International SEO skills
International SEO Skills-md for Global Sites, Claude & Codex
International SEO skills are SKILL.md files that turn Claude, Codex and other AI agents into careful international SEO strategists. They audit how a site serves each country and language, choose markets with evidence, pick between ccTLDs, subfolders and subdomains, implement and debug hreflang, localise rather than just translate, research keywords natively, align targeting signals for Google and Bing, fix geo-redirects and caching, cover Baidu, Yandex, Naver and Seznam, and report results market by market. All 13 are below: copy one, download it, or take the set.
13 skills, 17,066 words, version 1.0.0, researched October 2026.
International SEO Audit
Audit how a site serves each country and language: market priorities, URL structure, targeting signals for Google and Bing, hreflang health, indexing by market, wrong-market rankings, localisation quality beyond translation, local demand coverage, local search engines and market-level measurement, scored per market with a prioritised plan.
International Market Selection and Prioritisation
Choose and prioritise countries and languages for organic growth: existing demand from Search Console, analytics and sales, local-language search demand, competition, business readiness (payments, delivery, support, legal), localisation cost and search engine landscape, language versus country decisions and a phased roadmap with success metrics and exit criteria.
International Site Structure: ccTLDs, Subfolders and Subdomains
Choose and design the structure for international versions: ccTLDs versus subfolders versus subdomains versus parameters, trade-offs for authority, cost, operations, legal and brand, Google's generic ccTLDs, language and country URL patterns, translated slugs, crawlable version selection with non-forcing banners and x-default planning.
hreflang Implementation and Debugging
Implement and debug hreflang through HTML, HTTP headers or XML sitemaps: reciprocal, self-referencing sets, valid ISO language and country codes, x-default, canonical alignment within each language, targets that return 200, common errors and fixes, Bing's lang and content-language signals, validation crawls and country-level monitoring.
Localisation and Translation Workflows for SEO
Design localisation workflows that serve users and search in every market: content tiers, keyword localisation before translation, glossaries and translation memory, AI or machine translation with native review, localised prices, currencies, payments, units, examples, legal and metadata, quality checks, scaled-content risks and measurement by market.
Multilingual Keyword Research
Research keywords natively in each country and language instead of translating English lists: native seed generation, tools with country and language settings, local autocomplete, competitors and marketplaces, native validation of meaning and intent, regional variants, English terms used locally, clustering per market and demand comparisons across markets.
Country and Language Targeting Signals
Align the signals Google and Bing use to show the right country and language version: ccTLDs and generic ccTLDs, URL structure, hreflang, html lang and content-language for Bing, one language per page, local currency, address, phone and delivery details, local links and listings, differentiation of same-language versions and monitoring of ranking URLs by country.
International Technical SEO
Fix the technical layer of international sites: crawler access per locale from US IPs, forced IP and browser-language redirects replaced by banners, CDN caching by URL, crawlable language selectors, sitemaps per locale, default-locale duplicates, UTF-8 and non-Latin URLs, performance by country and Search Console and Bing properties per version.
Local Search Engines: Baidu, Yandex, Naver and Seznam
Plan SEO for local search engines where Google isn't dominant: checking current market share, Baidu Search Resource Platform, Yandex Webmaster, Naver Search Advisor and Seznam setup, local hosting and rendering, China hosting and licensing basics, native content, ecosystem presence on Naver blogs, Cafés and Knowledge iN or Baidu Baijiahao and Baike, local links and measurement by engine.
International Content Strategy
Plan content per market instead of translating everything: a global core, local adaptations, market-only content and pages to skip, a decision matrix by content type, demand from multilingual research, local experts for regulated topics, ownership, publishing sequence, maintenance triggers and measurement by market.
International Link Building and Digital PR
Build local authority in each market: local link landscapes from competitor backlinks, linkable local assets such as national surveys and customer stories, native-language outreach and pitches, partners, associations, events and reputable directories, links pointing to local versions, local engine ecosystems and measurement of local referring domains, all within spam policies.
