international seo - how not to suck - mozcon 2011
Post on 09-May-2015
10.176 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
International SEO:How not to Suck &
A Quest to Challenge Conventional Wisdom
About Me Slide Will Go Here...
• Lead SEO at Distilled
• 11 years in marketing• 5 years – retail marketing (POS / Sales Promo)• 3 years – direct response (press / direct mail /
sponsorship)• 3 years online – (SEO, PPC, CRO & other initialisms)
• Hair changes colour a lot
Email: hannah.smith@distilled.netTwitter: @hannah_bo_bannaLinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/hannahsmith
What I’ll Be Covering
• Part One• Why you should care about
International SEO • How not to suck
• Part Two• Challenging Conventional Wisdom on
local links
Part One
Good rankings in one country don’t
necessarily ‘translate’ - even
if there’s no language barrier...
UK Results
US Results
So if you want to rank
internationally what do you need to do?
“Don’t mess it up & you’ll be
fine”
Duncan Morris, Distilled
Sadly, companies mess this up a
lot...
Language and Location
Pop QuizWhich languages are spoken in
Switzerland?
Stop!
Before you go crazy registering domains and
planning out your Information
Architecture
Check Brand Comprehension
Does your brand ‘translate’?
Insurance.co.uk
Insurance.com
Insurance.it
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtrichardson/4626549119/sizes/z/
Process to Avoid Sucking at International SEO (Part I)
Define language
s
Define countries
Does your brand
translate?
Now We Can Figure Out IA• ccTLD
Or
• Sub-Folders
Using sub domains to geo-target causes the
needless death of hundreds of kittens every year.
With your help, we can stop this madness....
I will tell you more about why I hate
Sub Domains later...
IA Options• Country Code TLD - www.yourdomain.it
Or
• Generic TLD - www.yourdomain.comPlus• Sub Folder www.yourdomain.com/uk
Pros & Cons – ccTLD – www.yourdomain.it
Pros• Strongest geo-targeting signal
Cons• New site with no strength so it may not
rank at all• You’ll need to put in some serious link
building effort• Can be difficult to purchase ccTLD
Pros & Cons – Sub Folderwww.yourdomain.com/uk
Pros• Domain strength is passed to sub-
folders• A single site will normally be stronger
than many
Cons• Likely problems with the ‘wrong’
content ranking e.g. yourdomain.com ranking in the UK rather than yourdomain.com/uk
Why I Think Sub Domains Suckuk.yourdomain.com
Pros• There aren’t any...
Cons• Little or no strength passed from the
domain• Likely problems with the ‘wrong’
content ranking e.g. yourdomain.com ranking in the UK rather than uk.yourdomain.com
Multiple Languages
Don’t forget countries with multiple languages!
ccTLD solution:• www.yourdomain.ca/en• www.yourdomain.ca/fr
Sub folder solution:• www.yourdomain.com/ca/en• www.yourdomain.com/ca/fr
Process to Avoid Sucking at International SEO (Part II)
Define languages
Define countries
Check your brand
translates
IA – ccTLD and / or
sub-folders
Ways You Can Mess it Up
• IP Detection• Make sure the search engines (US IP)
can crawl all your content not just US versions• Do not use this to dynamically deliver
content
• Make sure users can override this• Not so awesome in countries where
multiple languages are used
Ways You Can Mess it Up
US Monthly Searches UK Monthly Searches
390
49500
27100
260
US v UK Search VolumesCharity Jobs Non Profit Jobs
Ways You Can Mess it Up
Cheap (or just plain crazy) Translation
Ways You Can Mess it Up
Failing to think locally• Toll-free numbers that don’t work
outside of the US / UK• No local addresses• Prices not in local currency
Process to Avoid Sucking at International SEO (Part III)
Define languages
Define countries
Check your brand
translates
IA – ccTLD and / or
sub-folders
Create language &
country specific content
Use local currency /
phone numbers
etc
Geo-Targeting via Google Webmaster Tools
Image credit http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/Geo-Targeting-Countries-For-SEO.aspx
Hosting
Image credit : http://bodmas.org/blog/red-herring/a-red-herring/
Local Links
Image credit: http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/11/hotpot-is-cheesy-name.html
Part TwoConventional
Wisdom says you need local links
to rank – but do you?
I believe in Unicorns
& the Loch Ness Monster
I would never say ‘Candyman’ five times in front of a mirror...
But I don’t like to accept Conventional Wisdom.
