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.
Sites in multiple countries using same content question
-
Hey Moz,
I am looking to target international audiences. But I may have duplicate content. For example, I have article 123 on each domain listed below. Will each content rank separately (in US and UK and Canada) because of the domain?
The idea is to rank well in several different countries. But should I never have an article duplicated? Should we start from ground up creating articles per country? Some articles may apply to both! I guess this whole duplicate content thing is quite confusing to me.
I understand that I can submit to GWT and do geographic location and add rel=alternate tag but will that allow all of them to rank separately?
Please help and thanks so much!
Cole
-
Just asking.
-
Are you sure eyepaq?
** Yes. I have the same format implemented across several projects - big and small. All is perfect. I have a few cases when some domains are helping eachouther out – so when a new country is deployed it gets a small boost in that geo location due to the others. The approach was also confirmed by several trend analysis in Google in the google forum and at least one Google hangout and across the web in different articles.
If I had 5 domains so say .uk .fr .de .ie and .es and pasted the same 1000 words on each I would assume it would be duplicate content and wouldn't have equal rankings across all 5 domains, but I may be wrong?
** It won't be duplicate if you have the content in de in german and the content in uk in english. It will have the same message but it is not duplicate
Of course you won't have the same rankings since it's different competition in Germany and UK for example and also the signals, mainly links are counted different for each country. One link from x.de will count towards the de domain in a different way then y.co.uk linking to the your uk domain.I don't think Cole is talking about recreating the same article in different languages because then I would understand the use of the href-lang tag but I think he means the exact same article on separate domains, could be wrong here as well
*** if I understand correctly he is mainly concern about english content on different geo english based domains (uk, com, canada, co.nz, co au let's say) and for that - if it's the same content - he needs hreflang set for those and he is safe. Google will then rank co.uk domain and content in UK and not the canadian domain. He will also be safe with any "duplicate content issues" - although even without href lang there won’t be any.
-
Are you sure eyepaq?
If I had 5 domains so say .uk .fr .de .ie and .es and pasted the same 1000 words on each I would assume it would be duplicate content and wouldn't have equal rankings across all 5 domains, but I may be wrong?
I don't think Cole is talking about recreating the same article in different languages because then I would understand the use of the href-lang tag but I think he means the exact same article on separate domains, could be wrong here as well
@Colelusby - Is a sub-domain for each location on one domain out the question? So
uk.example.com, fr.example.com etc You can then tell WMTs the sub domain UK targets the UK and the fr targets France etc.
-
Yes, that's it
The use of hreflang has a lot of benefits and overall is very straight forward - google will understand how the structure is setup and you are safe.
Cheers.
-
Is that it?
The same article will rank it two different geographic locations and duplicate content won't hurt me?
I feel like that's too easy. Maybe I'm overthinking it.
Thanks!
-
HI,
In this case the use of hreflang is needed:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
As summary each version will have rel alternate hreflang set with hreflang="en-ca" for Canada for example, hreflang="en-us" for US and so on. (first is language and second geo location). So even if the language is the same, it's for a particular region as in some cases you might have some small differences in UK vs Au or Ca etc.
Whne you have a domain with example.ch, the hreflang will be hreflang="de-ch" .
Hope it helps.
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
-
Breadcrumbs and multiple parent categories on Shopify site - what's the answer?
