SEO Atlas
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International SEO

Structuring and optimising a site so the right language and country version is served to the right audience in each market's search results.

In full

The discipline has three decisions at its core: URL structure (ccTLD, subdirectory or subdomain), targeting signals (hreflang and geo-targeting), and content strategy (translation, transcreation or independent local content). Getting the structure wrong is expensive to reverse, so it should be settled before scale. Local competitiveness varies enormously by market, and search engine share differs — Baidu, Yandex, Naver and Seznam matter in their territories.

Example

A retailer chooses `/de-ch/` and `/fr-ch/` subdirectories for Switzerland rather than separate domains, to share domain authority.

Related terms

hreflang

An annotation declaring alternate language or regional versions of a page, so search engines serve the appropriate one to each user.

ccTLD

A top-level domain assigned to a country or territory, such as .de or .fr, which carries an inherent and unchangeable geo-targeting signal.

Subdirectory vs subdomain vs ccTLD

The three URL structures for international sites — example.com/de/, de.example.com and example.de — each with different authority…

Geo-targeting

Signalling which country a site or section is intended for, through ccTLD choice, hreflang region codes, server location, local links and…

Transcreation

Recreating content for another market so it works culturally and commercially, rather than translating it word for word.

Where to read more