If you are trying to reach a broad audience, using Google Search Console’s international positioning feature (also known as “geo-targeting”) may hurt search rankings.
This topic was discussed in the Google Search Center SEO office hours hangout recorded on December 31.
An SEO named Aleem Bawany joined the livestream and asked Google search advocate John Mueller why a smaller sister site ranked higher than his main site.
Bhawani said that the main site publishes news content for general audiences, sometimes republished on sister sites.
Although the main site is the source of news, it is the smaller sites that get more favorable rankings.
advertise
Keep reading below
After reviewing the website, Mueller said this may be due to the international targeting settings in Search Console.
See Mueller’s full response in the section below.
How geolocation can negatively affect rankings
Mueller personally checked the site and ruled out any major issues that might make the site shrink in search results, such as manual penalties or spam links.
What he did notice was that the website’s international positioning setting in Search Console was set for Pakistan.
If the main goal is to rank in Pakistan, that’s great, but it may adversely affect the ranking of other countries.
advertise
Keep reading below
Mueller said:
“One thing I noticed is that you set up geolocation in Pakistan’s Search Console. I don’t know if this is by design or if this is what you want to do. If you want to make a general English news website , Then it might make sense to turn off geolocation. So this might be something that can help you.”
If you want to target a global audience through your website, Mueller says you “absolutely” should turn off international targeting in Search Console.
“In terms of search, if you want to target countries other than Pakistan, such as general English news sites, then I will definitely turn it off. Because it will have an impact there, because it really focuses on Pakistan, and then pays less attention to other countries. “
Bhawani then asked Mueller how long it would take for this change to be reflected in Google’s search results.
Mueller said this may take a week to several months.
Because related websites publish news content, changes in search results may be faster than other types of websites.
“My guess is that it will be between a week or two to a month or two. So this is the time frame I suspect to change geolocation settings or the like.
For news sites, I suspect it will be a bit faster than usual, because for news sites, we will focus on newer content, and for newer content, we will see the settings soon.
Therefore, for news sites, it may be more of the shorter side, but I don’t know that all systems related to geolocation settings have changed. “
advertise
Keep reading below
To listen to the full discussion, please watch the video below:
Featured image: Taken from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, January 2022.
