Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 12:11 PM
The Set Geographic Target tool in Webmaster Tools lets you associate your site with a specific region. We've heard a lot of questions from webmasters about how to use the tool, and here Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa explains how it works and when to use it.
The http://www.google.ca/ example in the video is a little hard to see, so here's a screenshot:
Want to know more about setting a geographic target for your site? Check out our Help Center. And if you like this video, you can see more on our Webmaster Tools playlist on YouTube.
51 comments:
The company I work for has been global for some time now and has launched country specific websites so we added sitemaps for each site and set the geographical targeting in the webmaster tools. The traffic for those sites has increased for each specific country as a result.
So, not only has it been beneficial to target each country with our adwords, but through our natural SEO as well.
Nice video Susan. Is there any advantage in using this tool if you wish to sell to US, Uk and Canada and you located in the US?
Is there no advantage in buying domain TLD's any longer in Google? Previous Cutt's has said that it would be best to build a website out under the country TLD that your looking to rank for.
Can we now assume that .com will rank fine in google.co.uk if this Geographic Target Tool is set?
If you were to target your site for a particular country, would this negatively effect your ranking in country-specific searches from other nations?
This is all very good, but...
Let's say I have a .dk domain (Denmark) and I make a subdomain called usa.domain.dk
No matter what I do, the Webmaster Tolls will not allow me to change anything. It says, that Denmark is the target country for a .dk domain - and leaves no options.
What will you suggest that I do in a case like this?
My web sites are spanish, and my hosting is locted in USA. If I target site site for Spain, how can I do to get to the Argentine public? because if I think two directories could be duplicate content..
We operate a global brand for a health website and our USA branch is appearing in google.co.uk search results as the number one listing which is obviously getting a lot of the UK branches traffic. Can we configure WMC on the .com version of the domain to remove it from the google.co.uk listings?
why we can't choose more than one target for each site?
In this way we could have two countries of the same language
can u tell me how do i verify my blog made on blogspot.com and use the webmaster tool subsequently.
thanks in advance.
thats a good point "spanish" ideally we just want to remove the .com site from the UK market and leave it operate else where or i agree it would be nice to target specific countries individually
is this beneficial with respect to Natural SEO too?
Can't find where to send this Google trademark issue but if you type www.google.cm it redirects you to:
http : / / www.837832716.net/?ref=3838
Google AdWords allows you to choose geographies in "bundles" ie Western Europe.
So my site (www.nordicstaff.com) would benefit from being targeted at the same geographies that I choose to support through advertising.
Our European website does not target specific countries, but instead we use the (relatively) new TLD .EU to target ALL of europe. Similarly we are planning a .ASIA site to target all of ASIA. Each site is in multiple languages, but none of those languages are targeted at a specific country.
How do we target entire regions like Europe or Asia.
Will Google start to consider .EU and .ASIA as targeted at all countries in Europe and Asia respectively?
Nice overview of the geotargeting feature in the Webmaster console.
One question and one suggestion:
Does the targeting work at lower levels in the path as well, such as www.example.com/sitearea/country?
And, could Google please consider honoring DC.Coverage as a mechanism for determining geographic coverage?
I like with article which you are this load, although we differ in every state we will feel one with existence of new peripheral from this google, I like google, hopefully google is more onward and can give amenity for world
Also, it would be nice to geo target individual states or cities in the US, not just on the country level. Specto Design
Thanks for your questions, folks.
@incrediblehelp:
If you have an ecommerce site that just ships stuff to those countries, this tool probably won't add any value for you since you're targeting several geographic regions equally. However, if there's some component of the business that makes the fact that you're located in the US significant—say you can ship your product to any of those countries, but you also have a showroom in your US headquarters—you may want to specify that you're based in the US. It kind of depends on how relevant your location is to your customers.
We still look at country TLDs and at server location, but they're no longer the only way for you to let us know where your site is located/targeted to. Having a ccTLD may still be part of a company's branding strategy. Also keep in mind that if you have a ccTLD, you won't be able to use this tool to target a different region; so if you're planning on having a bunch of French-language content in different subfolders targeting different regions (/ca, /fr, etc.), you'll probably want a geographically-neutral TLD or else you won't be able to use this tool to target each of those subfolders.
@Dave:
The section ~3:20 into the video talks about this. This affects your presence in search results if the searcher selects the "only pages from [country]" option.
@Spanish speaker:
This tool can only do geographic targeting, not language targeting. If you want to reach a Spanish-speaking public in more than one country, we don't recommend using this tool since it's not meant for language targeting. I would recommend simply building one version of your site (don't copy the content) and marketing it well internationally.
