Geographic Targeting on the same domain - using XML Sitemaps

Geographic Targeting on the same domain - using XML Sitemaps

I wrote BlogPost few months ago Searchcowboys on "How to use multiple Sitemap files on the same domain for Geotargetting", and received great response. While some readers pointed out that the instructions were aa bit "fuzzy" and that step by step explanation would be great. So I thought I would share with the readers of SEO Chicks and do step by step guide to using this method for geotargetting. But first, let's get background information about why and so on.

Release and why we came to this decision? "

One of our clients (and many other companies). COM Domain orientation in the UK, but in addition, they are designed for five other European countries, in the same domain. They are (to their credit) translated content in each respective language. Thus, for they show that content in a fairly simple and straight forward the folder structure, namely:

Samplewebsite.com / FR /

continue in the pages as Samplewebsite.com / FR / page

, etc. ..

It can be assumed (wrongly) that's a pretty strong sign for Google (or Yahoo or Bing), that the content in appropriate language, and, therefore, to know that you are targeting France with the foregoing pages, but no. It is very unlikely, these pages will be considered in any place on Google.fr even remotely competitive. This is because all other marks Google says that this site is focused and concentrating on the UK.

Now that I've heard some of you scream: they were to receive country-specific TLDs for each country. It's not always easy, but in some countries, like France, there is no way you can get. Fri TLD if you can not prove that you have a business address. In some countries it even worse, in Norway (in. Not TLD) you will not only prove that you are and address of the company, but to prove that you have at least £ 10000 in the working population (WFP, shit!) There and many other reasons why companies want to keep it all in one domain (the cost was the other).

So we had to try to come up with something that will help Google understand that we are targeting different countries within the same domain. In fact, we came to a very simple, download individual XML Sitemaps for each geographical setting, and geo targeting content in Google Webmaster Tools for this country. This will only work on a domain that is not geographically defined, such as:. COM,. ORG,. INFO and so on, you can not use the following method Geo TLDs like. co.uk, or. de. Here are the steps:

1. Create a separate XML Sitemaps for country specific content of each. For example samplewebsite.com / FR / and all the pages in this folder was one XML sitemap (eg samplewebsite.com / FR / sitemap_FR.xml) You need to WP, where you can specify folders to include. Then you create another XML sitemap for all pages in a samplewebsite.com / NL /, etc. ..

2. In Google Tools for Webmasters, click "Add Site" and paste the URL including the specific folder, ie samplewebsite.com / FR /

3. Then check the ownership or the meta tag or HTML file

4. Once the site has been verified you go to the main "Home" area of the webmaster and click on the site you just added.

5. When you are in the panel click on "Site configuration", then "Sitemaps". Now add the URL in specific geographic map of XML in the field. ie samplewebsite.com / FR / sitemap_FR.xml simply add sitemap_FR.xml.

June. Once the map comes loaded geo targeting. Back in the dashboard for this "site", click "Site configuration", then "Settings"

7. The "Options", you get a drop-down menu "Geographical objective", where you can select a specific target country for this site.

Et Volla, geo targeting, at the same domain! Repeat all steps for each folder language, ie samplewebsite.com / DE / samplewebsite.com / NL, and so on. Make sure you add "new site" in main central square for each country a specific location. I know that seems a bit strange, especially as you probably already have a main samplewebsite.com already there, but you must include each as a separate site.

I would also add that I ran over the last technology engineer Google, before I did it, and they had no objection to be sure there is nothing even a little gray on this method. At this point his own company, and several other friends, my SEO test it, but please do not hesitate to try and let me know how it goes. Good tools for webmasters fiddling