International SEO is difficult at the best of times. Maintaining and, hopefully, growing organic search traffic through phased re-architecture and migration of multinational and multilingual organizations is even more complex. Together we’ll look at specific challenges and opportunities from recent complex project examples.
23. They need to know
about language TLDs.
Lang URL Segmentation Methods
24. Language Location TLD Hreflang Description
Breton Brittany, France .bzh Yes For websites in the Breton language or about the
culture.
Catalan Catalonia, Spain .cat Yes For websites in the Catalan language or about the
culture.
Basque Basque, Spain & France .eus Yes For websites in the Basque language only.
Galician Galicia, Spain .gal Yes For websites in the Galician language or about the
culture.
Lang URL Segmentation Methods
33. Key Factors
Scenario: Phased Multinational Migration
30+ lang/geos to be deployed, one at a time, over 2 years.
Completely new IA, pages and URL structure.
Hreflang implementation deemed out-of-scope due to
mapping complexity.
Hreflang Issue
EXAMPLE
34. The challenge is NOT how hreflang is published.
The challenge is managing hreflang mappings.
Hreflang Issue
EXAMPLE
35. Our Solution:
Google Sheets to manage evolving mappings.
Google Apps Script to generate 30+ XML Sitemaps
with hreflang annotations.
Hreflang Issue
EXAMPLE
36. Step 1:
Build Mappings in Google
Sheets
Step 2:
Execute Apps Script
Hreflang Issue
EXAMPLE
39. Site-wide rules and settings.
Where handled (CDN, Client, Code/UI, Server).
Special handling for users/user-agents.
Redirects
New back-end tech? Find out:
40. Tell them how many times
your redirects have been
de-scoped at launch.
Redirects
45. Scope Change
Last minute domain rebrand added to migration scope.
Migration
Enthusiastic SE Re-evaluation
Harsh Reality
Scope Change
EXAMPLE Scope Change
Last minute domain rebrand added to migration scope.
EXAMPLE
46. Get a seat at the boardroom table, and repeat..
What’s an SEO to do?
Organic search traffic is not a guarantee.
Talking about SEO is not the same as implementing SEO.
Organic search traffic is valid as a top priority in migration.
54. PR – media kit, campaigns moved on-site
Customer Support – Robust FAQ
Product – Better visibility for key products
Content – More input control in CMS
IT – Secure protocol (https)
Legal – Accessibility standards
Wish Lists
Multinational Migration
SEO
GOLD MINE