Reference
What is International SEO?
International SEO is targeting audiences in more than one country or language. The decisions that matter are domain structure, whether you genuinely need separate pages per market, and whether hreflang applies at all — which is less often than assumed.
Also called: multi-region SEO · global SEO
Domain structure options
| Structure | Trade-off |
|---|---|
| example.com/uk/ | All authority on one domain, flexible, easiest to maintain |
| uk.example.com | Separate subdomain, weaker signal consolidation |
| example.co.uk | Strongest local signal, hard-codes geo-targeting permanently |
When a country page earns its URL
When it carries something the general page cannot: different currency, different tax treatment, a different lawful basis for handling data, different delivery terms, or local proof. If the only difference is a place name in the title, it is a doorway page.
The most common mistake
Buying a ccTLD early because it feels more local. It permanently constrains geo-targeting to one country, which is expensive to unwind the moment the business wants to sell across a border.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. hreflang, and the honest answer that most sites do not need it covers this properly — 2 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.