Ranking well internationally, usage of hreflang, duplicate country content
-
I'm trying to wrap my head around various options when it comes to international SEO, specifically how to rank well in countries that share a language, and the risk of duplicate content in these cases. We have a chance to start from scratch because we're switching to a new e-commerce platform, and we were looking into using hreflang.
Let's assume an example of a .com webshop that targets both Austria and Germany.
One option is to include both language and region in the URL, and mark these as such using hreflang:
webshop.com/de-de/german-language-content (with hreflang de-de)
webshop.com/de-at/german-language-content (with hreflang de-at)Another option would be to only include the language in the URL, not the region, and let Google figure out the rest:
webshop.com/de/german-language-content (with hreflang de)
Which would be better?
The risk of inserting a country, of course, is that you're introducing duplicate content, especially since for webshops there are usually only minor differences in content (pricing, currency, a word here and there). If hreflang is an effective means to make sure that visitors from each country get the correct URL from the search engines, I don't see any reason not to use this way. But if search engines get it wrong, users will end up in the wrong page and will have to switch country, which could result in conversion loss.
Also, if you only use language in the URL, is it useful at all to use hreflang? Aren't engines perfectly able to recognize language already?
I don't mention ccTLDs here because most of the time we're required to use a .com domain owned by our customer. But if we did, would that be much better? And would it still be useful to use hreflang then?
webshop.de/german-language-content (with hreflang de-de)
webshop.at/german-language-content (with hreflang de-at)Michel Hendriks
Docdata Commerce -
From my experience of hreflang it seems that Google still doesn't always display the correct URL in SERPs. In addition we still see duplicates flagged up in Webmaster tools even though hreflang is present on these pages.
We have only ever used hreflang for different English language versions rather than different languages so I can't call upon any personal experience examples to illustrate when using only language variables.
I've found using the SEOMoz SERP Control panel so I can switch between different search engines (e.g Google UK, Google Us, Google Aus) is great for keeping track of how you appear in SERPs in each country you are targetting.
.
-
Hi Simon, Thanks for your response. So you do not think that duplicate content will be a problem when using hreflang? And also, I guess that you feel that Google does not do an awesome job matching languages to countries when using only a language variable on a .com domain? Michel
-
By setting both a country and language in your subfolder you will be able to geo-target each country separately in in your Google webmaster account in order to give Google a clear indication of what language and country you are targeting. This in addition to hreflang should in theory ensure that searchers in each location see the correct version for their country.
In practice I've found that this is not 100% always the case, where occasionally you get the wrong version in SERPs, but generally it is probably the best practice if you are wanting to use a .com domain rather than separate TLDs.
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
-
International SEO - Targeting US and UK markets
Hi folks, i have a client who is based in italy and they set up a site that sells travel experiences in the sout of Italy (the site currently sit on a server in Italy). The site has been set up as gTLDs: www.example.com They only want to target the US and the UK market to promote their travel experiences and the site has only the english version (the site does not currently offer an italian version). If they decide to go for the gTLDs and not actually change to a ccTLDs (which would be ideal from my point of view) how are the steps to be taken to set this up correctly on GSC? They currently only have one property registered on GSC: www.exapmple.com therefore i guess the next steps are: Add new property - www.example.com/uk and and set up geo targeting for UK Existing property - www.example.com/ set up geo targeting for US In case the client does not have the budget to optimise the content for american and british languages, would still make sense to have 2 separate property in GSC (example.com for US market and example.com/uk for UK market)? Few considerations: Add canonical tag to avoid duplicate content across the two versions of the site (in the event there is no budget to optimise the content for US and UK market)? Thank you all in advance for looking into this David
International SEO | | Davide19840 -
International SEO errors
Hello, In a muddle here. A website has a .co.uk and a .com version. They want to target the UK market and the USA market respectively. The content for the UK version has been localised for the UK audience (e.g. spellings etc) but the content is the same in both sites. There are errors in .co.uk version in webmaster tools : International Targeting | Language > 'en' - no return tags__URLs for your site and alternate URLs in 'en' that do not have return tags.**Q 1) What does this mean?**I can see that both the .com and .co.uk version has only this in place:**2) Should they actually have respectively?**3) Do they also need rel=canonical from the .co.uk to the .comAny help would be appreciated.
