An international SEO strategy is a set of decisions about which markets you serve, how each one gets its own URLs, and how search engines learn which page belongs to which audience. Ahrefs’ guide to international SEO, by Jamie Grant and updated in September 2024, reduces it to ten practices. They are a sound checklist. The order matters more than the list, because the early choices are the expensive ones to reverse.
The ten practices, in the order you will need them
Ahrefs’ practices run from planning to promotion. Grouped by when you face them, they look like this:
- Before building: define your markets; consider all the languages spoken in each market; choose a URL structure; use a CDN.
- While building: do keyword research per market; use one language per page; keep internal links in the same language.
- At launch: implement hreflang; do not redirect by IP address or cookies.
- After launch: build links in each country.
The first two points catch most teams out. A market is a country or region with its own buyers, prices and competitors. A language is something that market may need more than one of. Switzerland, Belgium and Canada are the usual examples, but the principle applies anywhere a meaningful share of buyers search in a second language.
Choosing a URL structure for your international SEO strategy
This is the decision that is hardest to undo, so it deserves the most thought. Ahrefs compares four options. The verdicts below are quoted from that comparison.
| Structure | Example pattern | What Ahrefs says |
|---|---|---|
| Country-code domains (ccTLDs) | example.de, example.fr | “Target country is clear to users”; “Usually more costly, as you’ll need to purchase several domains” |
| Subfolders | example.com/de/ | “Relatively straightforward to set up” |
| Subdomains | de.example.com | “Maintaining several domains can be technically challenging” |
| URL parameters | example.com?lang=de | “not recommended by Google” |
For most sites the choice is between subfolders and ccTLDs. Subfolders keep everything on one domain, so links earned in one market help the others, and there is one site to run. ccTLDs send the clearest local signal to users and cost more in domains, hosting and separate link building. Our posts on subdomains versus subfolders and on domain extensions and SEO cover the trade-offs in more depth. Parameter URLs are the one option to rule out.
Hosting location matters less than it once did. Ahrefs lists a CDN as a practice in its own right, because it serves pages quickly to distant users without running servers in every country. Our post on CDNs and SEO covers the setup, and does hosting affect SEO covers how much server location matters.
Whichever structure you choose, decide it once and apply it everywhere. Mixing patterns, a ccTLD for one market and a subfolder for the next, doubles the work of every later step: separate hreflang sets, separate analytics views, separate link profiles to build. The cost of a consistent, slightly imperfect choice is lower than the cost of a clever mixed one.
Keyword research and content, market by market
Translating your keyword list is the most common shortcut and the most expensive one. People in different markets describe the same product in different words, search with different modifiers and compare against different local competitors. Run keyword research for each market as if it were a new site, using the process in our guide on how to do keyword research, and expect some pages to exist in one market and not another.
Two of Ahrefs’ practices keep the result clean. Use one language per page, so a German page is German throughout rather than German with English navigation and product names left untranslated. And keep internal links in the same language, so a French reader moving through the site stays in French. Both sound obvious; both break regularly when templates are shared across locales.
Hreflang, and why IP redirects backfire
Hreflang tells search engines which version of a page is meant for which language and region. It does not move rankings by itself; it stops the wrong version being shown. Our hreflang guide covers the syntax and the errors that most often break it, such as missing return tags.
The more damaging mistake is automatic redirection. Ahrefs advises against redirecting visitors by IP address or cookies, and quotes Google’s reasoning: such redirects “could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site.” Google adds the detail that explains why: “Most, but not all, Google crawls originate from the US.” A site that redirects every US visitor to its US version may be hiding its other versions from the crawler.
The safer pattern is to suggest rather than force. A banner offering the local version lets visitors and crawlers reach every page, while still helping the person who landed on the wrong market.
The same applies to cookies. Remembering a visitor’s chosen version is fine; using a cookie to block access to the others is not. Test it by browsing from a different country, or through a VPN, and checking that every version can still be reached from a plain link. If it cannot, a crawler working mostly from the US may not reach it either, and the market pages you paid to localise will struggle to rank at all.
Links, and what this guide cannot tell you
The last practice is to build links in each country. A German page with only English links pointing at it has little local authority, however good the translation. Local press, local directories and partners in each market are the obvious sources, and the approaches in our post on how to get backlinks apply market by market.
The limitation is that a checklist cannot tell you which markets are worth entering. Ahrefs’ practices describe how to build a multi-market site correctly, not whether demand in a given country justifies the cost of research, content and links. That depends on your margins, your competitors there and how much localisation you can sustain. Start with one or two markets you can serve properly, prove that they pay back, and add more only once the first ones run without constant fixes. An international site that is half-maintained in eight languages usually does worse than a well-run site in two, because every untranslated template, broken hreflang return tag and stale local page counts against the version a searcher actually sees.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best URL structure for international SEO?
For most sites, subfolders or ccTLDs. Subfolders are “relatively straightforward to set up”; ccTLDs make the target country clear but cost more. Avoid parameter URLs.
Should I redirect visitors based on their location?
No. Google warns IP redirects “could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site”. Offer a link to the local version instead.
Can I translate my existing keywords for a new market?
Not reliably. Search behaviour differs by market, so research each one separately rather than translating one list.
Do I need hreflang?
Yes, if you have equivalent pages in several languages or regions. It helps search engines show the right version to each audience.
The takeaway Decide markets and URL structure first, research keywords per market, implement hreflang, and never force visitors or crawlers to one version by IP.
