Knowledge base v2.13.0 · Community edition · data through 2 October 2026
Topic · International and multilingual sites
Google's internationalisation talk called the ccTLD one of the strongest country-targeting signals, yet said a separate ccTLD per country is not necessarily better: ccTLDs, subdomains and subdirectories are all acceptable depending on availability, cost, local rules and commitment, URL parameters are not recommended, and sites should not move domains for the signal. The speaker added that server location is no longer reliable and little used (the word 'server' is unclear in the recording), whereas Google's documentation still lists it as a possible but not definitive signal, alongside hreflang, local addresses and phone numbers, currency, local links and Business Profile signals, without ranking them. Language subdomains such as en or de do not set a target audience, hreflang targets countries only (EU and city codes are invalid), and Google's duplication talk advised against 'clever' geo-redirecting, which Google's documentation explains: Googlebot mostly crawls from US IP addresses. Google said country has been one of its most important signals since its early days, helps serve users the right content, and is weighed in index selection so that smaller countries sharing a language, such as the UK or Switzerland, are not crowded out by the US or Germany (the index-selection part was said at the event, not in Google's docs). A community speaker warned that neither hreflang nor a country version makes a brand trusted in a market: local authority has to be earned, and a brand that no local source mentions should fix its existing markets before expanding. Day 3 placed country at retrieval: it is the second signal Google uses to order candidates, after language, so a user in Switzerland gets Swiss rather than German results, and Google's multi-regional guide says geotargeting a site to one country can improve its rankings there at the expense of other locales. Google added that working out a site's localized pages and which countries it targets is one of the difficult, complex tasks for it in indexing.
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Alternate names also serve localization: if Google knows that country versions such as you.de and you.at are equivalent, it can pick the right version to show using hreflang.
Speaker John MuellerIn Day 2, 11:55 · Handling web duplicationEvidence slide photo
Same-language content for different countries is tricky for Google's deduplication, notably German pages for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and possibly Spanish-language variants.
Speaker John MuellerIn Day 2, 11:55 · Handling web duplicationEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-08
Google's speaker advised against 'clever' geo-redirecting, because it very often goes wrong.
“clever" geo-redirecting (is often not so clever)”
Wording checked against the slide or recording
Speaker John MuellerIn Day 2, 11:55 · Handling web duplicationEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-02
hreflang region codes must be ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 country codes; frequent mistakes are UK instead of GB for the United Kingdom, SW instead of CH for Switzerland and GE instead of DE for Germany.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-04
EU is not a valid hreflang region code: sites use it hoping to target the European Union, but hreflang targeting works only by country.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-04
Google also flagged LA used as a region code for Los Angeles (a city, not a country) and SA used for South Africa as wrong hreflang region codes.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-04
The ccTLD (country-code top-level domain) is one of the most important and strongest signals Google uses to decide which country a site targets; Google also considers other signals, which matter less.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-09glossary term ccTLD
Server location is not really a reliable country-targeting signal nowadays, so Google does not use it much; the recording is unclear on the word 'server'.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
For country versions of a site, a ccTLD, subdomains or subdirectories are all acceptable choices; the right one depends on the site's needs, goals and resources.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-09
Of the URL structures for country versions in a table on Google's slide (not photographed), the speaker called only one a wrong choice: the last option, which the speaker did not name but said they really do not recommend.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
A separate ccTLD for each country version is not necessarily better, even though the ccTLD is one of the strongest country signals, and sites should not move their domain for that reason.
“Don't try to move your domain now.”
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-09
Whether to use ccTLDs depends on whether the domain can be obtained, what it costs, local laws or regulations, and how committed the business is to expanding in that country.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-09
Google said that working out a site's localized pages and which countries it targets is one of the difficult, complex tasks for it in indexing.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and LocalisationEvidence transcript
A community speaker framed international SEO around three signals to settle before working on hreflang: language (what people can read), region (who the content is for) and authority (why local people should trust the site).
Speaker Alizée BaudezIn Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: InternationalisationEvidence transcript
Settling the region means deciding who the content is actually for, which shapes how the catalogue is organised, how prices look and which payment options each market gets.
Speaker Alizée BaudezIn Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: InternationalisationEvidence transcript
Of language, region and authority, a community speaker called language easy to settle and region solvable with a little research, while authority (why local people should trust a brand) has to be earned and built over time.
Speaker Alizée BaudezIn Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: InternationalisationEvidence transcript
A community speaker stressed that an hreflang annotation for a country (her example was German for Austria, de-AT) does not by itself make a site established or trusted in that country; local authority has to be worked for.
Speaker Alizée BaudezIn Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: InternationalisationEvidence transcript
The third question is whether you can name three local sources that already treat the brand as present in a country; if you cannot, a community speaker advised not to expand there but to fix the markets you already serve.
“don't bother expanding to another country; just fix the ones you already have”
Speaker Alizée BaudezIn Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: InternationalisationEvidence transcript
Country and language are among Google's most important signals and have been used since Google's early days.
“Both of them are extremely, extremely important”
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 15:30 · Calculating (some) signalsEvidence transcript
Google also takes country into account in index selection, so that countries producing less content in a shared language, such as the UK for English or Switzerland for German, are not disadvantaged against the US or Germany, which produce most of it.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 15:30 · Calculating (some) signalsEvidence transcript
In ranking, country and language signals help Google serve users the right content for their country and language.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 15:30 · Calculating (some) signalsEvidence transcript
When Google's coverage of a country is limited, index selection becomes more likely to select documents relevant to that country, even if other signals would suggest otherwise.
