According to Google, geographic segmentation can harm your SEO strategy
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 6:30 am
Kamila Dantas
Jan 11, 22 | 5 min read
We tell you why geographic segmentation in Google Search Console can harm the SEO of a website
Reading time: 4 minutes
Enabling Google Search Console options for geographic targeting (or international targeting, or geotargeting if you use the tool in English) can have a negative impact on your SEO strategy .
According to Google itself, the tool can harm your website's position in the SERPs if the goal is to reach a large audience of viewers.
This explanation was given by John Mueller , a Google Search Ambassador worldwide, during a recent live session on Google's Google SEO office-hours , while answering a question from viewers.
But what does this mean? And what should you, as a marketing professional, do to prevent your strategies from becoming complicated?
Keep reading and I'll explain!
First, understand the case...
English Google SEO office-hours from December 31, 2021
During the broadcast, the SEO responsible for a major financial news portal in Pakistan (but with content aimed at the whole world) raised a topic relevant to the Internet internationalization strategy.
Even though the portal ranked high on Google, had high ranking potential, and published an exclusive first-hand story, as soon as other smaller sites (and with lower ranking potential) started south africa email list republishing that same content, they lost space among the top search locations:
"We have an exclusive story, we were the first to publish it and we rank very high. However, when other smaller sites republish the same story, they suddenly start ranking better than us and we immediately start to fall by the wayside. My job is to improve SEO and publishers are frustrated with this situation."
According to the SEO analyst, this happens even when the smaller sites in question correctly cite their portal as a source when replicating your content.
Why does that happen?
After examining the site and ruling out any issues that might have been blocking the portal from ranking higher in search engines, Mueller concluded that the cause could be in Google Search Console 's international geographic settings .
And what is Google Search Console geographic targeting for?
Before we talk about how geo-targeting could negatively affect your SEO, we need to remember what this feature is for.
Basically, the tool allows you to show the correct version of a website to local customers in a particular country or region.
For example, if you have an online store and only sell to customers in the United States, this region will be defined as the store's destination country.
That way, when someone interested in your product searches for stores in the US (or even uses Google's "near me" feature), search engines will show them results from sites with domains specific to the shopper's country or region.
How can geographic segmentation harm your marketing strategy?
After digging deeper into the target site during the stream, Mueller noticed that the site's GeoTargeting settings in Search Console had been set to Pakistan.
In other words, Pakistan was defined as the target country of the website in the tool. This directly affected its ranking in search engines in other countries, compromising its reach.
According to Mueller:
" When it comes to search, if you want to target countries other than Pakistan, such as an English news site, you should definitely turn off GeoTargeting, because that can backfire by focusing on Pakistan and considering other countries less . "
John Mueller, Google
In other words, if you're investing in reaching a global audience with your website, it's important to pay attention to your Search Console settings and disable international targeting.
This way, your website will be able to reach a wider audience, with more visits and better positioning in search engines, as is the case of the website that appeared in the broadcast.
When should you use international segmentation?
The answer to that question — like almost all questions in SEO — is: it depends .
To enable international targeting in Google Search Console, you'll need to evaluate your current strategy.
If you intend to invest in a more local reach of your website, such as online stores that only serve a specific region, turning on targeting will make a lot of sense for your strategy and will help you better segment and qualify your customers.
To make this happen most effectively, you'll need to tell Google exactly where to display your website by selecting the location in the "Country" section of your targeting.
But be careful: setting a specific country in Search Console's international targeting doesn't prevent it from showing in other countries , but it tells Google that your content is even more relevant to users in a particular region.
Therefore, using this targeting in the tool, if you have a country-specific focus, can increase the chances of SEO results for your target location and impact viewers in that region.
If your goal is to have a global reach, like global news sites, you should definitely turn off targeting in Search Console. This will make your site reach audiences anywhere in the world, facilitating greater reach and better ranking in the SERPs .
So, if your business operates in different countries or you are looking for customers in other markets, using international targeting can greatly help your global SEO goals.
There is no rule or recipe, you need to examine your SEO strategy and choose the option that makes the most sense for your business at that time.
So, which strategy works best for you? If you want to better understand the language of content internationalization and how to converse with Google, I invite you to read our article on why Google doesn't understand languages, but it understands people .