Hi Mozzers... I'm working on a Shopify site - it is polyhierarchical with multiple parent categories for each product. Not uncommon with Shopify because of issues with faceted nav on that platform. The problem is that defining ONE breadcrumb trail back to the homepage, it works against UX, as people will be wanting to go back to the previous search results, primarily, to revisit the parent category specific search (this is an ecommerce site with a huge number of products). So heaven knows what to do. I could do: (1) Home / Product to avoid the issue. Not very good for UX though as where is the previous category page (where more than likely a product search was carried out). (2) Home / Specific Previous Search Page - Parent Category / Product (if that is possible without upsetting SEO performance - I don't think it is - but any advice is welcome) (3) or I could define one specific path and also include: Return to Previous Page / Search as a separate clickback link outside of but adjacent to the breadcrumb trail (I think Macy's used to do that): https://baymard.com/blog/ecommerce-breadcrumbs The problem with defining a specific path is it flys in the face of UX in the context of this site! Although of course defining one path seems to be best practice for SEO. Any help would be gratefully received! Thanks a million, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LukeRow0 -
301 Redirects for Multiple Language Sites in htaccess File
Hi everyone, I have a site on a subdomain that has multiple languages set up at the domain level: https://mysite.site.com, https://mysite.site.fr , https://mysite.site.es , https://mysite.site.de , etc. We are migrating to a new subdomain and I am trying to create 301 redirects within the htaccess file, but I am a bit lost on how to do this as it seems you have to go from a relative url to an absolute - which would be fine if I was only doing this for the english site, but I'm not. It doesn't seem like I can go from absolute url to an absolute url - but I could be wrong. I am new to editing the htaccess file - so I could definitely use some advice here. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amberprata0 -
Medical / Health Content Authority - Content Mix Question
Greetings, I have an interesting challenge for you. Well, I suppose "interesting" is an understatement, but here goes. Our company is a women's health site. However, over the years our content mix has grown to nearly 50/50 between unique health / medical content and general lifestyle/DIY/well being content (non-health). Basically, there is a "great divide" between health and non-health content. As you can imagine, this has put a serious damper on gaining ground with our medical / health organic traffic. It's my understanding that Google does not see us as an authority site with regard to medical / health content since we "have two faces" in the eyes of Google. My recommendation is to create a new domain and separate the content entirely so that one domain is focused exclusively on health / medical while the other focuses on general lifestyle/DIY/well being. Because health / medical pages undergo an additional level of scrutiny per Google - YMYL pages - it seems to me the only way to make serious ground in this hyper-competitive vertical is to be laser targeted with our health/medical content. I see no other way. Am I thinking clearly here, or have I totally gone insane? Thanks in advance for any reply. Kind regards, Eric
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_Lifescript0 -
Is Using a Question, Answer Format Appropriate for a Blog? Is a 300 Word Micro Blog An SEO Plus?
My PR agency has suggested a question answer format be incorporated in my blog. They suggest a microblog with a single sentence question and an answer of about 300 words. My blog currently has about 35 posts. I would like to ramp up blog entries to about one or two per week of these "mini blog" posts. The format of the new blog begins as a question with the responses being paragraphs that do not use headings. My concerns are as follows: 1. No headings in an answer of 300 words will fail to provide Google with context regarding the content's meaning. Everything I have read about SEO suggests text be broken up in short sections and that it be divided by headings (preferably H2s). I very much like my agency's concept for a question answer format blog. It provides very practical info for visitors. How can I use it in a manner that supports SEO best practices? 2. According to a reputable SEO firm that has been assisting me, Google does not consider a blog post of less than 600 words to be superior quality. They told me that blog posts of 300 words, from an SEO purpose will not be a great helpful, that the content will not be rich enough to generate incoming links. Is this really the case? What if this abbreviated content is very well written and engaging? If so, is 300 words sufficient? From the visitor's perspective I am not sure they would have the patience to read 600 words when 300 words is more than than enough to answer these basic questions. From a PR perspective I think the shorter content in a question answer format is superior at least for my line of business (commercial real estate brokerage). 3. If 500-600 words is the minimum word count, and headings are necessary, what is the best way to execute a question and answer blog format? The purpose of this blog is to provide very useful info to my visitors while generating incoming links to that will boast my rankings. Thanks in advance for your feedback!!! Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Merging Sites: Will redirecting the old homepage to an internal page on the new site cause issues?
