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BucketWhat to Check
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URLsIf you have the luxury of choosing: ccTLD, subfolder or subdomain? ccTLDs are the most endemic and arguably send a stronger country signal, but subfolders can also work if you have them already and are the goldilocks solution
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Does all content have its own unique URL to live on?
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Do country-dependent URLs start with country code before specifying language?
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Do your URLs use traditional ISO codes?
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Do your URLs use hyphens, not underscores?
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If targeting language only, did you add an extra folder to delineate these pages and enable easier data analysis in the future?
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HreflangIs your hreflang targetting a language or country+language only? Hreflangs can not target a country alone
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Do all pages in a set point to each other?
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Do all URLs linked to return a 200?
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Is hreflang on the page? (Ideal but not necessary)
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Do all URLs have a self-referential canonical? Do not canonicalize all pages in a set to a single language!!!
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When a page in a set is removed or added, will hreflang update to remove references to that hreflang?
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InfrastructureDoes your site use a CDN? There's many great options, including Cloudflare, Akamai
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Does your site have a strong mobile and Android experience? There's less desktop use in many parts of the world
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Does your site suggest, and doesn't force a redirect? Do NOT force users to a version of their site based on geolocation (googlebot usually comes from the US!)
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Content Is content in the same language well-differentiated? (Use the inspect URL feature inside of GSC for the canonical URLs of each page, see if Google is overriding your user-declared canonicals)
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Did you append the country to your title tags?
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Did you add a local NAP (name, address, phone number), in the footer if possible?
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Are the social handles that are linked to localized (if available?)
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Are images localized and relevant to the country and reflective of the typical user experience?
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GSC TargettingIf targeting country + languages, did you add each country's URL prefix as a GSC property and target it to that country?
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Helpful Resources ✨
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[Google] Tell Google About Localized Versions of Your Site
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[Onely] Ultimate Guide to International SEO
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[Aleyda Solis] Learning SEO Resource (has a section for internationalization under "Specialize")
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[Google] How to Set a Country Target in GSC + Hreflang Report
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