Google's John Mueller questioned the need for all websites to use ccTLDs, different domain names, to take their websites international. He said on Reddit, "you both make things harder on yourself, but you also make it harder for search engines to understand each of these sites."
This was in response to a SaaS company taking its company international. They "went with the strategy of buying up ccTLDs for target countries (think .it, .fr, .co.uk) and translating the page content for each," they said.
John Mueller wrote, "I question whether you really need to split your site across ccTLDs." He went on to say "Having them reserved is one thing, but by separating your site across separate domain names, you both make things harder on yourself, but you also make it harder for search engines to understand each of these sites (because they're all separate sites)."
I mean, the Google international SEO documentation gives numerous options for using a URL structure that makes it easy to geotarget your site, or parts of it, to different regions. They include:
(1) Country-specific domain
(2) Subdomains with gTLD
(3) Subdirectories with gTLD and
(4) URL parameters.
I think this is the first time I saw John Mueller say not necessarily to use ccTLDs for an international set up. And that doing so might make it harder for not just users but also search engines?
Forum discussion at Reddit.
