"The two most important criteria for a search engine are where the site is hosted and the domain extension," explains Nilhan Jayasinghe, head of natural search at search agency Spannerworks. "If either of these is local, then the site will be deemed local and appear higher up the results. So a .co.uk domain or one hosted under a UK-registered IP address will rank higher on google.co.uk.

"For a site that doesn't obey localisation rules, things get really bad if a searcher decides to click on the region-only filter. For example, Shopping.com, which is hosted in the US, ranks number one in results on google.com when you search for the term 'shopping'. But if you select 'Pages from the UK', then the site disappears from the results," he adds.

Link benefits

However, as many search optimisation experts point out, if there are a large number of links to a generic .com address within a foreign country, Google will still place the site highly, regardless of where the server is and the lack of a country-specific domain. Ralph Grundmann, SEO manager at The Search Works, points out that this means there often need to be separate optimisation approaches for well- established brands and newcomers.

"Someone like IBM will have millions of links in sites in every country in the world, so it can have a central .com site hosted in the US and still feature highly on searches, even when the user has selected results from their country," he says. "Social networks are similar, because they have enough link equity to get over a search engine's preference for local results.

"For a relatively new brand, though, the best advice is to host each country's service within that country and with that country's domain extension, and with text in that country's language. It can cost a fortune, though, to have hosting and software spread across so many countries, so it's probably not always possible. But it is the best solution."

Don't do what everyone presumes is the optimum approach, though, and have the same site repeated across Europe with country-specific domain names, hoping a search engine will think they're local. Chris Dugdale, director of search at natural search agency Netrank, warns that this approach can backfire.

"The search engines hate to see repetition, so if you have scores of domain names that just link to the same .com service, they'll all end up being ignored," he says. Ideally, Dugdale advises, you need to avoid having country-specific content on a main .com domain. Instead, site owners should try to create unique localised content on country-specific domains.

Refined language

After the strategy is established of where servers are located and how multiple domains are interconnected, the obvious problem facing any company expanding abroad is language. This is why Andy Atkins-Kruger, founder of Web Certain, which specialises in international SEO, employs native speakers.

"It's no good getting people to translate common phrases because, unless they're a native speaker, they won't know what phrases people use when searching," he says. "We recruit from around the world and keep everyone together in our office in York, because it doesn't work sending emails round the world.

"It's very easy to get it wrong and not predict how people from another country might search, using the wrong words for a product. For example, Fußballschuhe is all one word, but lots of Germans will type it in as two and the scharfes S might be written as 'ss'. So it's a good idea to bear that in might with page names and descriptions."

Metatags shouldn't be overlooked either, says Atkins-Kruger. It's still a good idea to fit a variety of terms in page descriptions, links and headings throughout pages on the site, so they can be seen by a search engine indexing a page.

Reporting back

From a client's point of view, Joe Nguyen, head of ecommerce at Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, says that quality of reporting from an agency is just as important as the language skills it can command. "Companies offering international SEO will make reports on where you're rated on particular search terms around the world, with no real reference to whether that's good for the client," he says.

"If it's a term that gets you no business, then it's not as important as a term that does. We've found in the past that some companies don't change the keywords often enough or make sure they get changed on the country sites as well. Today we're constantly monitoring 3,000 key words around the world for their visibility but also their market share."

When taking your SEO abroad, it's important to enlist the right support, but bear in mind that success will depend on staying focused on your audienceM

Key points:

Use local domains, not just a single .com

Ensure the relevant language is used and that sites aren't duplicates

Use native speakers, not automated translation

Never assume everyone speaks English

Don't mix languages on the same page

Ensure links are worded in the relevant foreign language

Search engines can't read JavaScript so don't use it to switch languages, otherwise engines will only see your English page

Set each site's language code to the correct language

Advertisers were hoping that the launch of new search platforms from Yahoo! and Microsoft would provide some viable competition to Google

While Yahoo!'s Panama has some benefits, advertisers are still waiting for features like ad scheduling and easier international campaign setup

Advertisers also like the features that MSN's AdCenter has introduced but complain that volumes aren't yet attractive

So far the new features haven't enabled Yahoo! and MSN to gain on Google, which has actually increased its dominance of UK searches