Speaker GoogleIn Day 2, 15:40 · Deciding what goes in the index?Evidence transcript
Google's documentation says Googlebot mostly crawls from US IP addresses and sends no Accept-Language header, so pages that change content or redirect by the visitor's perceived country or language may not have every version crawled, indexed or ranked; it recommends separate URLs annotated with hreflang.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and Localisation
Used byrequirements DEV-INT-01, DEV-INT-02
Google's hreflang guide says language-specific subdomains such as en, en-gb or de in a URL are not used to determine a page's target audience; site owners must map the audience explicitly, for example with hreflang.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and Localisation
Google's documentation calls a ccTLD a strong signal that a site is meant for a certain country and still lists server location as a possible signal of a site's audience, though not a definitive one because sites use CDNs or are hosted abroad; it does not rank the signals.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and Localisation
Used byglossary term ccTLD
Google's table of URL structures for country targeting gives pros and cons for a country-specific domain (example.de), a subdomain (de.example.com) and a subdirectory (example.com/de/) on a generic domain, and marks URL parameters (site.com?loc=de) as not recommended.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and Localisation
Used byrequirements DEV-INT-01, DEV-INT-09
Google's documentation lists the signals it uses to decide which locale a page targets: ccTLDs, hreflang statements, server location, and other signals such as local addresses and phone numbers, local language and currency, links from other local sites and Business Profile signals.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: Internationalisation
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-08
At the point where one recording names the ccTLD as the most important country-targeting signal, a second attendee recording heard 'IP address' instead; Google's multi-regional sites documentation names the ccTLD as a strong signal of a site's target country and server location only as a possible, not definitive one, so the ccTLD is the better-supported reading.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and Localisation
For a business testing new countries, subdirectories on the existing domain are usually the cheapest start; a ccTLD's stronger country signal pays off only where domain availability, cost, local rules and long-term commitment justify it, and an established domain should not be moved just for the signal.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 2, 14:15 · Focusing on Internationalisation and Localisation
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-09
Treat hreflang as a way to show the right language version, not as a market-entry signal: before launching a country version, make sure local publications, partners or directories already mention the brand, and localise pricing and payment options.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 2, 14:30 · Lightning session G: Internationalisation
A site serving a smaller country in a big language, such as British English or Swiss German, should make that country unmistakable (country-code domain or region-specific hreflang, local address, prices and currency) so its pages can benefit from index selection's country balancing instead of competing with the much larger US or German content pool.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 2, 15:30 · Calculating (some) signals
Country is the second retrieval signal: a user searching from Switzerland wants cheese from Switzerland, not from Germany, and a user in Spain is poorly served by results targeting a South American country.
Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 3, 10:25 · Making sense of users' queriesEvidence transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-07
Google's guide to multi-regional and multilingual sites says Google Search tries to find pages that match the language of the searcher, and that geotargeting a site to one country can improve its rankings there at the expense of other locales.
Publisher Google Search CentralAnnotates Day 3, 10:25 · Making sense of users' queries
Make each page's language and target country unambiguous (one main language per page, hreflang between versions, local prices, addresses and shipping details), because Google applies language and country already at retrieval, before ranking.
Author Ibrahim AnjroAnnotates Day 3, 10:25 · Making sense of users' queries
Used byrequirement DEV-INT-07
Of the URL structures for country versions in a table on Google's slide (not photographed), the speaker called only one a wrong choice: the last option, which the speaker did not name but said they really do not recommend.
For country versions of a site, a ccTLD, subdomains or subdirectories are all acceptable choices; the right one depends on the site's needs, goals and resources.
At the point where one recording names the ccTLD as the most important country-targeting signal, a second attendee recording heard 'IP address' instead; Google's multi-regional sites documentation names the ccTLD as a strong signal of a site's target country and server location only as a possible, not definitive one, so the ccTLD is the better-supported reading.
The ccTLD (country-code top-level domain) is one of the most important and strongest signals Google uses to decide which country a site targets; Google also considers other signals, which matter less.
Google's first step in understanding almost any query is to detect its language, which tells Google roughly what content the user wants: a query in German suggests German content, a query in English English content.
In ranking, country and language signals help Google serve users the right content for their country and language.
To order candidates at retrieval, Google uses signals collected during indexing, and the first two are language and country.
Country and language are among Google's most important signals and have been used since Google's early days.
At retrieval, Google tries to match results to the user's language wherever possible: someone searching in Spanish does not necessarily want results in Italian.
In ranking, country and language signals help Google serve users the right content for their country and language.
Country is the second retrieval signal: a user searching from Switzerland wants cheese from Switzerland, not from Germany, and a user in Spain is poorly served by results targeting a South American country.
Country and language are among Google's most important signals and have been used since Google's early days.
Choose ccTLDs, subdomains or subdirectories by business needs, and never URL parameters
Rests on 6 claims, 6 of them in this topic
Rests on 10 claims, 3 of them in this topic
Give every language and country version its own URL
Rests on 4 claims, 2 of them in this topic
Do not redirect visitors automatically by IP address or browser language
Rests on 2 claims, 2 of them in this topic
Make each page's language unambiguous by translating the template with the main content
Rests on 12 claims, 2 of them in this topic
Differentiate same-language country versions beyond boilerplate and mark them with region codes
Rests on 6 claims, 2 of them in this topic