International SEO

International SEO means setting up a website so that search engines show the right version to people in each country and language you serve. It combines a clear URL structure, hreflang annotations that connect the language versions, content that is localised rather than just translated and links from websites that are read in each target market.

Countries and languages: what we see on our site and at our publishers

Our own website is a typical example of the subfolder approach: the English pages live under linkbroker.io/en and the German pages under /de. In our XML sitemap, 92 of 146 URLs are connected to their counterpart in the other language with hreflang, using de-DE, en and x-default as the fallback (as of 12 November 2026). This way Google can show the German version to German-speaking users in Germany and the English one to everyone else. The other 54 are guides and glossary entries that exist in one language only or whose counterpart we have yet to connect.

The publishers in our marketplace look very different. Our measurement of 11 November 2026 found that 91% of 1,898 publisher homepages are marked up as German, while only 11.4% use hreflang. Most of them serve a single market and need no country annotations at all. The domain ending says little on its own: 76% of the 2,087 active publisher domains end in .de, but that does not tell you whether a site is also read in Austria or Switzerland. That is why the Linkbroker marketplace lets you filter by the country of the audience and the language of the site rather than by domain ending, and why German-language sites from Austria and Switzerland serve a German-speaking audience just as well.

How to structure your website for international SEO

Google's documentation on multi-regional and multilingual sites describes four ways to separate countries or languages:

• Country domain (ccTLD) such as example.de: the clearest signal for one country, but more expensive and more work, because each domain has to build its own strength.
• Subdomain such as de.example.com: easy to set up, though less obvious to users.
• Subfolder such as example.com/de/: little maintenance, and all versions benefit from the same domain. This is the option we chose.
• URL parameters such as ?lang=de: not recommended by Google.

Whichever you choose, keep it consistent across the whole site. A clean URL structure with language codes in the path makes every later step easier.

How to set up hreflang

hreflang tells Google which language or regional version of a page to show to which user. It does not lift rankings on its own, it swaps the right version into the results. The value is a language code, optionally followed by a country code, such as en, en-GB, de-DE or de-AT, and x-default marks the version for everyone else. Three rules prevent most errors:

1. Every version lists itself and all the others. If page A points to page B, page B has to point back to A, otherwise Google may ignore the annotations.
2. Use one method per page set. You can add hreflang as link elements in the page head, as HTTP headers or in the XML sitemap. The sitemap is often the easiest to maintain on large sites.
3. Point only to the canonical URL that returns status 200. Annotations that point to redirects, blocked pages or pages with a different canonical may be ignored.

Localise, do not just translate

• Adapt the details: currency, prices, shipping, addresses, phone numbers with country codes, legal information and the words people in that market really use.
• Research keywords per market: British and American English already differ, and German searchers in Austria and Switzerland use their own terms. Keyword research has to be done for each market, not translated.
• Handle same-language versions carefully: if your pages for the US and the UK are nearly identical, connect them with hreflang and define a preferred version, as described under duplicate content.
• Do not redirect automatically: Google advises against switching content based on IP address or forcing visitors into a guessed language. Offer a visible language and country switcher instead, also because Googlebot mostly crawls from the United States.

Two signals Google ignores: geo meta tags such as geo.position, and code-level language information such as the lang attribute. Google detects the language from the visible content.

Links and mentions in each target market

Structure and translation make a new market version eligible, but it still has to earn trust there. A site that is strong in the US starts almost from zero in Germany if no German-language website links to or mentions it. That is why link building for international SEO happens market by market: links from sites that people in the target country actually read, on topics that fit, pointing at the matching language version. Expect different prices too: German backlinks generally cost more than English ones at the same Domain Rating, so plan your budget per market.

Conclusion

International SEO works when three layers fit together: a consistent structure, clean hreflang annotations and real localisation. The fourth layer is authority in each market, which only comes from links and mentions on websites that your new audience reads. If German-speaking countries are on your list, our marketplace is a good place to start, because most of its publishers write for exactly that audience.

Frequently asked questions

What is international SEO?

It is the part of SEO that makes sure people in different countries and languages find the version of your website that was made for them. The main tools are URL structure, hreflang and localised content.

Is a subfolder or a country domain better for international SEO?

For most businesses a subfolder is the better start, because all language versions share one domain and its strength. Country domains send the clearest country signal but have to build their authority separately.

Does hreflang improve rankings?

Not directly. hreflang helps Google show the right language or country version in place of another one, so users land on the page that fits them.

What is the difference between geotargeting and international SEO?

Geotargeting is the broader term for showing content or ads based on a user's location. International SEO applies the idea to organic search, with separate versions per country or language that search engines can tell apart.

Related terms: URL structure · Backlink · Link building strategy · Indexing