International search: how to show different domains in Google+ Local?

Posted by Baumr on Pro Webmasters See other posts from Pro Webmasters or by Baumr
Published on 2013-06-26T14:49:58Z Indexed on 2013/06/26 16:30 UTC
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Background

A site has multiple ccTLDs:

  • example.com for people in the US,
  • example.co.uk for UK users,
  • example.de for Germany,
  • example.fr for France,
  • etc.

Searching for certain city keywords will return a list of Google+ Local (formerly Places):

International local search

Each links to the corresponding company website that is visible.


Problem

When searching on www.google.de, the domain of the site intended for US users (example.com) appears instead of the corresponding ccTLD (example.de) aimed at German users.

This applies to all languages.

In my opinion and for the purposes of this business, it's not good user experience: searchers would most likely prefer to book on a site localized for them (e.g. in their language and currency).


Question

Is it possible to return different ccTLDs in these local search listings for users across the globe?

Currently, Google+ Local seems to only support supports adding a single "Website" field.


Solutions I have considered

  • Creating duplicate Google Places listings for each URL would be spammy (and not viable when there's 100s of locations, each needing a listing in 8 languages).
  • I don't see the hreflang annotation helping either, and GWMT geotargeting is already set.

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