International Expansion and Site Migrations
Plan market launches and international migrations safely: benchmarks per market, readiness gates for new locales, redirect and hreflang maps for every locale, ccTLD consolidation and splits, cookie-to-URL moves, staging tests, phased rollouts, Change of Address, launch-day checks, market-by-market monitoring and rollback triggers.
International SEO Reporting by Market
Report international SEO per market: Search Console, Bing and analytics segmentation by locale, indexed pages, visibility by country, ranking-URL match rates, organic conversions and revenue by market, local search engine data, local referring domains, localisation quality versus the home market, market scorecards and scale, adjust or pause decisions.
No skill matches that search. Clear it or choose All.
On this page
What international SEO skills do for an AI agent
Ask a general AI model how to “go international” and you usually get two tips: add hreflang and translate your pages. Both matter, and both are where most international sites go wrong. hreflang breaks quietly through missing return tags and cross-language canonicals. Literal translation targets searches nobody makes. Forced IP redirects hide whole markets from crawlers. And global dashboards hide the fact that one market is thriving while another never took off.
These skills work market by market. They start with demand and business readiness, choose a structure that fits the company, implement hreflang that holds up, localise prices, payments, examples and keywords rather than just words, and align signals for both Google and Bing, which treat hreflang differently. Where Google isn’t dominant, they plan for Baidu, Yandex, Naver and Seznam and their own ecosystems.
International SEO, multilingual SEO and localisation
Multilingual SEO serves several languages; multi-regional SEO serves several countries; most international sites do both. Localisation adapts content to a market; translation only changes the language. The skills cover all of it, from strategy and structure through content and demand, technical setup and local engines, to authority and reporting. They work with any CMS and with translation tools, agencies and AI translation.
Where to start: audit every market
Start with the international-seo-audit skill. It scores each market on structure, targeting, hreflang, indexing, localisation, local demand and measurement, finds where the wrong version ranks and hands each finding to a specialist skill.
If you haven’t launched yet, begin with international-market-selection and international-site-structure so the first market is chosen on evidence and built on a structure that scales. If versions aren’t indexed, check international-technical-seo for forced redirects before anything else.
Which skill fixes which problem, and the evidence
Use this table to go straight to the right skill when you already know the symptom.
| Symptom or task | Likely cause | Skill to use |
|---|---|---|
| International traffic underperforms | No market-by-market view | international-seo-audit |
| Unsure which country or language comes next | No evidence-based market scoring | international-market-selection |
| ccTLD, subfolder or subdomain? | Structure chosen without business fit | international-site-structure |
| Wrong country page ranks | Broken hreflang or canonicals | hreflang-implementation |
| Translated pages get no clicks | Literal translation, no localisation | localisation-translation |
| Keywords don’t match local searches | English lists translated | multilingual-keyword-research |
| Bing shows a different version from Google | Signals disagree; Bing signals missing | geo-language-targeting |
| Locales not indexed | Forced redirects, CDN caching, cookies | international-technical-seo |
| Need visibility in China, Korea or Russia | Local engines ignored | local-search-engines |
| Translating everything by default | No per-market content plan | international-content-strategy |
| Local competitors outrank you | No local authority | international-link-building |
| Launching or merging country sites | No phased plan or locale maps | international-expansion-migration |
| Global reports hide failing markets | No market scorecard | international-seo-reporting |
The evidence behind these skills
International SEO is full of outdated advice. These are the facts the skills build on, checked on 10 October 2026:
| Finding | Source | Label |
|---|---|---|
| hreflang helps Google serve the right version but gives no ranking boost | Google statements and documentation | Confirmed |
| Bing has described hreflang as a weak signal and uses content-language and other signals | Bing statements (as reported) | Reported |
| Google removed the International Targeting report and country setting from Search Console in 2022 | Confirmed | |
| Google treats some ccTLDs such as .io, .co and .ai as generic | Google documentation | Confirmed |
| Googlebot mostly crawls from US IP addresses, so locale-adaptive content can hide versions | Google locale-adaptive guidance | Confirmed |
| Since 2025 Google shows machine-translated versions of English pages to some searchers and dropped its advice to block auto-translated pages | Industry reporting, 2025 | Reported |
Example prompts for each skill
Each skill triggers on everyday wording. These prompts are good starting points:
- Audit: “Audit our international SEO. Search Console by country attached.”
