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

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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)

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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

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Page Authority / Rank – Real Data

(Graph shown for French results)

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% Local Language Links / Rank Real Data

(Graph shown for French results)

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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

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Google Rank

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% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data 201-400 Links

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% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data 401-600 Links

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% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data – 601-800 Links

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% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data – 801- 1000(+) Links

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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

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Auth

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Fake Google Rank

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

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Fake Data

Page Authority / Rank – Real Data

(Graph shown for French results)

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% Local Language Links / Rank Binned Data – 601-800 Links

(Graph shown for French results)

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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