We're building a global platform for a large client who want a range of sites targeting different countries all hosted under a single gTLD, so domain.com/uk will be a UK-specific site, domain.com/fr would target France etc. Each of these sites will have a different set of language variants e.g. domain.com/fr/en-gb would be an English-language version of the French site.I would like to know how best to inform search engines that these sub-directories are effectively separate regionalised site. Are there any tools at my disposal (speaking as a developer rather than a content manager) to ensure, for example, that domain.com/uk appears in search results for people in the UK above other English-language sites e.g. domain.com/us?Or am I entirely reliant on content within the sites being interpreted by the search robots? I assume that from the client's perspective, this is what Google Webmaster Tools is for? Would that be the primary means to educate Google about the regional relevance of the sub-directories of the platform? Is there an equivalent for other major search engines?
How can I target specific countries with global site under gTLD using sub-directory for each targeted country?
seo;domains;internationalization
Google Webmaster Tools has a setting for it.   You need to add each sub-directory as a *separate site.   Then for each subdirectory, you can set the targeted country under Search Traffic -> International Targeting ->  Country.Google has a help document that walks you through the process: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=enOther search engines may have similar functionality, but I typically only worry about Google because it has such a large market share.