My Mum says I’m at ‘that difficult age’ and have been since I was 4.
Do you need ‘Local’ Links?• Pretty much anyone who’s anyone
preaches the need for local links• But what relationship do they really have
with site rankings?
First Things First• Is there a relationship between PA &
ranking?
Image credit: http://trevorloudon.com/2011/05/you-will-respect-my-authoritah/
Illustration of Strong Correlation – THIS IS NOT REAL DATA
(Graph is fake, well actually the graph is real, it’s the data that is fake)
Fake
Pag
e
Auth
ori
ty
Fake Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Fake Data
Page Authority / Rank – Real Data
PA correlation co-efficient is just under 0.3 which means it PA would account for ~9% of
Google’s algorithm(Graph shown for French results)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Page
Auth
ori
ty
Google Rank
Methodology• 15 keywords with commercial intent
• Armani jeans• Diesel jeans• DVD• Buy DVDs• Car Insurance• Mortgages• Loans• Life Insurance• Music Downloads• TV Downloads• Kindle• iPhone• iPad• Cheap Hotels• Cheap Flights
Methodology• Translate into 9 languages• Find out the percentage of local links the
sites ranking in the top ten for those keywords have
• See if there’s a relationship between % of local links and ranking
Conceptual Limitations• Small data set• % of local links may not be the best
measure• OSE might not have picked up all of the
external links to a given page• Doesn’t weight links for quality• Doesn’t take into account overall link
profile of a site • Doesn’t take into account any other
ranking factors
Issues!• Trying to figure out whether or not a link
was ‘local’ was so hard it made me cry...
Harder than you might think• Hosting does not indicate location• Generic TLDs are used all over the place• So we had to settle for looking at
language links
Marvellous Machines• So we built a tool which looked at the title
tag of the top 1000 linking pages to determine the language of the linking page.
Technical Limitations• It can be difficult to determine language
from the title tag• Language tool is not 100% accurate but
it’s pretty good• Agrees with Google translate 81% of the time at >30%
confidence
And, this is still more scientific than conventional
wisdom
Illustration of Strong Correlation – THIS IS NOT REAL DATA
(Graph is fake, well actually the graph is real, it’s the data that is fake)
Fake
Pag
e
Auth
ori
ty
Fake Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Fake Data
Page Authority / Rank – Real Data
(Graph shown for French results)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Page
Auth
ori
ty
Google Rank
% Local Language Links / Rank Real Data
(Graph shown for French results)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
Additional Validation• We were worried that pages with very few
links were skewing the data so we ‘binned’ it*
*I am assured that this is a mathematical term which does not mean dispose of
Image credit: http://d.imagehost.org/view/0613/oscar_the_grouch
% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data 0-200 Links
(Graph shown for French results)
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data 201-400 Links
(Graph shown for French results)
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data 401-600 Links
(Graph shown for French results)
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data – 601-800 Links
(Graph shown for French results)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data – 801- 1000(+) Links
(Graph shown for French results)
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Huh?• The data we’ve gathered suggests that
local language links do not correlate well with rankings
AND• Local language links correlate less well
with rankings than pure link strength
Illustration of Strong Correlation – THIS IS NOT REAL DATA
(Graph is fake, well actually the graph is real, it’s the data that is fake)
Fake
Pag
e
Auth
ori
ty
Fake Google Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Fake Data
Page Authority / Rank – Real Data
(Graph shown for French results)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Page
Auth
ori
ty
Google Rank
% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data – 601-800 Links
(Graph shown for French results)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
% L
oca
l La
nguage
Lin
ks
Google Rank
What Does That Mean?• It looks like ‘good’ links are perhaps more
important than ‘local’ links
Recommendations• Concentrate on getting good links• You can perhaps worry less about how
‘local’ or otherwise they are
Disclaimer• Local links may become a stronger
ranking signal in the future....
Image credit: http://lolcat.tumblr.com/post/29862288/warning-may-contain-nuts
But don’t take my word for it... We’ll be releasing the
data & the tool –
we’d love to hear your thoughts
A Massive Thank You To:
Lovely Distilled People - Tom Anthony, Alice Murphy,
Phil Nottingham, Duncan Morris, Will Critchlow &
Kate Morris
Amazing ‘Beyond the Call of Duty’ Buddies – Rob
Nicholson, & Gianluca Fiorelli
Questions?
Email:hannah.smith@distilled.net
Twitter: @hannah_bo_bannaLinkedIn:
uk.linkedin.com/in/hannahsmith
top related