Jan 11, 22 | 5 min read
We tell you why geographic segmentation in Google Search Console can harm the SEO of a website
Reading time: 4 minutes
Enabling Google Search Console options for geographic targeting (or international targeting, or geotargeting if you use the tool in English) can have a negative impact on your SEO strategy .
According to Google itself, the tool can harm your website's position in the SERPs if the goal is to reach a large audience of viewers.
This explanation was given by John Mueller , a Google Search Ambassador worldwide, during a recent live session on Google's Google SEO office-hours , while answering a question from viewers.
But what does this mean? And what should you, as a marketing professional, do to prevent your strategies from becoming complicated?
Keep reading and I'll explain!
First, understand the case...
English Google SEO office-hours from December 31, 2021
During the broadcast, the SEO responsible for a major financial news portal in Pakistan (but with content aimed at the whole world) raised a topic relevant to the Internet internationalization strategy.
Even though the portal ranked high on Google, had high ranking potential, and published an exclusive first-hand story, as soon as other smaller sites (and with lower ranking potential) started south africa email list republishing that same content, they lost space among the top search locations:
"We have an exclusive story, we were the first to publish it and we rank very high. However, when other smaller sites republish the same story, they suddenly start ranking better than us and we immediately start to fall by the wayside. My job is to improve SEO and publishers are frustrated with this situation."
According to the SEO analyst, this happens even when the smaller sites in question correctly cite their portal as a source when replicating your content.
Why does that happen?
After examining the site and ruling out any issues that might have been blocking the portal from ranking higher in search engines, Mueller concluded that the cause could be in Google Search Console 's international geographic settings .
And what is Google Search Console geographic targeting for?
Before we talk about how geo-targeting could negatively affect your SEO, we need to remember what this feature is for.
Basically, the tool allows you to show the correct version of a website to local customers in a particular country or region.
For example, if you have an online store and only sell to customers in the United States, this region will be defined as the store's destination country.
That way, when someone interested in your product searches for stores in the US (or even uses Google's "near me" feature), search engines will show them results from sites with domains specific to the shopper's country or region.
How can geographic segmentation harm your marketing strategy?
After digging deeper into the target site during the stream, Mueller noticed that the site's GeoTargeting settings in Search Console had been set to Pakistan.
In other words, Pakistan was defined as the target country of the website in the tool. This directly affected its ranking in search engines in other countries, compromising its reach.
According to Mueller:
" When it comes to search, if you want to target countries other than Pakistan, such as an English news site, you should definitely turn off GeoTargeting, because that can backfire by focusing on Pakistan and considering other countries less . "
John Mueller, Google
In other words, if you're investing in reaching a global audience with your website, it's important to pay attention to your Search Console settings and disable international targeting.
This way, your website will be able to reach a wider audience, with more visits and better positioning in search engines, as is the case of the website that appeared in the broadcast.
When should you use international segmentation?
The answer to that question — like almost all questions in SEO — is: it depends .
To enable international targeting in Google Search Console, you'll need to evaluate your current strategy.
If you intend to invest in a more local reach of your website, such as online stores that only serve a specific region, turning on targeting will make a lot of sense for your strategy and will help you better segment and qualify your customers.
To make this happen most effectively, you'll need to tell Google exactly where to display your website by selecting the location in the "Country" section of your targeting.
But be careful: setting a specific country in Search Console's international targeting doesn't prevent it from showing in other countries , but it tells Google that your content is even more relevant to users in a particular region.
Therefore, using this targeting in the tool, if you have a country-specific focus, can increase the chances of SEO results for your target location and impact viewers in that region.
If your goal is to have a global reach, like global news sites, you should definitely turn off targeting in Search Console. This will make your site reach audiences anywhere in the world, facilitating greater reach and better ranking in the SERPs .
So, if your business operates in different countries or you are looking for customers in other markets, using international targeting can greatly help your global SEO goals.
There is no rule or recipe, you need to examine your SEO strategy and choose the option that makes the most sense for your business at that time.
So, which strategy works best for you? If you want to better understand the language of content internationalization and how to converse with Google, I invite you to read our article on why Google doesn't understand languages, but it understands people .