Small question about geo targeting
-
I have geo targeted my domain for my country in Google's Webmaster Tool. Does it mean that I have blocked visitors from other countries.
-
Thanks @Hannah @Moosa @Mark @Martijn @Deb for replying. I think that it is just a hint for google but it doesn't mean that it is going to block you from other countries. More than just a selection in the web master tool I think google will directly analyze your website and decide for which country your website is more "relevant" and of more "value to visitors".
-
Whilst one would hope that Google pay attention to geo-targeting via Webmaster Tools, in my experience it makes no material difference to rankings - either in your desired target or elsewhere.
There's been some debate as to whether or not it only influences 'Pages from the UK' (or whatever your chosen target) - however I've not seen proof it actually influences that either.
In short, if you geo-target via webmaster tools you're not blocking visitors via any other locations.
That said - it is worth noting (as I've alluded to above) geo-targeting via Webmaster tools isn't particularly effective in terms of actually establishing a geographic target for your website. As such if you're serious about establishing a geographic target this might not be the best way.
-
Thanks Mark for the Google words and your insight about it but I am still not convinced with the ground realities...
Setting up a Geo target in Google webmaster cannot block you on other areas (this make no sense to me!). There is a strong possibility that US websites may not rank higher in UK search results but the website will be completely blocked (i don’t agree)
I have a website that has a preferred location as UAE and I can literally access that website from all regions... and on some general keywords it is ranking well in US although that is not my exact location...
-
of course not .. it means you are giving a strong hint to Google that your preferred country is for say is "India". So chances are that you will rank better in Google.co.in and searches made from that country ..
-
Hi Amit,
No, by enabling the country you target in Google Webmaster Tools you give Google a better idea on which language and which country you are targetting with your Web site. This
could
help you in the rankings for the specific region you're targeting. Google Webmaster Tools gave an even better explanation about Geotargeting which could be found here.Hope this helps!
-
Moosa, I don't think you're right.
If you have a bingo site, and you geotarget it to the UK, it makes sense that your site shouldn't show up very highly in US based results, because online bingo for money is allowed in the UK whereas in the US it's not. That's part of the reason they have the geotargeting tool - to focus your site on the country where it's relevant and not on other countries it isn't relevant.
Google writes here - Geotargeting settings. You can use the geotargeting tool in Webmaster Tools to indicate to Google that your site is targeted at a specific country. Do this only if your site has a gTLD (generic top-level domain name). However, don’t use this tool if your site targets more than a single country. For example, it would make sense to set a target of Canada for a site about restaurants in Montreal; but it would not make sense to set the same target for a site that targets French speakers in France, Canada, and Mali.
Here's more info:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=62399
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192
-
If you are going to select any particular region, you will never block from all other locations.. in my opinion, if you are going to select a targeted country this will help you with ranking better in that particular location but you will still be appearing in all regions and ranking for the organic terms accordingly.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Help with international targeting
Hi all! Okay, so we've got a site, let's say example.com - we sell training courses worldwide with a particular focus in just 8 countries.
International SEO | | JamieM1611
Historically, we've never targeted users in different countries effectively, we've just got the example.com that floats about ranking in different countries, but our content is dynamic (obviously a big SEO no-no - we pick up the IP of the user and show the content relevant for that country without the URL's changing)
This obviously presents an SEO flaw in that we can effectively target people in our key countries effectively. So, we're introducing the targeting as subfolders (/uk/, /ie/ etc) my questions are: 1. Would this be the correct implementation of hreflang AND canonical tags for the URL: https://www.example.com/es/ 2. The second thing I was wondering is the 'international targeting' in search console. We haven't (because of our current set up) set a target country for www.example.com (because of the lack of regional targeting and dynamic catch all) - would we be better leaving that untargeted and only specifying the regional targets for the new subfolder URLs (www.example.com/us/ /uk/ etc) or should we set the .com as the USA as default? We'd be a bit weary of doing this because most of our traffic comes from the UK and South Africa, so I'm assuming it would be best to leave this alone unless someone else has a different opinion? I know Googlebot almost always crawls .coms from US, which is why we were thinking of leaving the .com as the 'catch all' and specifying the US version. 3. Finally, we do have a lot pages which don't really change at all (like the about us page) would we give these any special directives to avoid duplicate content (as the content on these won't be changing at all?) or do we just keep the structure as shown above? I.E would the about us page (even though not changing) still be (with the canonical): URL: https://www.example.com/about-us/ (x-default) ? Thanks in advance!0 -
Redirection Question - Can Anyone Help?
