1 site, 2 languages - optimizing + domain questions

biginjapan · 10-14-2003, 02:33 PM

Hi all,

I only discovered this site 5 days ago - what a jewel! However I've found that the more I read about SEO the more questions pop up in my head...

My situation is that I have a site consisting of 14 pages, divided into two languages (A and B), each consisting of 7 pages. Since only one of the languages can get the index page, language A is obviously ahead when it comes to PR. The index page - let's call it page 1 - is PR4 while the sub pages for this language - pages 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are PR2-3. This language does all right in the SERPs. The other language does poorer, the PR of the pages being 2 at the highest and some even a 1. Pages 1-7 all link to one another and pages 8-14 also link to one another (page 8=language B's front page). In addition to these links page 1 links to page 8, page 2 links to page 9 etc (being the same page only in a different language).

My first question is this: Since language B does so poorly I have been thinking about splitting up the site in two, so there are two index pages. Is this a good idea in terms of PR? I would imagine Language B will do better but will this be at the expense of Language A?

My second question concerns domain strategy. I've had the domain xxxyyy.com (two keywords put together) for years and only recently bought xxx-yyy.com to redirect to xxxyyy.com. But can I use it more wisely? Will xxxyyy.com benefit from anchor text "xxx-yyy.com" from another website in terms of PR even though it only redirects?

Hope I made myself reasonably clear... if not, please ask!

PhilC · 10-14-2003, 02:45 PM

Before you split the site into two, set up the linkages in the PageRank Calculator (see my sig) and find out how the PageRank is distrubuted around the pages.

If it looks like the second language's pages should have similar PagRanks to the first language's pages, thehn the difference is probably because the index page is getting the IBLs, in which case splitting the site won't help, because the second language site still isn't going to get many IBLs. Also, if that's the case, you need to gwet some IBLs to the second language's 'main' page.

xxx-yyy.com may do better as link text but why not get links that use the actual keywords in the link text? Not many links use URLs as the clickable part.

biginjapan · 10-14-2003, 03:22 PM

Thanks Phil, glad you answered. I read many of your articles - a great ressource, so clearly written and to the point. I still have some to go which I bookmarked.

As I don't have complete control of all links going to the site I could only use the calculator for links inside the site - and I see I made one mistake. Instead of linking from 1 to 7, 2 to 8, 3 to 9 it will make more sense to link all to 1-7 to 8 and 8-14 to 1, so 1 and 8 gets even more prioritized than now.

For page no. 8, home page for Language B, I have bought 2 different domains that redirect to it. Does this somehow zap PR off of page 8? It is ridiculously low. Some of the ingoing links are directed by domain 1 and other links are for another domain 2 (different extensions), both being redirected to page 8. No ingoing links go directly to the URL of page 8. Is this bad for the PR of page 8? What I guess I am asking is: Does page 8 dividedes its "energy" among the real URL (with only internal links) and domain 1 (which have most ingoing links) and 2 (which has only some ingoing links)?

Hope you follow my drift.

biginjapan · 10-14-2003, 03:28 PM

Another question about javascript: I use normal button links for internal linking between pages 1 to 7 and 8 to 14. The cross overlinks - for example 3 to 9, 4 to 10 (which will soon be 3 and 4 to 8 (index of Language B) because of the calculations) - use drop down windows and javascript:

<FORM NAME="DropDown"><SELECT NAME="DDlinks" onChange="LinkUp(this.form)"><OPTION SELECTED> xxx </option><OPTION VALUE="http://www.xxxyyy.com/yyy.htm"> yyy </option></SELECT></FORM>

Does Google understand that this is a link?

PhilC · 10-14-2003, 03:37 PM

Google won't see those Option links as links, so leave them out when you use the calculator. If they are needed for the overall linking strategy within the site, place normal links on the page(s) as well.

I'll have a look at your other post in a short while - it takes some following. Is it any wonder that there's only me responding to those questions

PhilC · 10-14-2003, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biginjapan

Thanks Phil, glad you answered. I read many of your articles - a great ressource, so clearly written and to the point. I still have some to go which I bookmarked.

Thankyou for the compliment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by biginjapan

As I don't have complete control of all links going to the site I could only use the calculator for links inside the site - and I see I made one mistake. Instead of linking from 1 to 7, 2 to 8, 3 to 9 it will make more sense to link all to 1-7 to 8 and 8-14 to 1, so 1 and 8 gets even more prioritized than now.

For page no. 8, home page for Language B, I have bought 2 different domains that redirect to it. Does this somehow zap PR off of page 8? It is ridiculously low. Some of the ingoing links are directed by domain 1 and other links are for another domain 2 (different extensions), both being redirected to page 8. No ingoing links go directly to the URL of page 8. Is this bad for the PR of page 8? What I guess I am asking is: Does page 8 dividedes its "energy" among the real URL (with only internal links) and domain 1 (which have most ingoing links) and 2 (which has only some ingoing links)?

Hope you follow my drift.

I hope so too - but I'm not all that confident

The reason that I suggested setting the internal links up in the calculator is to see how the PageRank is 'naturally' distributed between the pages without the effect of IBLs or OBLs.

Pages that receive links from other sites benefit more from them than the other pages in the site, even though the inbound PageRank is distributed within the site. So you do need links from other sites to page 8 - even if it becomes the index page of a new domain.

Links from other sites (or from anywhere) don't "zap PR off the page" - they improve the receiving page's PR.

