Google: International Targeting In Search Console Doesn't Reduce Visibility In Other Countries

Back in 2014, Google came out with a feature in Google Search Console named international targeting a way to monitor your href lang settings or set your web site's desired country. The desired country is basically a way to say, hey, this site is relevant in this specific country and should be shown to searchers in that region. You can learn more about it over here.

That being said, Gary Illyes said on Twitter that using it doesn't reduce your visibility in other countries. So if I set this site to be country specific in Israel, Gary is saying it won't impact how much traffic I get from the UK, US, Germany or other countries?

Here are the set of tweets:

@MarcinKilarski @JohnMu no

— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) January 19, 2017

Honestly, to me, that seems wrong. I would think it would impact my visibility in other countries.

I guess Gary says, why does it matter. Why show your site in the US search results if US searchers cannot benefit from your site?

Forum discussion at Twitter.