Hi Community, I have 2 job boards. Job board A is a .co.uk domain. Job board B is uk.com domain. Job board A displays jobs in the UK but has an international jobs section. Job board B focuses entirely on international jobs. To cut a long story short we are shutting down Job board B as we are going to just be using Job board A in future. In terms of redirection, would it be best to: 1. 301 redirect job board B domain to Job board A. (www.jobboardb.uk.com -> www.jobboarda.co.uk) or 2. 301 redirect job board b to the international jobs section on job board a (as this is the most relevant place for the user to go I am thinking to go with option 2, but I read somewhere that it wasn't best practice. Any help is much appreciated.
International SEO | | SO_UK0 -
Setting up a website targeted for the US
Hi, As an English company we have a co.uk domain with .com domain pointing to this. We are now looking to launch a separate (new) website targeting the American market and I have been asked to do the following: If an American or Canadian IP address visits the .com website it automatically goes to our newly created website i.e. website 2. If a non-American or non-Canadian IP address goes to .com it automatically goes to the original website i.e. website 1. If a user is on website 1 and clicks an American flag it takes the website user to website 2. If a user is on website 2 and clicks on the UK flag it takes the website user to website 1. Can anyone advise the best way to go about doing this as I feel that this could effect our search rankings. I am concerned how the search engines will penalize website 2 (original site) which has good rankings. Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | Cybertill0 -
Weird Geo Rankings - Help Please!
So I've got a site - a .com, hosted in the USA with no geo target set in webmaster tools. I'm from the UK where the site ranks no 6 for its main keyword but in the USA it's ranking no 38. That's pretty much it! I can't get my head around why this would be - the US market is the main market for the product/service so I am thinking maybe it's just more competitive but surely many of the sites ranking in the States would be in the UK too. .... it's such a difference in rank! PS, the site was no 14 in google.com until penguin 2.0 but dropped although its .co.uk ranking has remained - another thing that has left me dumb founded! The website is www.options-trading.com and the keyword is "options trading". Any ideas?!
International SEO | | marcus810 -
International SEO Question with regards to Sub Folders in Webmaster Tools
So, we have a website in 18 or so different languages. bluewidgets.com/br bluewidgets.com/cn etc I have added each sub folder in Google Webmaster Tools and 'pointed' them to be at their respective geographic specific. However, the United States version of the website is sitting on the root domain. Is there any issue with me pointing the root domain at United States Google, considering there are 18 sub folders already pointed at different regions?
International SEO | | LukeyJamo0 -
International targeting
Hi I have a UK based website using a .com, we also own the .co.uk which points to the .com. We get IRO 40,000 UVs per month and we have good domain authority. I now want to launch the site in America however if I seperated the sites out and used the .co.uk for the UK and the .com for the US I would decimate my UK rankings. Am I able to target both the US and the UK under the one domain, or will the fact that I host in the UK ultimately impact on any rankings I may achieve in the US?
International SEO | | danielparry0 -
Geo - Targeting in Webmaster Tools
Hey guys, I was hoping somebody might be able to help me? If I create a French sub directory of a website example "brandname.eu/fr" and submit this in webmaster tools to target France will the French version of the website appear in the search results? What other factors are necessary for this to work? Note: The website ideally will not be hosted in France. Cheers Rob
International SEO | | daracreative0 -
Geolocation Questions
I'm looking to combine my company's US web presence and its United Kingdoms web presence under one common look-feel and company name. Seeing as how we are fairly small, I'm thinking the best way to do this would be to simply create a "uk" folder and creating UK specific content in there. I would also like to have some geolocation on the site to make sure users receive the content that is relevant to them. With that in mind, here my questions: 1. Would creating a "locations" page with links between the UK and the US versions of the site, be enough so that Google is sure to crawl all content? (As I understand it, Google would appear as an American visitor to my geolocation script, and wouldn't see UK content unless there was a page that would explicitly direct it in that direction, correct?) 2. I've read elsewhere that I can target specific folders to a specific geographic target using Google Webmaster Tools. However, if the "main" site is US specific (there would not be a "us" folder) Setting the geographic target for JUST the "uk" folder would still work? 3. Finally, there will unfortunately be some duplicate content between the two sites. (we have a catalog of courses, for example, that contain different groupings of courses between the two sites, but the individual courses will appear with the same descriptions within the sites) What would be the best way to deal with something like that? I would hate to point all canonical links back to the US "main" site on every instance of duplicates, but I'm not sure how else to deal with it? Thanks for any help you can give. I know this is all a bit top level, but I'm a bit paralyzed with fear of starting, seeing as how I've never had to deal with these questions before...
International SEO | | TroyCarlson0