I'm not sure that I've answered your question but, when you've removed those Option links in the calculator (because Google doesn't see them), you might get a clearer picture of why page 8 is lower than expected.

biginjapan · 10-14-2003, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilC

Links from other sites (or from anywhere) don't "zap PR off the page" - they improve the receiving page's PR.

I'm not sure that I've answered your question but, when you've removed those Option links in the calculator (because Google doesn't see them), you might get a clearer picture of why page 8 is lower than expected.

OK, I need to skip the Option links. Damn, though - it looked better

As for "zap PR off the page" I was not entirely clear. Domain 1 and domain 2 are both redirected to page 8. However, I'm pretty certain I have links outside links (OBLs?) to both domain 1, domain 2 and page 8 itself. What I am hoping is that the PR for those OBLs all goes to page 8 instead of being divided on page 8 itself and domain 1 and 2. I do see both domain 1 and domain 2 independantly in the SERPs at different positions even though they point to the same URL: page 8. And that leads me into thinking that maybe the PR could be more "focused".

John Scott · 10-14-2003, 05:38 PM

I recently did one site in two languages. We ended up creating getting another domain, so that English version is on zzz-yyy.com, and Japanese version is on zzzyyy.com.

It works out well, and if you already have the domain, not why just do it that way?

biginjapan · 10-15-2003, 01:56 AM

Are these sites doing equally well in terms of PR, Scott?

It is an option I've been considering myself recently. I was just worried whether the sites would get penalized by Google for heavy crosslinking when they are two separate sites - I've been reading that this is known to happen. Or perhaps Google only does this when there are lots of links?

I've also thought about using xxx-yyy.com as the index domain rather than xxxyyy.com (and buy yyy-xxx.com for the other language) and then have my previous index domain xxxyyy.com redirect to xxx-yyy.com instead of the other way around. Am I right in thinking that this will boost my two keywords xxx and yyy? Or do I get those today already through my redirect xxx-yyy.com? Right now xxxyyy doesn't make sense as a word=no keyword.

If I decide to go ahead with this will I need to change all links going to my site (well, try to) presently in order to keep the PR (or rather transfer all the PR to xxx-yyy.com)?

John Scott · 10-15-2003, 01:59 AM

What are the search terms you are competing for?

biginjapan · 10-15-2003, 04:58 AM

Both search terms are language names. I'd rather not post the specific terms on the internet before I have bought them (in case someone with no need for them decides it could be fun to blackmail me

)

John Scott · 10-15-2003, 06:35 AM

I just asked because I think you may be a bit too much concerned with PageRank when you can accomplish more if you focus on anchor text. Get links with the right anchor text, and less PageRank will go a long way.

biginjapan · 10-15-2003, 06:44 AM

Another idea: If I get an outside site to link to the anchor text xxx-yyy.com instead of the usual xxxyyy.com will the index page (which is placed under xxxyyy.com) get all the PR even though the link needs to be redirected by the server?

Perhaps a better question is: what gets PR? the specific url (even though three domains point to it from the server) or the domain names themselves? The obvious answer in my mind would seem to be that the url gets it all, but my experience from SERP's is that I can have xxxyyy.com at no. 12 in the SE and xxx-yyy.com at no. 48 for the same keywords which would seem to invalidate the assumption that the url gets all the PR, that the PR is not distributed between the domains.

And yes, I am confused on this topic... Try not to get confused from reading my text

John Scott · 10-15-2003, 06:51 AM

You really ought to read all those articles.

PhilC · 10-15-2003, 07:33 AM

What you need to bear in mind is that Google doesn't deal with websites - it deals with pages. So a link to page bestows some PR to the page, regardless of whether or not the page's URL is the domain or the domain/page. A website doesn't have a PageRank value - only pages have a PageRank value.

You can set up the multi-domain scenario in the calculator. If you scroll down the calculator page to the Tips at the bottom, you'll see how to do it.

biginjapan · 10-15-2003, 08:52 AM

If I understand correctly that would mean there is no need to set up two independent sites that link to one another, just have more pages link to the index page of Language A and B ( page 1 and 8 ) within the site. For external links it would make sense for me to buy xxx-yyy.com and try to get people to link with this anchor text to my site as it will give me two big key words even though the link goes to a subdomain that only links directly to the index page. I think I got it now... Thanks a lot, Phil! Seems logical as well.

John, it was that exact page that kickstarted my questions - very informative, I guess the only bit of information that didn't get through to me was that only the pages themselves get PR, and not domains. Pretty sure I found the site on Google, btw. Comes up second when searching for "PakeRank", so obviously Phil knows his business!

PhilC · 10-15-2003, 09:01 AM

That's correct, biginjapan. For PageRank, there is no difference between having 2 sites and having 2 sections of the same site. It's links between pages that matter, whether the pages are on the same site or not.

John Scott · 10-15-2003, 09:13 AM

BTW, I suggested two sites for usability, not SEO. I just found that it's easier to have one site 100% in one language, and another 100% in the other language.

biginjapan · 10-15-2003, 09:14 AM

Got it.

One final question (I think): On my index page I have created two links - one to each the contact pages of the two languages. I put keywords in the anchor text for both of these links thinking the index page would benefit from it. In terms of search terms I would think that anchor text is better than copy text even though the link is going away from this page. But I am also leaking PR from it in the process, am I not?

PhilC · 10-15-2003, 09:20 AM

Yes, you are leaking PR from the index page, but it's staying within the site and it will be recycled by the links within the site.

Anchor text is beneficial for the page that it links to, but isn't anything special (other than just text) for the page that it is on.