Foreign SEO - is Google more primitive?

[Trump]

Many years ago when I first started doing SEO, I remember people always said that non-english Google is not as intelligent/developed.

That Googles main focus is .com (obviously) and they give more slack to countries like Denmark, Cyprus, Holland and so on.

I mainly work with non-english sites. In recent months I've seen loads of new sites popping up on the first page. They all use old strategies - and it seem to be working. Even better than some of my sites, who follow more updated/recent theories of best practices.

The most common factors for these new sites are that they have the keywords in the domain name, and their backlink profiles consist of poor PBNs and forums. If even that. These PBNs makes Fiverr links look like Forbes and and Wall street journal. The content is pure garbage.

Mind you, these sites are getting to the first page on some pretty heavy hitting keywords.

When I investigate some of theses sites, which includes finding their PBNs, I can't help but think they are getting these rankings purely because the keywords are in the domain name. Because they aren't outranking anyone because of the content or links (external nor internal).

Basically all their domain names are "best-testers.tld", "best-best.tld", "best-bestie.tld" and so on.

This makes me wonder how primitive non-english Google actually is, and how far behind "we" are. Although I'm drowning in work already, I'm a bit attracted to the idea of testing this myself. Just using old school tactics, to see how it goes. Not that I would deep-dive into it, since Google will sooner or later update the standards - but I'm curious.

So I thought I'd ask you guys: what's your experience with non-english Google? It's more forgiving for sure, but are we 5-10 years behind the evolution of google.com? Are older, spammier, strategies better than what they are at Google.com?

 

[mj22]

When all the zoo animal updates were going on in the .com market, i had good buddies still killing it months/years afterward in those markets unaffected. .com is the biggest market and makes sense to use it as a playground to test out new updates, see what works, what doesnt, dail it in (or back) how they want (they can gather data quicker due to market size). Then it seems to be rolled out in the other markets later. How long, i have no idea, but i have seen this as well.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

Many European markets are still basically 100% aggressive paid link spam etc. Even if Google wanted to change it they can't really - there just aren't that many blogs/sites/new people writing good content just for the sake of it as it is in the .com space let alone Danish etc - all those hobby people have Instagram now etc not a blog - so actually the companies spending the most on spam/paid links might even actually BE the quality ones Google wants to rank in those markets... because they can afford to spend on what there is available.

If you ever get the chance to go to one of the mainland European conferences and chat to folks/hear what folks are up to over there I strongly recommend it if you're a '.com only chap'... It's fun.

 

[Bob_the_Builder]

Very interesting topic, thanks for starting it.

I am currently active on the European market, and I see competitors using startpage link directories, link swapping (A - B) etc.

While I personally use all the 'new techniques' (.com) which I learn in online communities like these, I am wondering. What would be the best strategy in a non-English market?

Of course, Google will eventually catch up to those markets and roll-out their .com algorithm. However, in the meantime, 'old strategies' could still be valuable.

What would you do? Use new .com strategies or use the old strategies while they work?

 

[axibert]

Being in the European market as well, I cannot fully agree to what is being said regarding other countries being a “spam paradise”. Sure, there are new updates like the product review update for example, that are not yet being implemented in other languages. This might have mostly to do with how developed those NLP algorithms are in understanding different languages. It seems to work much better with English websites right now. The NLP categorization, for example, does not even exist in other languages.

But as I am monitoring Google updates closely (and having been hit by enough of them), I am seeing many similarities between the volatility in the US compared to Europe. Many of those fluctuations occur simultaneously, so I have the feeling that the basics are pretty much the same.

What makes the difference imo is the baseline of site quality in the serps. Each keyword has different “rules”, so it is hard to compare it on a country level. This could be because of the different approaches of the majority of publishers, but as well because of the difference in user behavior and expectations. Overall, the big sites are the winners here in the last few years, not the ones with the most links to the page.

In the end, I would regard it as an opportunity to have this “peek” into the future (US serps) and to be able to implement trends before they are common practice, as long as it makes sense for the targeted market. Older tactics like PBNs are not working the same as they used to even in Europe, even though there are always exceptions and the thresholds might be different. So instead of looking back and trying to abuse old tactics, I would rather try to stay ahead.

 

[bernard]

Links are definitely very overpowered at the moment, but I wouldn't say its PBN links from where I'm standing.

It's more old, high Page Rank links, with trust that are overpowered, because it's far more difficult to get links from media, edu and organisations in my experience, so those hold greater value.

Expired domains are VERY powerful though for that reason and yes, EMDs can still give you a significant boost.

PBNs do work as well, not great, but they work for propping up individual pages, and as I understand it, those don't really work in the US anymore.

I see signs of E-A-T becoming a lot more important recently and slowly more and more features are being implemented from the US side.

 

[Lowrider]

I'm reading regularly here in the forum the thread with the Google updates. I have the impression that most updates aren't or are rolled out much later. I can only speak for the German market.

It appears that it's easy to rank, if you compare it to global SERP in the US.

If I take the keywords "best web hosting" on the German market, the first place has 39 referring domains and the second place 17 referring domains.

However, good luck with building links. Sometime I have the impression that site owners think that linking out to other sites is evil. It's a pure pay to play game. Outreach is not as common as in the US, as no one links out to other sites.

That's why many sites buy links for seller, that mostly have a similar list of sites.

One example: A link from a site in the fitness niche
Traffic: 6000 per month, DR 44 Price: 1440 Euro (about 1500 Dollar)

Prices for links are insane.

It is very difficult to build links, since many methods like Haro are not existing here. Niche edits are also not really a thing here.

For that reason, many people are relying on forum and PBN links, as they are way cheaper.

 

[Trump]

I'm reading regularly here in the forum the thread with the Google updates. I have the impression that most updates aren't or are rolled out much later. I can only speak for the German market.

It appears that it's easy to rank, if you compare it to global SERP in the US.

If I take the keywords "best web hosting" on the German market, the first place has 39 referring domains and the second place 17 referring domains.

However, good luck with building links. Sometime I have the impression that site owners think that linking out to other sites is evil. It's a pure pay to play game. Outreach is not as common as in the US, as no one links out to other sites.

That's why many sites buy links for seller, that mostly have a similar list of sites.

One example: A link from a site in the fitness niche
Traffic: 6000 per month, DR 44 Price: 1440 Euro (about 1500 Dollar)

Prices for links are insane.

It is very difficult to build links, since many methods like Haro are not existing here. Niche edits are also not really a thing here.

For that reason, many people are relying on forum and PBN links, as they are way cheaper.

I agree with you. Links are a huge issue here. I work for smaller countries than German, and the prices are insane. Luckily, that means that most of my competitors are not prepared to splash out on links - while I do.

Interesting to hear your experience with the German market. I always had the idea that Google focus on .com first, and then the German, French and Spanish languages.

Just like you, I have the impression that a lot of updates are not being rolled out in our languages. Or at least, at a much, much later date.

Sometimes there are huge changes in the US serps, but business as usual in my language. Even when a big update is released in the US with massive changes, nothing is happening in my language. Not for weeks or even months.

Cheers for your input!