Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
-
Dear all,
what is the best way to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
What must I add to my code of websites my .nl domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl?
What must I add to my code of websites my .be domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl?
Thanks in advance!
-
In that case, I'll go for the Alternate link tag as mentionned before:
By using it, you will guide Google and tell him to show the flemish version in first position for your user in Belgium and vice-versa for the dutch users in Holland.
Hope this helps!
Maxime
-
Dear Maxime,
there texts and content are pretty much the same / identical. Maybe there are some slight textual differences since Flemish and Dutch are different sometimes.
Overall, all content is nearly the same.
Thanks for both of your help!
-
BenVer,
Please can you tell us what kind of duplicate content do you have on your different domains (.nl /.be) ?
Are the dutch and belgium page exactly the same? What are the differences?
Thanks,
Maxime
-
Maxime,
I saw this too, and there are certainly variants. Given, that for Google I have generally used WMT as the final source and usually that worked, I lean a bit more that way. But, your point is well stated and not wrong. For purposes of being absolutely safe, it will not hurt to have the hreflang attribute there. A better question might be: is it really necessary given the you have ccTLD's and the same language?
From WMT:
Some example scenarios where
rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
is recommended:- You translate only the template of your page, such as the navigation and footer, and keep the main content in a single language. This is common on pages that feature user-generated content, like a forum post.
- Your pages have broadly similar content within a single language, but the content has small regional variations. For example, you might have English-language content targeted at readers in the US, GB, and Ireland.
- Your site content is fully translated. For example, you have both German and English versions of each page.
I will assume that it is a given that google uses the ccTLD as the indicator of country and that it is considered a "Strong" signal to Google.
WIthin GWMT re: multilingual/regional sites (the bolded/italics are mine
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both __
example.de/
andexample.com/de/
show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers.Again, thanks for the replies. I find it really helpful to discuss back and forth as it adds to the learning adventure we are all on.
Best to you,
Robert
-
Maxime,
While I agree the speed might be different with in country hosting given they are both European countries. (Not true in some others.) But the question was around content duplication.
Again, I think your intent is good. But, since he has two separate domains. ExampleSite.be and ExampleSite.nl, he has no need of hreflang="x" since both are in Dutch. If he had Dutch and English it would not matter if it were the same domain or not:
From Gianluca Fiorelli mozPost**if Page A (US version) exists also in Page B (Spanish), C (French), and D (German) versions from other countires, no matter if they are in the same domain or different, then on page A you should suggest the last three URLs as the ones Google must show in the SERPs in their respective targeted Googles. **
Again, since they are ccTLD's and they are already geotargeted by virtue of same and since they are both in Dutch, there is no other worry re duplicate content.
I am open to being shown I am wrong as it will not be the first time
Best to you, thanks so much for your replies,
Robert
-
Hi Robert, 1. Yes indeed you are right, for a ccTLD, there is no geotargeting in GWMT. 2. Dutch is spoken in both Netherlands and Belgium so having the same content appearing on both .nl and .be domains is likely to be considered as duplicate content. Using rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” seems to be the most appropriate solution. 3. In my opinion, hosting each website in the country targeted is a plus (server response will be quicker) but this is indeed not decisive. So do it only if you have a large budget.
-
Maxime,
I have to question this as you have it. The intent is there, but you are throwing everything at a problem and some of it does not work:
1. for a ccTLD, there is no geotargeting in WMT: from GWMT:
Sites with country-coded top-level domains (such as .ie) are already associated with a geographic region, in this case Ireland. In this case, you won't be able to specify a geographic location.
2. He does not need this in a cross domain setting.
3. Given he has ccTLD's this is an unnecessary expense and will add no value.
Hope this clarifies for you,
-
BenVer
In a short answer, not much. This is from GWMT:
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries.
Since you are using ccTLD's, Google already knows that you are targeting that specific country.
While this will not guarantee that the .nl doesn't outrank the .be in Belgium, it will take care of your duplicate content concerns.
-
Is this the best way?
http://googleproducts-nl.blogspot.nl/2012/02/meertalige-en-multiregionale-websites.html
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
-
Multi Regional Website Best Practices
Hi there, I have a website that is targeting 3 countries AU/US & NZ. I have set up hreflang tags for each page on each of the site however I am having difficulties getting it work right. I read this article which was a great insight into the hreflang tags. https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights and as a result I have implemented hreflang tags in the following manner: When users access the root domain http://[website] it will redirect the user to their locale with a 302 redirect. I have a few questions:
International SEO | | nathanfranklin
1. When building my external link profiles, I'm not sure if I should be building link profiles for http://[website]/ or for the geo graphical pages (http://[website]/aus/ etc..). Note that the http://[website]/ is never used, it just issues a 302 to the actual geographical location. 2. It seems that the hreflang tags are not working correctly. Perhaps its the result of the 302 on the root page, but in google.com.au (using the link http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=au&pws=0&q=[branded search]) I would expect that I should see the search results for /aus/ given the fact that the hreflang tags are setup as en-au. Instead I am seeing the root domain page. Is that correct or should it be showing all the pages with /aus/. ALSO If I do a search in google thailand (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=th&pws=0&q=[branded search]) it returns the /aus/ version where it should be showing the /us/ using the x-default hreflang tag. In google webmaster tools I have setup 4 site profiles:
http://[website]/
http://[website]/us/
http://[website]/aus/ (Targeted to Australia)
http://[website]/nz/ (Targeted to New Zealand) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Nathan1 -
Multiple You-Tube Channels for Geo-Targeting ??
