Geotargeting subdomains and subfolders in Google Webmasters tool
I was wondering how you could actually geotarget a subdomain in Google Webmasters tool. I know how to do it for a subdomain but I was wondering how to do it for a subfolder, and I don’t why, but I took me quite a while to find a clear answer. And guess what? it’s exactly the same process! Subdomains and subfolders are treated the same way by Google Webmasters tools
Let’s say you have a domain name like this one : www.example.com
And you wish to geotarget a specific subfolder for each countries:
- www.example.com/de/ for Germany
- www.example.com/it/ for Italy
- www.example.com/fr/ for France
- www.example.com/es/ for Spain
Go in your Webmaster tools account:
Step 1:
Click on 
Step 2:
Then add a subfolder name for each specific country, in this case, it’s France :
You won’t need to verify ownership (Contrary to what you do when submitting subdomains), simply because a subfolder is related to Top Level Domain (TLD) and sub-folders automatically will become verified too.
There, “Your site has been added to your account” (I wish they were using the appropriate term “subfolder” for this, but whatever…)
Step 3:
Head to “site configuration” section :
Step 4:
and then hit “Settings”
Step 5:
“Settings” > “Geographic target”
Then Checkbox “Target users in” and select “France” on the pulldown menu.
> save
And it’s done! Quite simple, right?!
Keep in mind you are targeting a country, but not a language, this means you have to understand what it means for your website.
If www.example.com is mainly targeting english speaking people, do not “Target users in” United Kingdom, it would hurt the chances you might have to appear relevant to English speaking people worldwide.
If your subfolders are language designed, avoid geo-targeting, to put it clear, if www.example.com/es is your spanish section of the site and isn’t for Spain only, just don’t target users in Spain, let Google do the job.
That way, people from Mexico, Argentina, etc. can also find your website not limited to a specific area.
Don’t forget to submit and verify sitemaps!
2 options :
- You can create a unique Sitemap file for your whole site with each URL you have, including your subdomains ;
- Or, you can submit a sitemap index file where you list all the sitemaps files for each of your subfolders, this is typically what I recommend if your website is big or is on its way to get bigger. Also It’s a pretty neat idea to separate update you are doing in one subfolder from updates related to your whole site, countries might want to be a little independant as fas as update goes.
Last but not least
Matt Cutts Software Engineer at Google published this answer yesterday on his Buzz regarding priorities regarding countries
“What makes a site seen as by google as a site from a particular country?”
- 1. country code TLD (ccTLD) such as .de or .fr
- 2. geotargeting in the webmaster console
- 3. IP address
“There may be other signals, but those are the biggies and the order that I’d put them in”.
I also suggest, you watch Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa talk about how you can use the geographic targeting tool in Webmaster Tools.
Create your own sitemap.xml :
If you have a small static website and wish to make sure Google index all your pages, you don’t have too many options.
Either you code your own, or if you have no idea how to do this, you can also use this online service http://www.xml-sitemaps.com which does a pretty good job.
Related Articles :
- Search Marketing for Foreign Countries and Languages
- How Google detects language
- Create your XML sitemap
- How to Geo Target Your Site with Google Webmaster Tools
- Wordpress Plug-in I Use to create Sitemap
- How to use multiple sitemaps on one domain for geo-targeting
Well, this makes me think I should really find a way to have all my english content on a .com TLD.
