Different URLS for our multi language pages caused penalty?
-
Hi all,
We have a website www.phoneboxlanguage.com with 4 different language versions (Spanish, French, Italian, German). We have all the different versions on totally different URLS. E.G the French URL is www.cours-telephone-anglais.com. Recently this month we saw a huge drop in SERPS for all the 'foreign' language pages.
This had happened before for the Spanish and French, which we put down to keyword density issues, so created new URLS for those pages.
However now all 4 foreign pages have dropped.
Could this be due instead to a penalty for duplicate sites?
The content is obviously different due to different languages, but the coding and templates for the sites are the same.
How can we find out this is the case and what should we do? I was thinking after some research on the forum to create subfolders in the original (phoneboxlanguage.com) and then create 301 redirects, from the old dropped sites, or would their penalties be bad for our original site, if this were the case?
We are obviously very keen to not further damage the site and the original site which remains o.k.
Many thanks for your kind help.
Quime.
-
Hi thanks for the reply,
Should we not have any shared scripts, how can we avoid this, just by removing them? Ideally we need the pages the same, but with different language versions, while not being punished.
I will make all the changes you suggest.
The Geo-targeting was not done for all, but we did it today.
The drops were on Google regional and com search engines.
Would these changes lift the penalties, or are they more permanent sometimes?
You would not suggest subdomains and moving the foreign pages to the main site?
Also I have just been told that having 'dashes' in the URL has become an issue, has anyone ever heard of that??
Many thanks
-
a) Your international sites have this in the headers <html xmlns="<a class="attribute-value">http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml</a>" xml:lang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>" lang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>">
Should be: <html xmlns="<a class="attribute-value">http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml</a>" xml:lang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>" lang="FR">
b) I would nofollow or delete if not necessary to conversion any of the links pointing to your main domain on your other sites, including your school. subdomain login page and anything else linking to the main site. Run a tool to identify where your external links are and nofollow all of them.
You're sharing scripts:
<script type="<a class="attribute-value">text/javascript</a>" src="http://www.phoneboxlanguage.com/javascript/thickbox.js">script> <script type="<a class="attribute-value">text/javascript</a>" src="http://www.phoneboxlanguage.com/Javascript/dropdownmenu1.js">script>
c) are you properly geo-targeting the sites in Google WMT?
d) you saw the results drop for the international sites in their respective Google regional search engine?
-
Hi, thanks for the reply,
The sites were interlinked, (a link at the top going to the other language pages on each)
There was link building involved to a greater or lesser extent, the Italian page not for several months, the French and Spanish quite recently.
They are hosted on the same host account but on separate I.P addresses.
On the webmasters we have not seen any messages warning us of anything.
-
Were the sites all interlinked?
Were you doing any link building?
Are they all on the same server?
If you're penalized you need to unwind the penalties. Have you gotten any messages in your Google WMT accounts?
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
-
Over 500 thin URLs indexed from dynamically created pages (for lightboxes)
I have a client who has a resources section. This section is primarily devoted to definitions of terms in the industry. These definitions appear in colored boxes that, when you click on them, turn into a lightbox with their own unique URL. Example URL: /resources/?resource=dlna The information for these lightboxes is pulled from a standard page: /resources/dlna. Both are indexed, resulting in over 500 indexed pages that are either a simple lightbox or a full page with very minimal content. My question is this: Should they be de-indexed? Another option I'm knocking around is working with the client to create Skyscraper pages, but this is obviously a massive undertaking given how many they have. Would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Alces0 -
Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?
Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization? Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?
Technical SEO | | SalSantaCruz0 -
When i type site:jamalon.com to discover number of pages indexed it gives me different result from google web master tools
when i type site:jamalon.com to discover number of pages indexed it gives me different result from google web master tools
Technical SEO | | Jamalon0 -
Does adding subcategory pages to an commerce site limit the link juice to the product pages?
I have a client who has an online outdoor gear company. He mostly sells high end outdoor gear (like ski jackets, vests, boots, etc) at a deep discount. His store currently only resides on Ebay. So we're building him an online store from scratch. I'm trying to determine the best site architecture and wonder if we should include subcategory pages. My issue is that I think the subcategory pages might be good from a user experience, but it'll add an additional layer between the homepage and the product pages. The problem is that I think a lot of user's might be searching for the product name to see if they can find a better deal, and my client's site would be perfect for them. So I really want to rank well for the product pages, but I'm nervous that the subcategory pages will limit the link juice of the product pages. Home --> SubCategory --> Product List --> Product Detail Home --> Men's Ski Clothing --> Men's Ski Jack --> North Face Mt Everest Jacket Should I keep the SubCategory page "Men's Ski Clothing" if it helps usability? On a separate note, the SubCategory pages would have some head keyword terms, but I don't think that he could rank well for these terms anytime soon. However, they would be great pages / terms to rank for in the long term. Should this influence the decision?
Technical SEO | | Santaur0 -
Why can't i get the page if i type/paste url directly?
Hello, just click the following link, http://www.tuscany-cooking-class.com/es/alojamiento/villa-pandolfini/ It might be show the 404 page, but follow this way, www.tuscany-cooking-class.com/es then select alojamiento link, then select first property name with villa-pandolfini, Now you can view the page content, why it behave like this, We are using joomla with customized. Anyone help me to fix this issue Thanks Advance Alex
Technical SEO | | massimobrogi0 -
Can I optimize two different pages with very similar keywords without hurting SEO?
Hi there, I have often heard that you cannot have multiple pages rank for the same keyword. My question here is more about long tail keywords who have the same keyword phrase repeated on different pages. For Example: I have two webpages with different content. I want to have one page (Homepage) rank for the more generic term such as "innovation management" and another supporting page rank for "innovation management software". Will Google see these two different webpages as competing? Should I avoid repeating the more general term in the phrase? Has anyone ever seen your SEO results decline when doing this? I don't believe this is duplicate content since the pages hold completely different copy and assets but I am not sure if the repeating phrase in the title tags will flag anything to the search engines.
Technical SEO | | Scratch_MM0 -
Old URL redirect to New URL
Alright I did something dumb a year a go and I'm still paying for it. I changed my hyphenated URL to the non-hyphenated version when I redesigned my website. I say it was dumb because I lost most of my link juice even though I did 301 redirects (via the htaccess file) for almost all of the pages I could find in Google's index. Here's my problem. My new site took a huge hit in traffic (down 60%) when I made the change and even though I've done thousands of redirects my old site is still showing up in the SERPS and send much if not most of my traffic. I don't want to take the old site down in fear it will kill all of my traffic. What should I do? Is there a better method I should explore then 301 redirects? Could the other site be affecting my current rank since it's still there? (FYI...both sites are built on the WP platform). Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you! Joe
Technical SEO | | kaje0 -
On-Page Question
Im trying to increase value to specific pages by putting history, and additional images. Will copying snippets from other sites negatively affect me? Should the content be re-written completely?
Technical SEO | | Anest0