When it comes to International SEO, we usually see the same old things told: domain or subdomain or subfolder? Generic domain or Country Code Domain Names? How to implement the hreflang? Please, do not misunderstand me! The technical side of International SEO is a fundamental aspect of this many times complicated vertical of organic search. However, it is only one of the aspects of International SEO, and it cannot well defined if, before, we didn't understand the business model behind the internationalization of a website. In my talk for Digital Olympus I present a different point of view to International SEO based on 3 different case histories, which represent well how reality is not always what “best practices” pretend us to do, and that’s for a simple reason: the needs of the client’s international business strategy (and idiosyncrasies). For instance, how to target all the world but being restrained by how the warehouses are located? Or, how to design the right Intl SEO strategy for a website that needs to fight dumping?

2. ©
© @gfiorelli1

3. International SEO
Lessons from the trenches

4. @gfiorelli1

5. ©
©
For instance, you can learn what
scientists do in Antarctica during the
Austral winter

6. They play chess
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© @gfiorelli1

8. ©
© @gfiorelli1

9. Refresher lesson
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© @gfiorelli1

10. ©MULTI-COUNTRY – Pro & VS.
.it - ‘’Obligated’’ choice, if branding and marketing is uniquely localized since the
first minute
Needs more technical resources
Initial link profile = Zero
Geo-targeted out of the box
/it/ - Easier technical implementation
Inherits part of the link equity of the already existing link profile
Geo-targeting is more complex
May suffer sitewide penalization caused by other versions
It. - Needs more technical resources
Initial link profile = Zero
It may be the ideal solution for very complex websites
© @gfiorelli1

11. ©MULTILINGUAL - Pro & VS.
© @gfiorelli1
/it/ - Easier technical implementation
Inherits part of the link equity of the already existing link profile
Geo-targeting is more complex
May suffer sitewide penalization caused by other versions
It. - Needs more technical resources
Initial link profile = Zero
It may be the ideal solution for very complex websites

12. ©
©
HREFLANG
Multilingual
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.com/’’ hreflang=‘’en’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.com/es/’’ hreflang=‘’es’’ />
Multi-country
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.co.uk/’’ hreflang=‘’en-GB’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.es/’’ hreflang=‘’es-ES’’ />
Default
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.com/’’ hreflang=‘’x-default’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.com/’’ hreflang=‘’en-GB’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://domain.com/es/’’ hreflang=‘’es-ES’’ />
@gfiorelli1

13. HREFLANG – what not to do
Using the incorrect country ISO code - en-UK
Using the incorrect language ISO - eng-GB
Using only the country ISO code - GB
Inverting the order of the ISO code pair - GB-en
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© @gfiorelli1

14. ©
Not using the self-referential hreflang annotation
URL: https://www.domain.com/
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://www.domain.com/’’ hreflang=’’en-GB’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://www.domain.com/it/’’ hreflang=’’it-IT’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://www.domain.com/de/’’ hreflang=’’de-DE’’ />
Creating conflicts between hreflang and rel=’’canonical’’
URL: https://www.domain.com/widget?colid=blue
Rel=’’canonical’’ >> https://www.domain.com/widget
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://www.domain.com/widget?colid=blue’’ hreflang=’’en-GB’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://www.domain.com/it/widget?colid=blue’’ hreflang=’’it-IT’’ />
<link rel=’’alternate’’ href=‘’https://www.domain.com/de/widget?colid=blue’’ hreflang=’’de-DE’’ />
©
@gfiorelli1
HREFLANG – what not to do

15. Hreflang url pointing to a 3XX
Hreflang url pointing to a 4XX-5XX
Hreflang url is blocked via robots.txt
Hreflang url is relative and not absolute (but…)
©
© @gfiorelli1
HREFLANG – what not to do

16. HREFLANG – Mobile 1st (m.domain.com)
©
Credit: Aleyda Solís @gfiorelli1

18. ©
© @gfiorelli1
Business
• What
market?
Technical
• What
structure
Marketing
• What
message

19. Business - What markets must we target?

20. Business - What languages do speak our users?
From what countries do they visit our site?

21. Business – Identify languages & countries that
are bringing you traffic even if you’re not
targeting them purposely

22. Identificate quei paesi e lingue per cui vi state
già posizionando, anche se non li state
targetizzando intenzionalmente
Business – What competitors are present in
the potential international markets?

