Hi Guys,
just back from SES Milan where I spoke and moderated a few panels as well. I'll put together some info for MLS as soon as I plow thru all my Emails and feeds.

But I came back from SES with a question I wrote down during a panel on localization in different languages, in particular Russian and Chinese.

In these countries Google has a small share of the search market so we need to target the big local players like Baidu and Yandex.

Speaking about YANDEX it is my understanding you cannot get in of you do not have russian content. In some occasions I have seen websites with an introductory page in russian with links to the engilsh section of the website: In cases like this will that only page get index in YANDEX (or BAIDU ) ?

Will websites with a single page in the local language get indexed ?

__________________

Sante J. Achille
Search Engines & Web Marketing Consultant
skype: rifardo

Hey Sante,

Although Yandex is meant for Russian language pages only, a few searches show you than English stuff does creep in. That's the official line though.

I would say that in terms of structure, getting a Russian page or section indexed from a predominately English (or non-Russian) site is very hard. We've struggled here for months with multilingual sites set up in that way - eventually getting them put in as a hand job. Even after this they don't seem to gain the effects of work as fully. A dedicated Russian language page/site is the way to go here, on a .ru/su but .com etc. works fine too. They get included almost immediately.

Basically Yandex really doesn't like multilingual sites IMHO.

So you would suggest that anybody interested in having a presence in YANDEX would have to set up a mini site with a few pages in russian and on a .ru extension - is that correct ??

__________________

Sante J. Achille
Search Engines & Web Marketing Consultant
skype: rifardo

Yes that is the way to go Sante - that would get included within the week.

I've not had an opportunity to try a dedicated Russian site on a gTLD (com/net/org/info) but I believe this would be fine too. The key criteria for Yandex is that they see the site as Russian. That selection seems to be done on language (rather than location).

They aren't keen on having their index inundated with non-Russian material. Although they are meant to be able to index Russian language pages from a multilingual site, in practice this has a lot of problems (i.e. keeps dropping in/out of the index, or finds it hard to get indexed at all). A dedicated Russian site is safe bet and will give you far less stress.

I have been looking at the multilingual services from "Global Vibration" at www mseo com.

The service is an intro page in multiple languages.

Is this an ok way to get into the international search engines?

Has anyone heard of them and their work?

Thanks

I don't know them or have ever heard of them. Nonetheless I took a look at their website and went to the Italian section.

The list of Engines they provide is less than impressive - they are listing it.altavista as a search engine.

Another thing I really didn't like (that looked a bit old schoolish to me) is they are talking about Search Engine Submissions ... that's really old school as far as I'm concerned.

__________________

Sante J. Achille
Search Engines & Web Marketing Consultant
skype: rifardo

I'm sure a mini-site in the country domain would work best, but this is not my objective. I just want to be discovered by someone who searches in their native language. Although, this someone would only be a potential if they can read and speak english, so I only want and need one landing page per language (due to the nature of the business).

Which structure would probaly work best SEO wise?

1) www-mydomain-com/italian/index.html
2) www-mydomain-com/italian.html
3) italian-mydomain-com
4) www-mydomain-it

Keep in mind that a new domain or sub-domain would only have 1 page that links to the main site of 1000 pages.

The main site ranks extremely well and has a lot of weight (10 years old), so I'm wondering if option 1 or 2 may work best. Do you think that an italian search engine would factor in the whole site's weight even though it only finds 1 italian page? I don't care if it doesn't index the english pages, but I do care that the italian page ranks well.

Any opinions or thoughts appreciated.

If you want to be found in the "pages from Italy" serps, your best approach is option 4. - a local ccTLD. I'd still push for a mini-site, even if it is a very small mini-site. A couple of pages just allows you this extra flexibility when it comes to choosing which keywords to target, which content to display, etc.

If you are completely not bothered about the "pages from country" serps (and only want to be found in "web" and "pages in language" serps), then serving the content under a subdirectory of your main domain isn't a bad choice either. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. Obviously using your main .com domain you sacrifice somewhat on the localisation but the .com has the benefit of being an established, old domain which already ranks well.
You just have to make it crystal clear to the search engines what language you are serving the content in - so good use of language tags and ensuring the page is fully served in the local language.

I understand that a ccTLD (or local IP) would be necessary to be found in the local searches. This not important to me because a qualified lead would normally not perform a local search (pages from country), but a web search (pages in language).

I also understand that a mini-site would probably work best.

Although currently, I am limited to only 1 page, and under this circumstance, my objective is what would work best to rank higher in SERPS.

So to benefit from the established domain, the question would be: Is Option 1 better than Option 2?

Would Option 3 (sub-domain) get any benefit from the established domain?

You also mentioned about making it clear to the spiders what language I'm serving. I know about this tag: <meta name="language" content="English" />

Is there anything else I should do?

Thanks

I would go for Option 1 to reap the most benefit out of the established domain.

Ensure the whole page is in the local language, avoid mixing languages within the content. (Sounds logical but it would surprise you how many people don't!)

A Meta language tag is fine, as per below:
Example for Dutch (Netherlands)
<meta http-equiv="content-language" content="nl">

For a full list of both the 2 letter (ISO 639-1) and 3 letter (ISO 639-2) codes, visit http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php