Technical SEO
Technical International SEO
The technical side of international SEO decides whether search engines can reach, understand and pair every market version. These guides cover the structure, the files and the moves, with the legal constraints that apply to gambling brands.
Three questions run through every guide in this section. Can Googlebot, which usually crawls from the USA without an Accept-Language header, reach each market version? Does each version say clearly, through its URL, hreflang and content, which audience it serves? And does the structure match what each market's license allows, such as Spain's requirement for a .es website?
Guides
Technical SEO
ccTLD, Subdomain or Subdirectory? International URL Structures
A comparison of ccTLDs, subdomains, subdirectories and URL parameters for international casino and sportsbook sites, quoting Google's listed trade-offs and adding the market rules that constrain the choice, chiefly Spain's .es domain and redirect requirement.
Technical SEO
Multilingual XML Sitemaps with Hreflang: A Field Guide
How to carry hreflang in XML sitemaps for casino and sportsbook sites, covering the xhtml namespace, one url entry per version with a full set of xhtml:link children, size limits, sitemap index files, lastmod, cross-domain sets and common errors.
Technical SEO
International Site Migration Planning for iGaming Brands
A migration plan for moving casino and sportsbook sites between international URL structures, based on Google's site move guidance and Change of Address tool limits, with hreflang and canonical updates, market register checks and Spain's .es redirect requirement.
Technical SEO
International SEO Launch Gates for New iGaming Markets
A six-gate launch process for taking a casino or sportsbook site into a new licensed market, covering license evidence, URL and domain decisions, language duties, regulated content, technical SEO checks and post-launch monitoring, with owners and evidence for each gate.
Limits and time frames Google documents
Figures you will need when planning files and moves, each with its source page.
| Item | Figure | Source page |
|---|---|---|
| URLs per sitemap | 50,000, or 50MB uncompressed | Build and submit a sitemap |
| Sitemaps per index file | 50,000 loc tags | Sitemap index files |
| Index files per site in Search Console | 500 | Sitemap index files |
| How long to keep migration redirects | As long as possible, generally at least 1 year | Site moves and migrations |
| Change of Address forwarding | 180 days | Change of Address tool |
| Time for most pages of a small to medium site to move | A few weeks | Site moves and migrations |
| Where Googlebot usually crawls from | The USA, without Accept-Language | Managing multi-regional sites |
Where gambling sites differ
- Geo controls are legal duties. Spain requires licensed operators to redirect connections from Spain to their .es site. Elsewhere, unlicensed offers must not reach players. Read switching and redirects before changing any geo rule.
- URLs appear in official registers. Germany's whitelist, Spain's operator search and Ontario's directory list websites, so a domain change is also a regulatory matter.
- Staging needs care. A market site that leaks into the index before its license is confirmed can show gambling pages to players in a market where the brand cannot yet operate. Password-protect staging where possible, since noindex alone still lets URLs be found, and remove noindex only on launch approval.
Questions
Can Search Console still set a target country?
No. Google deprecated the International Targeting report, including country targeting, and said it continues to support and use hreflang.
What signals does Google use to work out a site's audience?
Google lists country-code domains, hreflang statements, server location and other signals such as local addresses and phone numbers on the pages.
Should every market have its own Search Console property?
It makes monitoring easier. Domain-level properties also matter later, because the Change of Address tool works only at the domain level.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap, last updated July 8, 2026.
- Google Search Central, Manage your sitemaps with sitemap index files, last updated December 10, 2025.
- Google Search Central, Site moves and migrations, last updated August 20, 2026.
- Google Search Console Help, Change of Address tool, no date shown.
- Google Search Central, Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites, last updated December 10, 2025.
- Google Search Console Help, The International Targeting report is deprecated, no date shown.