@Woodmeisterflex:
You could use the geographic target too to let us know that the .com version of your site is most relevant to the US; but unless searchers on google.co.uk specify "only show me pages from the UK," there's no guarantee that your .com won't show up on google.co.uk. You may want to work on getting more local (UK-based) attention for your UK site.
@krusch:
You can target any level of subfolders or subdirectories. Just add them each as a separate site in your Webmaster Tools account.
@Specto:
If you want to get even more specific about your location, Google's Local Business Center would be the right place to do so.
Countries are too broad a brush, for targeting. I would like to pick a particular State. And, selecting regions within one State would even better.
Tanks @susan.
I understand you. But you can not choose more than one option in the future?
I have a domain .net with hosting U.S. and content and products destined for Spain, Argentina and Mexico.
If you do not use the tool benefit me in searches in South America, I suppose that by the closeness of the Ip.
Create a new content different for each country is not possible, the site uses data from a database and change it would be very laborious.
One thing I've noticed is that our site seems to do better in the UK index than in the main (.com) index. Is the index from the .com site considered to be the US index? Our site is hosted in the UK, which means it's probably branded as a UK site.
Is this hurting our US (.com) results? We would really prefer that that didn't happen. Ours is a general site that happens to be hosted in the UK. Will keeping the "Do not associate a geographic location with this site" ensure that our site is not branded as UK based?
Where in the world is your site?....
That would be in the Land of the Never Ending Penalty...I think I hear the Sleestacks now...
if my website is only for israel users what i need to do?
il.domain.net ?
This was great to know. We are based in and sell to the US market for down bedding and recently enabled Canada sales on our osCommerce platform. So now I'm thinking we should add the .ca to get spidered for canadian bedding related sales, etc.
well, The Tools doesnt support it the other way!!!
I have a website called http://www.atlas.co.il
and because it have the "co.il" domain name it "thinks" that its ONLY for Israeli visitors which is completely wrong!
the website target outside of Israel visitors and we couldn't buy the ".com" domain so how do you take care of that?
there are millions with this problem!
what about the other way people buy a domain level which is not ".com" because they can't buy and they target other countries!
its a major problem with your tool!
I don't understand how this tool helps me promote my sites.
its seems to me it helps Google filter its results better for each region.
they way I understand this tool:
my site ranking will probably go higher in Google domain in my region
and will go down in ranking in other Google Domains, outside my region.
Yet, if my site is global OR, if customers in my region surf the web and search through Google through different IP's around the world - then my site will loose traffic !
can someone from Google explain in more details what should we do in different scenarios ? e.g. different audiences & countries targeting ?!
Thanks Susan!
Thanks Susan!
I have a domain .com.pt, but the content is in English and most traffic came from outside of Portugal. We should change the target as im my case to global not just Portugal.
Thank you Susan for this great tutorial.
We have launched a website using the EU TLD and I didn’t even know when buying the domain that ccTLDs have such a huge impact on Google results. Because we target 3 language groups (countries) with our site I have lots of inbound links from different countries and languages on my domain. As a result we rank great on Google.com for language searches but not at all in the local Googles.
I set the geographic target 10 days ago because of your recommendations. Our site is a great resource and valuable service in the area we work in and it is a shame for us and for Google searchers that we are excluded from the local Googles.
How long does it take for our site to appear on the local Google? Or do I have to drop the multi-language idea and go with the ccTLD? I have also purchased the corresponding ccTLD and put a 301 on our international TLD. Until today no effect :(
Greetings from Germany
Ivo
Vidéo not available anymore...
Hello Susan,
Thanks for your instructions for us webmasters.
But I still have a question ...
We have a site www.CoolPanama.com made for Panamanians and thus currently it is geo targeted to Panama.
But actually we want to focus our site on Panamanians living abroad, because of the content our site provides.
So we want our site to list high in the Google rankings [don't we all ;)] whereever Panamanians are searching in Google.
Is it wise for us change the geographic location of our site from Panama to global?
How are redirects handled? If say, www.mysite.com/japan/ redirects to global.mysite.com/jp.nsf/page.htm - do I need to add both sites (www.mysite.com... and global.mysite.com...)?
In other words, if target URL of the redirect is already associated
with a region, will the source URL be automatically associated with
the region as well?
This is a great post.
Thanks!
Ok, I have missunderstanding of something.
My site is local, but domain is .com. Site is in local language, too (not english).
If I set geographic target for my site it is probably going to increase status of site in local google search engine. What about global google, is my site going to have the same rankings or decrease it's status ?
I know that local users are using both local and global google, so I am interested in both of them, search keywords in local language.
Thanks!
Clearly not a good implementation!