Hi I have a UK based e-commerce client/project who has authorised a US distributor/dealer to set up their own US site along with US focused Facebook & other socials etc etc Should they also have country specific YouTube channels (even if both target countries English language i.e. UK & US) ? They brand has lots of video content of 2 main types: Product reviews to host on the website (to win serps, snippets and hence conversions from search) Longer more entertaining productions to put on YouTube channel to captivate, entertain and eventually drive YT target traffic to website via 'in video annotations' external link feature etc. Hence it makes sense to me that the US agent should set up their own YT channel along with their other social pages like FB etc, since annotated links go to different sites (US & UK). Does Google allow this (multiple channels) If not and sticking with the one channel is it possible to geo-target in video annotated external links so depending upon viewer location serves up relevant country link ? Any other ideas, help/advice, comments from anyone who has experience in this type of scenario ? Many thanks Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
For a website in portuguese what would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br
Hello We are a company with a website in several languages, one of them is portuguese. Our market is 2 times bigger in Brazil than in Portugal, but obviously Brazil has more potential in the future. In domain.com we have our main site in English. What would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br? In the first case, it means just portuguese, in the second Brazil but it is not geolocalized, and in the third, you are almost ignoring Portugal users... Duplicating content, doesn't seem to make sense... The content is basically international, so it is just the language that matters. Any help will be very much appreciated.
International SEO | | forex-websites0 -
Showing different content according to different geo-locations on same URL
We would like our website to show different content according to different Geo-locations (but in the same language). For example, if www.mywebsite.com is accessed from the US, it would show text (in English) appealing to North Americans, but, if accessed from Japan, it would show text (also in English) that appeals more to Japanese people. In the Middle East, we would like the website to show different images than those shown in the US and Asia. Our main concern is that we would like to keep the same URL. How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives? Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL? What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan? Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for? Kindest Regards L.B.
International SEO | | seoec0 -
Best URL structure for Multinational/Multilingual websites
Hi I am wondering what the best URL format to use is when a website targets several countries, in several languages. (without owning the local domains, only a .com, and ideally to use sub-folders rather than sub-domains.) As an example, to target a hotel in Sweden (Google.se) are there any MUST-HAVE indicators in the URL to target the relevant countries? Such as hotelsite.com**/se/**hotel-name. Would this represent the language? Or is it the location of the product? To clarify a bit, I would like to target around 10 countries, with the product pages each having 2 languages (the local language + english). I'm considering using the following format: hotelsite.com/en/hotel-name (for english) and hotelsite.com/se/hotel-name (for swedish content of that same product) and then using rel=”alternate” hreflang=”se-SV” markup to target the /se/ page for Sweden (Google.se) and rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” for UK? And to also geotarget those in Webmaster tools using those /se/ folders etc. Would this be sufficient? Or does there need to be an indicator of both the location, AND the language in the URLs? I mean would the URL's need to be hotelsite.com/se/hotel-name/se-SV (for swedish) or can it just be hotelsite.com/se/hotel-name? Any thoughts on best practice would be greatly appreciated.
International SEO | | pikka0 -
Which hreflang tag to use for .eu domain
Hi there, We're trying to solve a problem with one of our domains, we have a .eu CCTLD and we're trying to implement hreflang tags. On our US and UK sites, we use "en-us" and "en-gb", but it's not clear how to approach this european problem, as there is not a "en-eu" tag. The site is in English, but serves several European countries speaking different languages. What's the best hreflang code to use in this situation? Any help much appreciated, Thanks!
International SEO | | dennis.globalsign0 -
Multi Regional website - Folder strategy
Hello Seomoz people ! I've been struggling for some time now with an international website project. It's gonna be an:international website with joomla. To sum up: We have an international company The company has 13 subsidiaries worldwide (same products, different names) The company doesn't have enough resources to get 13 independent websites Some subsidiaries work in one country / one language, some others on a region (several countries, several languages) Thanks to your community we decided to: Get a main website company.com Get subsidiaries folders (middle east, oceania and south america will be easier to link to their subsidiary) .com/asia .com/middle-east .com/oceania .com/south-america .com/uk .com/usa .com/fr .com/es .com/de .com/ma .com/dz .com/it We also need to: Get some websites in different languages .com/asia-cn .com/asia-en etc. Now how do we do to manage: Regional websites (the first 4th on the upper list) Google allows to affect a website to a country not region Will they compete with the .com ? How do we set up them for google ? How do we avoid duplicate content and keep local ranking .com/asia-en/services1.html will have the exact same content that_.com/services1.html_ If we use canonical from _.com/asia-en/services1.htm_l to _.com/services1.html , d_oes that mean /asia will not rank in asia ? Hope you can help us to figure us the best solution for this good project ! Thanks a lot. Florian
International SEO | | AymanH1 -
International (foreign language) URL's best practices
I'm curious if there is a benefit or best practice with regards to using the localized language on international sites (with specific ccTLDs). For example, should my french site (site.fr) use the french language as keywords within the URLs or should they be in english? e.g. www.site.fr/nourriture vs. www.site.fr/food Is that considered best practice for SEO (or just for brand perception those markets?). Is there a tangible loss in SEO if we do not use the correct language for those URLs and just stick with English around the world? I recall seeing a Matt Cutts video on the topic and he said that google does support i18n URL's but other SE's might not support them as gracefully but he didn't come down with a hard recommendation to go with i18n URL's or just English. Would love a strong ruling in favor one direction based on best practices.
International SEO | | mongillo0