Sitelinks (breadcrumbs) in SERPs

[Paul78]

Hi there,

I have a .co.uk & .ie website both have the exact same content, only differences is the UK website is selling the product in pounds and the Irish website is selling in Euros plus both websites have different contact numbers.

I decided to use rel canonical on the .ie pointing to the .co.uk website as I think it was having an issue in my SERPs for the .co.uk website in Google.co.uk, anyway since doing this, I am seeing strange things happening in SERPs for my keywords, for example if you click the link below, my website is number 2 for 'hot flushes' if you hover over or click on 'health or 'menopause' in the breadcrumbs in SERPs it takes you to the .co.uk website, is this normal?

Click here

[Dr-Pete]

There's no ideal solution here, but I think you may have to try it, just to focus the ranking power and try to sort out what's going on.

[Paul78]

Hi Peter,

I have removed the canonical tag from the .ie website.

Do you think I should use a 301 and then let's see what happens?

[Dr-Pete]

The 301 should override the canonical and hreflang, but if it were me I'd at least remove the canonical - I'm not a fan of mixed signals.

[Paul78]

Hi Peter,

The canonical has been on the .ie website since mid July which I think is enough time, it could be that the fall in my SERPs for the .co.uk website is nothing to do with the .ie website.

Yes, I am not going to go ahead with the noindex, I just do not think it's a worthwhile exercise, however the 301 could be useful for testing purposes to see if it has a positive impact on the .co.uk SERPs.

If I use the 301, would you remove the canonical and hreflang tags?

[Dr-Pete]

The NOINDEX will take some time to remove and will kill your link equity (for now) - that's my main hesitation. I get why you don't want to 301, for user reasons. The canonical will still carry link-juice over. Personally, I think I'd give the canonical time - your current situation isn't ideal, but the NOINDEX could waste your inbound links and, now that you've canonical'ed, even harm the .co.uk site slightly. Better to give your .ie site visitors a path to the .co.uk site/prices and live with some minor Google hiccups, IMO.

The other simple reality is that, if Google isn't honoring the canonicals, they may ignore the NOINDEX tags or take a very long time to process them. The most definitive solution would be removal in Google Webmaster Tools, but that's pretty extreme.

[Paul78]

Hi Peter,

Thanks again for your reply.

Yes, mixed signals indeed, it's causing me some headache. What information I have gathered over the last 6 months or so, is exactly what you have experienced technicians at Google all have different suggestions, what is clear is not one person really knows what is best practice.

I do not really want to do a 301 redirect as the Irish website really does have it's purpose, not just for SEO, but we do a lot of offline marketing in Ireland directing consumers to this website.

I have included a noindex on the .ie domain just for now to see if it does indeed have an impact on the .co.uk SERPs, I know it's far from ideal but this way I will be sure if the .ie is having a negative impact on .co.uk SERPs

I'm confident that once I remove the noindex from the .ie website if things do not work out, the Irish site will recover. Would you be totally against this method? I have got to mention the UK site is our main focus from an SEO point of view.

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, it seems like Google is overriding the canonical, just based on the Google.ie connection, but it's really hard to tell. I'm actually conversing with some other SEOs about this same problem and Google's mixed signals on hreflang vs. canonical (or both together), and the answers aren't very clear. Different Google reps have given slightly different suggestions, and none of them are working consistently in all cases.

If you're going to drop the .ie website temporarily, I'd probably 301-redirect it. It's a little difficult to reverse, but at least you'll consolidate all of your link-juice and ranking factors for that site into the .co.uk site. If you just deindex the Irish domain, you'll lose what SEO value you've built to it.

[Paul78]

Hi Peter,

In Google.ie the keyphrase 'hot flushes' if I looked at the cached version of this page, it shows the .co.uk website, is this a signal that Google is recognizing the canonical?

Ever since the .ie website went live I have had problems with my SERPs for the .co.uk website in Google.co.uk, however identifying that the .ie website is this issue is not so straight forward, even using the hreflang and rel canonical has proven unsuccessful in bringing back the SERPs for the .co.uk website, however I am just not sure Google has recognized these signals.

Would you advice in using a noindex on the .ie website just for temporary measures?, this way I can be sure one way or the other that .ie website has had a negative impact on my SERPs for the .co.uk website.

