Comments on: Geotargeting on the same domain – using XML sitemaps

By: Farrukh

Farrukh — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:10:59 +0000

Is it possible, if someone visits from franc and result would be .com.fr ?

By: International SEO? Forget About The Big Brands And Do This Instead | Search Engine People | Toronto

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:26:05 +0000

[...] several countries within the same domain; again I blame the big brands for this. There is however a way that you can target several countries on the same domain within webmaster tools. What you would need to do is create [...]

By: Amanda Jacobsen

Amanda Jacobsen — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:47:01 +0000

And oh by the way, the title of this post is misleading.
You are not showing Geotargetting with XML sitemaps. It gives an impression that one can specify geotargets through xml sitemap link.
But anyways a good post.

By: Amanda Jacobsen

Amanda Jacobsen — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:43:58 +0000

Grosan Wrote “…f you do that then it is vital that you do NOT set a target country inside Google Webmaster Tool for the XML sitemap file. Instead you should set it to ‘unlisted’…”

Is that an official statement? I ask because say you have a subdomain or even a folder specific to a country. With three language spoken in the country eg India with Hindi and English, if we do not specify geo target, then it is going to be a bigger mess.

Well…now that I read the last part of your comments, it makes sense…
“…In other words, you should only set a target country for a XML sitemap file, if you are 100% sure that the pages that are listed in the XML file is for that specific country alone…”

It would be great if these search engines allowed us to :
1. Mass upload multiple domains with Geotargets.
2. Allow us to use one xml file after step 1 above.
Although google allows #2, one has to Authenticate each domain through webmaster.

By: mrJan

mrJan — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:26:01 +0000

I face a little problem with the geo targetting.

The structure of my site is;
mysite.com
mysite.com/en/
mysite.com/de/

The problem is with the english content.
mysite.com/en/ is targetted on the UK, and an XML sitemap is included with all the pages with English content

I want to target mysite.com also to the rest of the world.(For the domain not a specific targetting)
Can I use the same urls as in mysite.com/en/ or should all the urls be available in mysite.com/ (without the /en/ folder) ? This would implicate double content.

If using de mysite.com/en/ urls for the world wide targeting would be no problem, then it would also be wise to include the other languages in the XML sitemap. Spanish is spoken in several countries besides Spain.

I think this is a hard one, does anyone know a solution ?

By: Franky Nieves

Franky Nieves — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:39:08 +0000

How about sites based on parameters? I was so happy following every step on your tutorial, until i crashed my face on the fact that i am integrating in Joomla. Im working with SEF links, so there is no way to make a relative path for each website language version. IE: http://www.samplesite.net/index.php/es is my landingpage for my sites version in spanish language. WHERE ON EARTH DO I HAVE TO PLACE MY sitemap_ES.xml at Google Webmaster Tools admin? It’s a little a paradox!! if you know a way, i’ll thank so much for the info. Meanwhile, i’ll try some other tricks. If i get it to work, i’ll come to leave the seed.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:14:33 +0000

Hey, great post on an increasingly popular subject.
Any progress reports from anyone, or anyone else that could chime in and tell of their actual experience?

I am in Australia and would like to start targeting different markets including AUS. However, web hosting in Australia is horribly expensive and not as reliable as in the US, for instance. I intend to build a number of sites in different niches. The challenge with this is, that I will not be able to get ccTLD’s (.com.au domains) for most of these sites, hence I will be relying on .com’s hosted in the US.
Will I still have the same chances of ranking high on the Australian Google SERPs…simply by using the geotarget settings in GWMT?
I have read so many times that hosting in the country where your target audience is would be vital (and better even: use the respective ccTLD), yet I would like to hear people’s actual success stories of achieving the same goal by geotargeting a site hosted offshore.

Anyone?

Would also be interested to see a reply to Amanda’s post from 24th Feb

By: Christian

Christian — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:49:04 +0000

Hi Lisa,
Thanks for this great post! My question: how is your experience concerning this method so far? Do you think it is as good as using various TLD (assume that you own them)? I have to make a choice for one of my projects. What would you recommend?
Thank you! Best, Christian

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:38:10 +0000

Hi there, thanks for this article. I’m trying it out now. Can I just clarify one thing? Now that you have changed the different geo targets for each countires sub folder, for your original webmasters account samplesite.com, have you changed the target to ‘unlisted’ in the settings, and is the XML sitemap for the straight .com account a sitemap for the entire site?

Thank you!

By: Lisa Myers

Lisa Myers — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:15:54 +0000

Hi Alana,

Yeah I would try seperate sitemaps for each language, as long as its on a non geo TLD (i.e .com .net etc)

You can use http://www.xml-sitemaps.com to create xml sitemaps within a folder, just specifiy the folder http://www.samplesite.com/FR/ and it will include only pages within the /FR/ folder.

Good luck, let me know how it goes. ta.