Google’s targeting is more advanced than ever, with more emphasis falling on local results for any given search query. For your multilingual campaign to be a success there are certain criteria that should be followed to ensure rankings are deemed to be localised to your target market.
The most important of which is choosing your domain which will rank within each of the Google language results and provide the most Dental SEO benefit. Google provides information on Multi-regional and multilingual sites, but I’m going to discuss in more detail the more realistic pros and cons to each of the methods.
Option 1, ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain)
Working example: https://www.laredoute.fr/
This option should always be first choice; the domain alone provides clear evidence to user and search engines that the site is targeting a specific audience or language. As figure 1 shows, the majority of page 1 sites use the ccTLD option, therefore Google seems to give more weight to these domains.
The downside to this option is cost and accessibility to acquiring the domain. Costs of registering and setting up hosting for several domains can be high, and should always be planned carefully before starting a campaign. There is also the issue of acquiring the domain if you are not a registered business or citizen of that country, for multinational companies this wouldn’t be an issue, but for SME wanting to sell to another market could be a stumbling block.
Option 2, Subdomains + gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains)
Working example: https://www.fr.lastminute.com/
The beauty of both methods 2 and 3 is there ease of setup. As you are using a .com domain which you will already have full control of, then setting sub domains is relatively simple via control panel. Once you have set this up you will need to create a profile for it in Webmaster tools and verify ownership, then simply through the site configuration/settings geo target to your target location. This can be done for as many markets as you wish, but don’t forget to propagate with translated content.
Downside to this method is a lack of natural targeting through the domain name, this could affect clickthrough, and as seen in the table below affects rankings to a degree.
Option 3, Subdirectories + gTLDs
Working example: https://www.apple.com/fr/
This is the most simplistic and cost effective way to target a different market. By creating a directory on the root of your domain, you can recreate the main site and then link to it from the homepage. This is good for keeping authority within your domain, and like above you can ensure targeting through Webmaster Tools Geotargeting.
Negatives to this approach are that users may struggle to identify what the URL signifies by being a directory. Also as you will be piggybacking the main domain, the hosting IP address will remain the same for all subdirectory sites, so this could affect the potential to rank well.
After some quick research on some generic keywords, here are the number of each domain ranking for the translated keywords in Google.co.uk, Google.fr, Google.de and Google.es:
Fig.1