[Dr-Pete]

The only evidence is anecdotal. Google is recognizing the canonical in the breadcrumbs, but is ignoring it for the main site. My gut feeling is that they've decided the .ie website is the better match for Google.ie, and so they're ignoring the canonical in that case. There's no way to prove that other than inferring their intent from what we see in the results.

So, here's the question - if you're going the canonical route, you have to start asking if it's worth having two sites at all. If you're not going to let both sites rank, then they have limited utility. At that point, you might just want to 301-redirect to one, unified site, and focusing the link profiles and your SEO efforts.

Obviously, that's a big decision, and you could lose ground in the Irish market (on Google.ie), but by using the canonical, you've already started moving that direction. The hreflang tags are more subtle, which is why I recommended them initially. If your canonical implementation succeeds, you're basically suggesting Google only recognize one site in search results.

Cross-TLD/country, it is possible Google will continue to rank the Irish site on Google.ie even with the canonicals, but now you're leaving it open to their discretion. If you're comfortable with that, no problem. If you really want to consolidate, though, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to completely unify the sites and just make price a user option that Google doesn't see.

Unfortunately, this is a complex problem, and once Google starts mismatching the sites to TLDs, there's not an easy answer. I've seen many international SEOs who I respect struggle with this.

[Paul78]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your reply, very much appreciated.

You mention 'but it does seem like Google is selectively applying your canonical tag' would it be possible to show me evidence of this please?

Yes, we did discuss this before with the hreflang tag, however I never saw anything come from it. What I was testing is when I was copying a paragraph of text from the website and pasting it into Google.co.uk it was the .ie website that was appearing, however for no keywords was the .ie website outranking the .co.uk domain in Google.co.uk

'm not sure if I should give this any notice that when I copy a paragraph of text from the website into Google.co.uk that the .ie website appears, would you?

Since I placed the canonical tag on the .ie website, when I do the above 'copying and pasting a paragraph into Google.co.uk, it's now the .co.uk website that appears.

Another interesting point:

I am ranking no.2 in Google.ie and no.16 in Google.co.uk for the key term 'hot flushes' when I copy and paste the first paragraph of this page into Google.co.uk my website appears on page 2, even though the content in unique, when I do the same in Google.ie it's the .ie website that appears no.1 which is expected.

As I said I'm not sure if this is a signal that something is just not quite right with the website?

[Dr-Pete]

Just to clarify - you can use rel-canonical cross-domain, but it's use is a bit more restrictive and Google may ignore the tag in some cases. I haven't seen this particular issue before, but it does seem  like Google is selectively applying your canonical tag.

Did the "hreflang" tags not help? I see you have them in place (I think we may have even discussed this on another question. That would be the more appropriate choice here, but again, Google's application isn't always consistent.

They deprecated the syndication-source tag, so short of 301-redirecting, the canonical tag is about your only other tool. Personally, I'd probably let Google stick with just the hreflang tags for a bit and drop the canonical, giving it a few weeks to see what happens, but it does depend on your goal. Google can be really stubborn about same-language content in nearby countries. We see it a lot with England/Ireland and Holland/Belgium.

[Paul78]

Hi Sanket,

No where does it mention use can't use rel canonical for cross domain?

Can you give your reasons why you should not display this?

[SanketPatel]

Dr Pete has written nice post on it :

Hope this help you out:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/which-page-is-canonical

[Paul78]

Hi Sanket,

Why can't I use it cross domain?, I am trying to tell Google that the original source of this content is the .co.uk website

[SanketPatel]

Hi Gary,

One Suggestion: Canonical tag can't be used cross domain. I have checked "hot flushes" landing page and find canonical tag for co.uk site. Canonical tag can be used within the domain.

[Paul78]

Hi Sanket,

Yes, if you click on the title, however just below the title where you have this:

health > menopause

If you click on one of the above it takes you to the .co.uk site.

Hope the above makes sense.

[SanketPatel]

Hi,

I have open your site in my chrome and Firefox both browsers both shows same result, it open with this http://www.avogel.ie/health/menopause/hot-flushes/  if i searched your site 'hot flushes'  so don't worry about that.