International SEO | | AL123al0 -
Help! A never before asked query about using a ccTLD but hosting in a different country
Hi Guys, I've a website that has a India specific domain ending with .org.in. The website has ALL the traffic from India (as mentioned earlier, it's a website meant only for audience from India). Currently this _.org.in_domainis hosted on a server located in India. I'm thinking of hosting this website in Singapore. Do you think that will negatively affect the current rankings of the website (i.e. changing the server location of my website from India to Singapore)?
International SEO | | seotoseo0 -
What are the best practices for translation of city/state names for international SEO? (ie. New York in English vs. Nueva York in Spanish)
I'm working on international SEO / translation of a global travel site. While we have a global keyword research and translation strategy in process for each market they serve, I've run into a unique question. Overall, we are translating (and localizing) content for each market but aren't sure what to do with location names. Each country/state has cities and locations that have their own dedicated pages. I see three options for these location names (when titling a page and writing content): keep them in English, translate the names in the market languages, or use a combination of the two. The challenge with altering the location names to the market languages is that they are truly not known by those names. Though there are some instances where it may make sense…for instance **New York **in Spanish would be "Nueva York" with **‘**Nueva' being the Spanish translation of ‘new’. There are other instances, where no translation exists. If you’ve had a similar experience I'd love to hear your approach/recommendation.
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
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!
International SEO | | HMK-NL3 -
SEO international - ccTLD or Subdirectories / Hosting on 1 server (IP) in Netherlands
Hi All, I do mingle me in discussion if it's better to have an Ecommerce site of a Brand X on seperate ccTLD's (Brand.nl / Brand.de / Brand.com or use subdirectories (brand.com/nl, brand.com/de, brand.com/fr etc. I see a lot of comments on this, but i am missing one (maybe) essential part. We are using Magento with multi ccTLD support. BUT the environment is hosted in the Netherlands. Will we be "penalized" on hosting in NL when using www.brand.DE or other countries? Or is it MUCH better to host those ccTLD in country of Origin? Because if it is, maybe we can better use subdirs because then we can use our builded authority of the root domain. Hope someone have an answer on this one! Thanks! Jeroen
International SEO | | RetailClicks0 -
Google search cache points to and uses content from different url
We have two sites, 1 in new zealand: ecostore.co.nz and 1 in Australia: ecostoreaustralia.com.au Both sites have been assigned with the correct country in Webmaster tools Both site use the same urls structure and content for product and category pages Both sites run off the same server in the US but have unique ip adresses. When I go to google.com.au and search for: site:ecostoreaustralia.com.au I get results which google says are from the Australian domain yet on closer inspection it is actually drawing content from the NZ website. When I view a cached page the URL bar displays the AU domain name but on the page (in the top grey box) it says: _This is Google's cache of http://www.ecostore.co.nz/pages/our-highlights. _ Here is the link to this page: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zg_CYkqyjP4J:www.ecostoreaustralia.com.au/pages/our-highlights+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au In the last four weeks the ranking of the AU website has dropped significantly and the NZ site now ranks first in Google AU, where before the AU site was listed first. Any idea what is going wrong here?
International SEO | | ArchMedia0 -
Best URL for international domain
Hello SEomozers We have a site with this structure: -www.xyz.com US customers, limited content in12 languages, -global.xyz.com for International customers, full content in 12 languages. The global site is the hub for the rest of the world. We are creating a new site from scratch and want to consolidate the two domains in one by using subfolders, such as: www.xyz.com for USA, www.wyz.com/jp for US customers reading in japanese and www.xyz.com/int-jp for customers from Japan (international - will set geo location with webmastertool) What do you think would be the best naming convention for the international?
International SEO | | FXDD
www.xyz.com/int-jp or
www.xyz.com/eu-jp or
www.xyz.com/eu/jp or
www.xyz.com/ ...any other suggestions?0