://example.com/us/covid19/newsstory.
This will help you avoid navigation issues and make your website more manageable.
Benefits
- Easiest to implement.
- CMSs offer easy multilingual management.
- Minimal upfront costs.
- Easy navigation.
- Link equity is shared across domain.
Localizing Content With Subdomains
On the other hand, if your primary focus is on localized content, and that’s where you want to dive in, then hosting regional webpages on subdomains may be a good option.
Ideally, you would have a broad gTLD with international-based content for your parent brand.
Then, you could create subdomains for specific countries that appeal to that demographic audience.
So your gTLD might be an English-speaking news site that people from the EU, AUS, and US could enjoy (if that’s your primary audience), while you might host a separate domain for each of these countries if you were dealing with specific topics related to that country.
Unfortunately, there are many drawbacks to this approach.
- Hosting content on separate domains could be challenging to organize.
- Subdomains cost more to implement than subfolders.
- Branding could be difficult to maintain if multiple teams work on your website.
- Link equity will not spread evenly across your domain.
However, if you have separate teams that work on content for specific regions worldwide, there is a strong case for hosting location-specific content on a subdomain.
Benefits
- Localized UX.
- More efficient geotargeting.
- Content is more organized by region.
Extra Considerations
Language vs. Geotargeting
Now, a lot of what we’ve discussed so far primarily focuses on geotargeting for specific countries/regions.
However, what happens if these countries have a large population of multi-lingual speakers? How do we optimize for that?
For example, what if you’re writing international news stories in English but want to create the same article in Spanish and feature it on your homepage?
Whether using a subdomain or gTLD, you can implement hreflang tags to help you create multilingual content for both broad and local topics.
A basic hreflang tag is an HTML tag, such as <html lang=”en”> and signifies that the web page is written in a specific language to search engines.
So if you wanted to create content in English for people in France, you would add a tag like this in the head of your HTML:
<link rel=”alternate” href=”https://fr.example.com” hreflang=”fr-fr” />
There are several ways to implement hreflang tags for multilingual speakers in different countries, but the easiest method is to create a folder with all of your hreflang tags and submit them in an XML sitemap.
Keyword Research
Clearly, your website will not encompass every country and language.
So, before you spend dozens of hours setting up a new subdomain, implementing hreflang tags, and hiring multilingual content creators, you need to research and determine which countries are worth targeting.
International keyword research is a great strategy to discover which markets will have the most engagement with your website. For example, Semrush provides tools that allow me to filter keyword trends and results by country in English:
Additionally, tools like this provide me with a baseline of the global volume for each keyword.
Similarly, you could conduct the same keyword research in different languages to identify which countries have the most engagement in Spanish or German.
Since your website is focused on news and current events, your research will differ a little bit.
However, conducting keyword and competitive research using tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Ads can provide a good idea of which countries/languages will be the most profitable investment.
Content And Translation
Finally, if your website focuses on regional content, you’ll need to invest in local content creators to provide visitors with an authentic news experience.
Hire translators and avoid using translator tools as much as possible. Furthermore, try to make your subdomain or subdirectory as unique to that country as possible.
Ultimately, this might involve handing off management of certain parts of your domain to separate individuals and teams to manage region-specific content.
Final Notes
Deciding between a subdomain or subdirectory comes down to your primary business objectives.
While considerations like link equity and backlinks are important, the decision should depend on which approach will yield the best traffic flow and engagement, especially since you are a news-based/blogging website.
Additionally, no matter what strategy you take, you’ll need to incorporate other factors, such as hreflang tags and hiring local content creators to make your content appeal to as wide of an audience as possible.
More resources:
Featured Image: suphakit73/Shutterstock
Editor’s note: Ask an SEO is a weekly SEO advice column written by some of the industry’s top SEO experts, who have been hand-picked by Search Engine Journal. Got a question about SEO? Fill out our form. You might see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
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SEO
Google Declares It The “Gemini Era” As Revenue Grows 15%
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced its first quarter 2024 financial results today.
While Google reported double-digit growth in key revenue areas, the focus was on its AI developments, dubbed the “Gemini era” by CEO Sundar Pichai.
The Numbers: 15% Revenue Growth, Operating Margins Expand
Alphabet reported Q1 revenues of $80.5 billion, a 15% increase year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street’s projections.
Net income was $23.7 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.89. Operating margins expanded to 32%, up from 25% in the prior year.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s President and CFO, stated:
“Our strong financial results reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base.”
Google’s core advertising units, such as Search and YouTube, drove growth. Google advertising revenues hit $61.7 billion for the quarter.
The Cloud division also maintained momentum, with revenues of $9.6 billion, up 28% year-over-year.
Pichai highlighted that YouTube and Cloud are expected to exit 2024 at a combined $100 billion annual revenue run rate.
Generative AI Integration in Search
Google experimented with AI-powered features in Search Labs before recently introducing AI overviews into the main search results page.
Regarding the gradual rollout, Pichai states:
“We are being measured in how we do this, focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”
Pichai reports that Google’s generative AI features have answered over a billion queries already:
“We’ve already served billions of queries with our generative AI features. It’s enabling people to access new information, to ask questions in new ways, and to ask more complex questions.”
Google reports increased Search usage and user satisfaction among those interacting with the new AI overview results.
The company also highlighted its “Circle to Search” feature on Android, which allows users to circle objects on their screen or in videos to get instant AI-powered answers via Google Lens.
Reorganizing For The “Gemini Era”
As part of the AI roadmap, Alphabet is consolidating all teams building AI models under the Google DeepMind umbrella.
Pichai revealed that, through hardware and software improvements, the company has reduced machine costs associated with its generative AI search results by 80% over the past year.
He states:
“Our data centers are some of the most high-performing, secure, reliable and efficient in the world. We’ve developed new AI models and algorithms that are more than one hundred times more efficient than they were 18 months ago.
How Will Google Make Money With AI?
Alphabet sees opportunities to monetize AI through its advertising products, Cloud offerings, and subscription services.
Google is integrating Gemini into ad products like Performance Max. The company’s Cloud division is bringing “the best of Google AI” to enterprise customers worldwide.
Google One, the company’s subscription service, surpassed 100 million paid subscribers in Q1 and introduced a new premium plan featuring advanced generative AI capabilities powered by Gemini models.
Future Outlook
Pichai outlined six key advantages positioning Alphabet to lead the “next wave of AI innovation”:
- Research leadership in AI breakthroughs like the multimodal Gemini model
- Robust AI infrastructure and custom TPU chips
- Integrating generative AI into Search to enhance the user experience
- A global product footprint reaching billions
- Streamlined teams and improved execution velocity
- Multiple revenue streams to monetize AI through advertising and cloud
With upcoming events like Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the company is expected to share further updates on its AI initiatives and product roadmap.
Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
SEO
Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome
Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.
The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.
Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025
Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.
Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The statement reads:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”
Continued Engagement With Regulators
Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.
This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.
The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.
Transition Period & Impact
In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.
However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.
The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.
While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.
Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.
Publisher & Advertiser Implications
The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.
Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.
However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.
With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
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