Should we Use rel=canonical in ccTLDs websites
-
We have multilingual eCommerce websites with some content variations but majority of the content remains the same
We have used rel=alternate hreflang on corresponding ccTLDs respective countries. for example on example.com -which is the oldest of these sites- we have used
Now should we also use link rel="canonical" href="example.com" on all ccTLDs?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using it?
-
Hi Cyril,
I've not seen any specific case studies or statements that figure out how much replication is considered duplication, although I'd be as interested in you in this information if anyone out there knows of some?
Personally, I have been working on a 50% minimum basis (e.g at least 50% of the pages written content should be unique), and it's been working well for me.
You might get away with less.
In regards to making sites an authority within their specific countries, whilst using duplicate content and the canonical tag, it's all down to links. Even though you're telling Google that this isn't the original source of the content, it's still possible to build up authority on the domain by acquiring links from strong sites that share the TLD.
But again, without unique content you're not going to see the full strength of these links.
David
-
Thanks for the response David.Can you suggest what should one do if trying to make each site an authority in their respective country and not depend on the original version of the site.
How much content replication is duplicate content- any percentage, ratio defined by google?
-
Hi Cyril.
Google released a webmaster blog post that covers this specific instance quite extensively:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html
But in summary; yes if the content is going to be largely the same then I'd suggest using the canonical tag to identify the .com as the original source. The advantage of this is you wont fall into any duplication issues within Googles algorithm, the disadvantage being that the sites containing the canonical tag may struggle to build up their own authority as you are essentially telling Google that the content is not their own, so some of the link juice should be credited elsewhere.
Have a read of the webmaster article, they go into a lot of detail about the issue which will hopefully guide your path.
Good luck.
David
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Rel canonical tag from shopify page to wordpress site page
We have pages on our shopify site example - https://shop.example.com/collections/cast-aluminum-plaques/products/cast-aluminum-address-plaque That we want to put a rel canonical tag on to direct to our wordpress site page - https://www.example.com/aluminum-plaques/ We have links form the wordpress page to the shop page, and over time ahve found that google has ranked the shop pages over the wp pages, which we do not want. So we want to put rel canonical tags on the shop pages to say the wp page is the authority. I hope that makes sense, and I would appreciate your feeback and best solution. Thanks! Is that possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shabbirmoosa0 -
Rel=canonical Question
Alright, so let's say we've got an event coming up. The URL is website.com/event. On that page, you can access very small pages with small amounts of information, like website.com/event/register, website.com/event/hotel-info, and website.com/event/schedule. These originally came up as having missing meta descriptions, and I was thinking a rel=canonical might be the best approach, but I'm not sure. What do you think? Is there a better approach? Should I have just added a meta description and moved on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MWillner0 -
Syntax: 'canonical' vs "canonical" (Apostrophes or Quotes) does it matter?
I have been working on a site and through all the tools (Screaming Frog & Moz Bar) I've used it recognizes the canonical, but does Google? This is the only site I've worked on that has apostrophes. rel='canonical' href='https://www.example.com'/> It's apostrophes vs quotes. Could this error in syntax be causing the canonical not to be recognized? rel="canonical"href="https://www.example.com"/>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ccox10 -
Why is rel="canonical" pointing at a URL with parameters bad?
Context Our website has a large number of crawl issues stemming from duplicate page content (source: Moz). According to an SEO firm which recently audited our website, some amount of these crawl issues are due to URL parameter usage. They have recommended that we "make sure every page has a Rel Canonical tag that points to the non-parameter version of that URL…parameters should never appear in Canonical tags." Here's an example URL where we have parameters in our canonical tag... http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/ rel="canonical" href="http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/?pageSize=0&pageSizeBottom=0" /> Our website runs on IBM WebSphere v 7. Questions Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL? What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters? Any advice for correcting this? Thanks for any help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Solid_Gold1 -
Duplicate Title tags even with rel=canonical
Hello, We were having duplicate content in our blog (a replica of each post automatically was done by the CMS), until we recently implemented a rel=canonical tag to all the duplicate posts (some 5 weeks ago). So far, no duplicate content were been found, but we are still getting duplicate title tags, though the rel=canonical is present. Any idea why is this the case and what can we do to solve it? Thanks in advance for your help. Tej Luchmun
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | luxresorts0 -
Does Google crawl and spider for other links in rel=canonical pages?
When you add rel=canonical to the page, will Google still crawl your page for content and discover new links in that page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ReferralCandy0 -
Using a .de domain for non-german website. Sane?
Hi there guys(and girls), I bought a beautiful and clever .de domain, however I plan to use it for a brazillian website. Since GWT does not allow me to change the target location, and I am stuck with Germany on Google's eyes, I would like to know how bad would it be to stick with the .de domain? My content won't be international. It will focus only in portuguese(Brazil) content. Is there a way to make it work? I would really like to stick with this domain, but Google's organic traffic cannot be overlooked... Thanks in advance for all input I can get. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adepalma0 -
Use of rel=canonical to view all page & No follow links
Hey, I have a couple of questions regarding e-commerce category pages and filtering options: I would like to implement the rel=canonical to the view all page as suggested on this article on googlewebmastercentral. If you go on one of my category pages you will see that both the "next page link" and the "view all" links are nofollowed. Is that a mistake? How does nofoolow combines with canonical view all? Is it a good thing to nofollow the "sorty by" pages or should I also use Noindex for them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ypsilon0