It seems to me that the emphasis on the national suffix as been increased after this setting arrived, and combined with no possibility to tell Google that the intended audience is global, it's a bad change.
Bad for search engine users that is. There are many, many, sites in national domains purely intended for an international audience.
Lots of small/medium sized business for instance. As a search engine user you don't want sites in a national domain to be given any less relevance than the ones in .com domain.
In my opinion, as a search engine user I would get more relevant results if content and language was given a much higher weighting than geographic location. The web is global, regardless of where the server is placed, regardless of the domain suffix.
Dear Google, please reconsider
This article(http://www.getelastic.com/location-targeting-google/) is causing some confusion.
Upon doing the Canada Country Specific search and not finding the company i work for. I proceeded to take the advice of the above article.
I've secured a .ca domain, since it ships and has a large catalog presence in Canada.
The .ca is 301'd into the .com.
Though upon accessing the main WMTs section to verify the .ca domain, WMTs generates a new verification code.
Can i use one method (META tag) to verify .com and the (HTML file) to verify the .ca, is this acceptable to show up in google.ca for the .ca domain and show up in google.com for the .com, or possible penalty?
Went through this long posting and couldn't find a definitive answer.
Thanks for your help, i will always come too the source for my information now!
-s
Hi, his website was assigned to Costa Rica on April 04, 2008 and todays (May30) still don't appear for the Costa Rica pages. What else do we have to do?
http://www.google.co.cr/search?hl=es&q=www.construcr.com&btnG=Buscar&meta=cr%3DcountryCR
My question goes in the same direction as "CostaRicaEmpresarial's" one. How long will it take to be included in the country specific SERPs and do you guarantee the inclusion? Are there any other factors?
Dear Fellows;I am very glad to see your struggle and this great work.My name is Sayyed zahid ali.I am researcher.Now a days i am compiling abook about the problems of the world.A to Z problems of all countries of the world.I need your assistance.Can you tell me how i can get my required information about problems of the world.If you solve my this difficulty i will be able to compile my research work.
Thanks
Yours Truely
Dr.Sayyed Zahid Ali.
Furthermore i want this material in refined way.any publication,website etc.
I changed the geographical target of my site (ratekhoj dot com) to India on March 25, 2008 and as of June 18, 2008 it hasn't changed and I don't see my website in India specific pages. Can anyone say how long does this geographical targeting take? Appreciate any feedback! Thanks.
Susan, as a fellow Sconnie and webmaster I have really enjoyed your blog. It is a great tool for beginners. I admire your work in localization. Your video on the Google webmaster blog on Geo targeting was fantastic. but it has left me with the question of What is the best way to target someone in Quebec? Geotargeting to only canada may not work as Google.ca unless they have language set to French. For example searching "body shop" in Google.ca only shows the English version unless you switch over to French Google.ca. Fortunately "sitelinks" saves the day by picking up on the splash pages: english or french gracefully degraded html links.
Thanks for all your insight on localization and keep up the great work. And Kudos for representing all your Packer backers! Who wouldn't be interested in Wisconsin Tax Codes?
Hi there, I hope you still get to reads this.
I was wondering if you use ODP / DMOZ entry to assign language or origin to a website; and if so, would the geographic target tool overwrite this and provide the domain with the desired authentication?
I am asking this because I have spotted that various domains that are listed in geographic categories of the ODP actually come up in the results when you specify the language in Google, even though the site might contain no (or little) semantics of that kind.
I have to deal with a problem having DMOZ entry in the world category but the content of the targeted URL (multilingual site) is German. Besides that we use English words in the modern German language. I am worried to be stuck in between two language preferences. As result (I believe) we don’t make it in the German index for competitive search phrases.
A quick answer would be great help, thanks Susan.
Salomon
The country list does not include Myanmar (or Burma, for that matter).
How come?
My site concentrates on that place...
im a bit confused, because you say that geo targeting just affects search results when you limit your search to a particular geographical location???
our website, for instance, targets the uk market. we use a .com domain and our server is located in germany. we use geo targeting to tell google that we target the UK. our rankings in google.com quite good but our rankings in google.co.uk are lousy. how comes? would you recommend us to move our host to the uk, or is it enough to use geo targeting.
Your site's domain (.IT) is already associated with the country/region: Italy
and is impossible to change ????
What can I do ?
I must have missed something becaus there is no option in webmaster tools to set Geo Targeting;
Where did it go?
Where do I set it?
Hi everyone,
Since some time has passed since we published this post, we're closing the comments to help us focus on the work ahead. If you still have a question or comment you'd like to discuss, free to visit and/or post your topic in our Webmaster Help Forum.
Thanks and take care,
The Webmaster Central Team
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