International SEO and Global Geographic

[seo_junkie]

Hi Guys,

I have a question. What would you say is the best way to approach SEO for multiple countries? Would it be different domains for each country or sub domains? And what is the Global geographic setting in WMT, does this mean that a website can rank equally in all countries? I know from experience that setting the geographic location to the country you are targeting gives you an advantage.

What are your thoughts on all of this? Personally i've always advocated separate sub domains, or even domains and then unique content specific to each country. But i'm curious about this Global geographic setting and whether anyone has actually used it?

Thx

[grgmathew]

Geotargeting using subdomains does not impact on ranking. Its basically signals search engines that you would like to show your country specific subdomain in place of your main site.

For example your ranking for a keyword in Google UK and you have a subdomain geotargeting UK, then Google will promote your local site i.e subdomain site instead of your main tld site. Unless and until your main site is ranking, you wont get any benefit out of subdomains.

So basically geotargetting using cctld is the best option. However in any case you would need to optimize your site accordingly to rank whether it be subdomain or cctld.