23. Identificate quei paesi e lingue per cui vi state
già posizionando, anche se non li state
targetizzando intenzionalmente
Business – Do we have enough organic
traffic & conversions to justify the
investment?
Conversions to
break-even =
Cost of Internationalization
Average conversion value
Organic visits to
break-even
# of Conversion to break-even
Average conversion value
=
Credit: Aleyda Solís

24. Identificate quei paesi e lingue per cui vi state
già posizionando, anche se non li state
targetizzando intenzionalmente
Business – Now we can decide
Potential International
SEO Traffic
Visits & Conversions
To Break-Even
Yes No
Proceed with the
International SEO plan
Hold On and wait
&

26. Lessons from the trenches

27. “Our websites target all
the nations members of
the United Nations”
©
© @gfiorelli1

28. I swear it was true

29. “Moreover, we targeted
all the scripting variation
of the most important
languages”
©
© @gfiorelli1

30. Not incorrect… but was it needed?

31. ©
Problem 1
• Business depends on
where the warehouses are
located
© @gfiorelli1

32. ©
©
Problem 2
• 30+ domains (ccTLDs e
gTLDs)
• Global market
@gfiorelli1

33. ©
Problem 3
• Gigantic duplicate content
issues
• Hreflang complex like hell
© @gfiorelli1

34. Practically a
sudoko
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© @gfiorelli1

35. Solution?
Be creative

36. ©
©
Maintaining only the
’’warehouses’’ domains and
those that it’s logical
maintaining
#1
@gfiorelli1

37. ©
©
2
Choosing a mix of
Multilingual & Multi-
Country.
Prune off useless domains
@gfiorelli1

38. ©
©
4
Using the EU English
version both as generic ‘’en’’
version and x-default
@gfiorelli1

39. ©
©
5
Using the USA Spanish
version as the generic ‘’es’’
@gfiorelli1

40. ©
©
6
Creating an alert for those
users landing in a version,
which doesn’t correspond
to the to the warehouse
serving them (IP
detection, but no IP
Fencing)
@gfiorelli1

41. 7
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.eu/de/" hreflang=”de">
©
©
Simplifying as much as
possible the architecture of
the websites, so to avoid the
risk of duplicate content
@gfiorelli1

42. ©
©
8
Eliminating useless
hreflang annotations
@gfiorelli1

43. ©
9
Composing the new
hreflang rules and change
from code to Sitemaps.xml
implementation
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.eu/" hreflang=”x-default">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.eu/" hreflang=”en">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.com/" hreflang=”en-US">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.com/es-us/" hreflang=”es">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.ca" hreflang=”en-CA">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.ca/fr-ca/" hreflang=”fr-CA">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.eu/" hreflang=”en-IE">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.com/es-es/" hreflang=”es-ES">
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.myprojectorlamps.com/it-it/" hreflang=”it-IT">
…
© @gfiorelli1

44. Lessons from the trenches
@gfiorelli1

45. @gfiorelli1

46. ©
©
Starting situation
Hola, I am a multi-
country website
Hola, I am a
multilingual website
@gfiorelli1

47. ©
©
Starting situation
Hola… I am both
@gfiorelli1

48. ©
©
Starting situation
A website, which apparently is
multilingual, but that changes its
own content dinamically over the
base of the users’ IP
AKA: same URLs but different
content
@gfiorelli1

49. ©
©
Starting situation
• 7 targeted languages
• Global market (dynamic content
management for groups of IPs)
• Multilingual hreflang
@gfiorelli1

51. Identificate quei paesi e lingue per cui vi state
già posizionando, anche se non li state
targetizzando intenzionalmente
RESULT

52. Identificate quei paesi e lingue per cui vi state
già posizionando, anche se non li state
targetizzando intenzionalmente
• Google indexes only the language versions
visible from the USA IP

53. Identificate quei paesi e lingue per cui vi state
già posizionando, anche se non li state
targetizzando intenzionalmente
• Google indexes only the language
versions visible from the USA IP
• Non USA visitors are highly frustrated

56. ©
©
Better don’t cheat
ourselves
@gfiorelli1

60. BUSINESS FIRST
©
© @gfiorelli1

64. Let's check if we are missing
opportunities.
HOW?
Google Analytics FTW!
©
© @gfiorelli1

72. www.palladiumhotelgroup.com (302)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en/ (hreflang “x-default” y “en”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/es/ (hreflang “es”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/pt/ (hreflang “pt”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/de/ (hreflang “de”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/fr/ (hreflang “fr”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/it/ (hreflang “it”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/ru/ (hreflang “ru”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-US/ (hreflang “x-default” y “en-US)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/es-US/ (hreflang “es”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-GB/ (hreflang “en-GB”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/es-ES/ (hreflang “es-ES”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-ES/ (hreflang “en-ES”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/pt-BR/ (hreflang “pt-BR”
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-BR/ (hreflang “en-BR”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/de-DE/ (hreflang “de-DE”
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-DE/ (hreflang “en-DE”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/fr-FR/ (hreflang “fr-FR”
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-FR/ (hreflang “en-FR”
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/it-IT/ (hreflang “it-IT”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-IT/ (hreflang “en-IT)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/es-MX/ (hreflang “es-MX”)
www.palladiumhotelgroup.com/en-MX/ (hreflang “en-MX”)
©
© @gfiorelli1

75. Why do we
have to ask all
these
questions?
@gfiorelli1

76. To identify priorities
@gfiorelli1

77. To identify priorities
To identify waste
@gfiorelli1

78. To identify priorities
To identify waste
To identify
opportunities
@gfiorelli1

79. To identify priorities
To identify waste
To identify
opportunities
To understand the
origin of the
problems
@gfiorelli1