I've ended up with two sites which have similar content (but not duplicate) and target similar keywords, rather than trying to maintain two sites I would like to merge the sites together. The old site is more of a traditional niche site and targets a particular set of keywords on its homepage, the new site is more of an authority site with a magazine type homepage and targets the same set of keywords from an internal page. My question is: Should I redirect the old site's homepage to the relevant internal page on the new website...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lara_dar
...or should I redirect the old site's homepage to the new site's homepage? (the old site's homepage backlinks are a mixture of partial match keyword anchor text, naked URLs and branded anchor text) I am in two minds (a & b!) (a) Redirecting to the internal page would be great for ranking as there are some decent backlinks and the content is similar (b) But usually when you do a 301 redirect the homepage usually directs to the new homepage and some of the old site's links are related to the domain rather than the keyword (e.g. http://www.site.com) and some people will be looking for the site's homepage. What do you think? Your help is much appreciated (and hope this makes sense...!)0 -
New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peterwhitewebdesign
I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!0 -
Is it possible to Spoof Analytics to give false Unique Visitor Data for Site A to Site B
Hi, We are working as a middle man between our client (website A) and another website (website B) where, website B is going to host a section around websites A products etc. The deal is that Website A (our client) will pay Website B based on the number of unique visitors they send them. As the middle man we are in charge of monitoring the number of Unique visitors sent though and are going to do this by monitoring Website A's analytics account and checking the number of Unique visitors sent. The deal is worth quite a lot of money, and as the middle man we are responsible for making sure that no funny business goes on (IE false visitors etc). So to make sure we have things covered - What I would like to know is 1/. Is it actually possible to fool analytics into reporting falsely high unique visitors from Webpage A to Site B (And if so how could they do it). 2/. What could we do to spot any potential abuse (IE is there an easy way to spot that these are spoofed visitors). Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James770 -
Multiple Keyword Research Questions, Help
Hello , I've been trying for several days to understand how keyword research works for a multi purpose website,I've read guides, articles even some chapters from the book" The Art of Seo" by O'Reilly and still no luck. It seems i can't wrap my head around keyword research,lets say I have a social gaming community website and I'm trying to rank it first on some low competition keywords + some long tail keywords.The website has functions like leaderboards, profiles,events, competitions,etc so it's not actually a news related website but it will have a blog. My website being on the games niche It would imply that I should target words that contain the word "Games" but this word generates millions of searches globally so ranking first its nearly impossible if the website is brand new. This made me pursue generic keywords formed with 2 / 3 words like fresh games, new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc which still generate lets say 30.000 searches globally each. Due to the different areas of the website like latest game events,latest games competitions,etc I'm confused If i should pursue website specific keywords like latest games events, fresh games events, latest games competitions, upcoming games competitions but these too generate 30.000 global searches each,so... 0.should i use generic keywords or keywords that include site features? So let's say I decide to pursue generic "games" keywords,due to a high competition based on the keyword I decide to go a layer deeper and for the keyword "fresh games" I obtain keywords like** "fresh games 2011,top fresh games 2011, upcoming fresh games** " and thus building a list of 30 keywords that contain " fresh games".If i do this for the rest of the keywords: ** new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc** I end up with a list of 10.000 keywords or more since each keyword generates other keywords. Is this the correct approach ? since generating 10.000 keywords sounds a lot and I'm getting the feeling that It's not how it supposed to be done,like were would I insert 10.000 keywords? So how do I know which keywords to pick and aim in order to try to get no.1 ranking? and why those? How many keywords should I use? and where should i put them? since it's not a news website so writing a lot of articles isn't an option. Should I focus on 2 words keywords with around 10.000-30.000 seaches or 2 words keywords + long tail keywords with less traffic like 100 - 5000? Is there a guide for the Keyword Analysis Tool since if i enter "fresh new games" i get a 39% keyword difficulty,is that hard to rank? and I don't know what all those color mean since some of them have higher numbers then others that are found at the top and how can i get beat a website that has has rank 10. So hopefully with your help & by some miracle I will finally be able to build a keyword list. Thank you !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | arching0