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I currently have a website running under a German domain .de (www.mysite.de)
I'm adding now Internationalization support for English and French languages.

The I18n will be handled by a different URL structure for SEO purpose
www.mysite.de/en will handle english related content
www.mysite.de/fr will handle french related content, and so on

My first question is if from a SEO prospective I should move the German related content under its own path as well (www.mysite.de/de)?
If this is the case, then should I do a 301 Permanent Redirect to the www.mysite.de/de when someone comes to www.mysite.de.

Online I can see different examples.
apple.com for example handles US traffic and apple.com/fr the french one for example.
spotify.com has a 302 Temporary Redirect in place that forwards you to a specific language site like spotify.com/us for US

I know that Google lets you specify somehow the language target associated to a specific URL in your site with something called 'Search Console geotargeting'. This is allowed just for gTLD domains so I can not do it with mine as it uses specific German country domain (.de).

I'm wondering if there is something I would need to configure on Google side using the webmaster tool or if hreflang metatag will be enough to signal that for example all pages under /fr are for French related searches

unor
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spike07
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1 Answers1

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Proper implementation of hreflang is enough in your case.

My first question is if from a SEO prospective I should move the German related content under its own path as well (www.mysite.de/de)?

Not necessarily. It's a matter of setting correct paths in hreflangs.

I'm wondering if there is something I would need to configure on Google side using the webmaster tool

Just make sure you don't configure your site for german audience only, leave it to international.

Jérôme Verstrynge
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  • that's cool. Thanks a lot. Just one question on the Webmaster tool. I see google fixes Germany as country and I can't change it from the console somehow. I'm not sure if you can change it to international only for gTLD domains and if having fixed to Germany will affect the hreflang functionality – spike07 Sep 14 '15 at 13:23
  • You should be able to change it in WMT. If not report it in their forum. I strongly believe that hreflang will trump all other configuration (or absence of configuration). – Jérôme Verstrynge Sep 14 '15 at 14:03