- Markets: “Which country should we expand into next?”
- Structure: “Subfolders or ccTLDs for Germany and France?”
- hreflang: “Our UK pages rank in Ireland. Fix our hreflang.”
- Localisation: “Set up an AI translation workflow with native review.”
- Keywords: “Research invoicing keywords for Spain and Mexico separately.”
- Targeting: “Bing shows our US pages in Australia. Why?”
- Technical: “We redirect visitors by IP. Is that hurting us?”
- Local engines: “How do we get visible on Naver?”
- Content: “What should we translate for the German market?”
- Links: “Build local authority for our Dutch site.”
- Migration: “Plan consolidating our ccTLDs into subfolders.”
- Reporting: “Build a market-by-market SEO scorecard.”
What the agent needs from you
International work depends on market-level data. The most useful inputs are:
- Search Console and Bing data by country with the URLs that rank.
- A crawl with hreflang, canonicals, status codes and language.
- Site structure: domains, folders and how versions are chosen.
- Analytics and revenue by market.
- Localisation process: who translates, who reviews and in which languages.
- Business readiness: payments, delivery, support and legal per market.
If something is missing, the skill works with what you have and says which findings would change with more data.
What an agent cannot do, and myths to ignore
An agent can audit, plan, research and draft, but native speakers must review important localised content, and legal questions such as licensing in China or consumer law in each country need local professionals. Decisions about which markets to enter stay with you; the skills supply evidence and trade-offs.
| Myth | What the evidence says |
|---|---|
| hreflang boosts rankings | Google says it helps choose the right version, not rank higher |
| Translating pages is enough | Local demand, prices, payments and examples decide performance |
| Redirecting by IP helps users | Forced redirects can hide versions from crawlers; banners work better |
| Bing handles hreflang like Google | Bing has called it a weak signal and uses content-language and other signals |
| Google is the only engine that matters | Baidu, Yandex, Naver and Seznam hold large shares in their markets |
Frequently asked questions
What is international SEO?
Optimising a site so the right language and country version appears for searchers in each market, covering structure, hreflang, localisation, local keywords, technical setup, local search engines and reporting by market.
Should I use ccTLDs, subfolders or subdomains?
Subfolders suit most growing businesses because they share domain authority. ccTLDs give the strongest country signal but cost more to build and run. The right choice depends on your markets, teams and legal setup.
Does hreflang improve rankings?
No. Google says hreflang helps it show the right version to the right users; it doesn’t give a ranking boost.
Can I use AI translation for SEO?
Yes, with native review for important pages, localised keywords and full localisation of prices, examples and metadata. Publishing unreviewed translations at scale risks low-value content.
Should I redirect visitors by country?
Avoid forced redirects. Show a suggestion banner instead, because crawlers mostly visit from US IP addresses and users sometimes want another version.
How do I rank on Naver or Baidu?
Register with their webmaster tools, localise natively, host close to the market and build presence in their own ecosystems, such as Naver blogs or Baidu Baijiahao.
How should international SEO be measured?
Per market: indexing, visibility by country, whether the intended version ranks, conversions and revenue, with scale, adjust or pause decisions.
How do these skills relate to the other SEO skills?
The Technical SEO and Content SEO skills cover single-market foundations; International SEO adds the layer that makes them work across countries and languages.
Sources and more marketing skills
- Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites, Google Search Central
- Tell Google about localised versions of your page
- Locale-adaptive pages
- Search engine market share by country, StatCounter
- Naver Search Advisor and Yandex Webmaster
Checked on 11 October 2026. Pair this set with the Technical SEO skills and the Content and On-Page SEO skills. See every subcategory on the Marketing Skills-md page.
