What to do with localised landing pages on listings website - Canonical question
-
Hi
Run a pet listings website and we had tonnes of duplicate content that we have resolved. But not sure what to do with the localised landing pages.
We have everything pointing back back to the main listings URL http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale-stud-and-adoption/ but haven't pointed the URLs that show pets for specific towns and cities eg http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale/dogs-and-puppies/in-city-of-london/ back to the main url. Obviously this is giving us duplicate content issues, but these pages do rank in local search and drive traffic into the site.
So my question is should we canonicalise the local pages back to the main url and if we do will this mean our local landing pages will no longer rank? Is there any alternatives?
-
I usually recommend noindexing search results pages, since Google has said they don't want "search results in their search results."
I was thinking about this this morning and I think one way to go would be to give advice on owning a dog in different areas of the city. For example you could say something like "In the City of London, the area is more urban and green spaces are fewer and far between. Dog owners in the City should expect to take their pups to a dog park for some regular exercise, and may want to consider smaller, lower-energy breeds who don't need as much time to run." Something like that. You could talk about nearby parks and dog-friendly attractions, endorse some local vets, list nearby pet hospitals, that sort of thing. It will take time to build out this content, but you can prioritize based on the existing organic traffic each page is getting, or start with your top converters and go from there.
-
Hi Ruth, exactly the answer I was looking for, thank you. Great article by the way, we had already implemented a lot of what you covered there.
I guess my only problem would be finding unique content for localised landing pages. Breed specific landing pages (eg 'cocker spaniels for sale') will be fine as I can feature breed descriptions on these and the latest listings. But a little more difficult for the page 'puppies for sale in London' for example. Maybe I could feature some breeder profiles for that area.
Would you also recommend putting a no follow on the search results if we put these landing pages in?
-
Canonicalizing all these URLs back to your main page will drastically reduce the total number of pages that will drive any kind of traffic. At the very least, I would look at which type of URL is attracting the most organic traffic (location, listing type, breed, etc) and work to make these pages real landing pages for these search terms - other than the listings, what other information could you provide on these pages that would make them more unique? Striving to make the pages more unique from each other will give you more long-tail opportunity than canonizing everything back to the main page.
Ultimately, I recommend you rework your navigation using a combination of facets and filters, in order to reduce duplicate content while still having mid-tail level landing pages. Hannah Smith wrote a great piece for Moz on this a couple of years ago that's still useful today: http://moz.com/blog/information-architecture-faceted-navigation-duplicate-content-oh-my
-
Hi
Thanks for the quick reply. We used canonicals as a long term fix. We had duplicate content all over. You've get the url that displays every listing on the site that I posted above. Then unique URLs for different types of breed, URLs for listing type (for sale, stud, adoption) and location Etc. Obviously all these different URLs just created loads of duplicate content as one listing could appear in quite a few urls.
So we used canonical on everything to the url that displays all listings. Except for the localised URLs that we left as is. But moz sees these pages as duplicate content, as some listings appear in URLs for two locations depending on the postcode radius and all appear on the URL that displays every listing on the site.
Does tes that make things clearer at all?
-
Hi Calum,
Going the canonical route is typically meant as a short-term solution when a site is under maintenance - it normally isn't meant to be a long-term fix.
From what I understand, you have a number of localized landing pages for your services set up and they are bringing in traffic to your main page.
You don't want to redirect or create tags back to your home page from all of your local pages as this will create penalties with Google. Your best bet might be to incorporate your local pages into your site structure in a way that would permit them to be easily crawled (and therefore easy to access) rather than redirecting all traffic to your home page.
This is what I think you might be doing when you say "we have everything pointing back to our main URL" - it would be best to create new pages for redirects if this is indeed what you are doing.
Maybe give me some more information on the previous duplicate content, where you started and where you are now and I can create a more specific answer for you.
Rob
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
-
Do you use HREF lang tags when each page that is localised only exists in that language?
Hi, I have 2 questions I am seeking an answer for. We have a home page in english GB, we then also have products which are specifically served in US. For these pages where the phone number is american, the spelling is american, the address is american, do we need to implement href lang tags? The page isn't a version of another page in english, the page is only in the native language.Secondly, is it recommended to create a second home page and then localise that page for US users?I'd be really greatful if anyone has any pointers as googles forum doesn't explain best practice for this case (as far as I can tell).Many thanks
Local Website Optimization | | Adam_PirateStudios0 -
What is the best way to differentiate and optimize two similar websites's SEO?
What is the best way to differentiate and optimize two similar websites's SEO, having in mind that they do not produce content?
Local Website Optimization | | EmmaGeorge0 -
Hreflang | Should I implement hreflang for regional targeted but - different content of websites?
Hello, I'm implementing hreflang for my e-commerce websites which have different languages and do serve different content based on location. Currently, I'm only using hreflang for for alternate language (fr-fr, fr-be, fr-ma, ...). I wonder if it might be better or if I am allowed to add other version of my websites (IT, ES, DE,... ) even if those version are serving specific content for these specific location. So, the content (products) of Germany is different of the product of the other countries. Here is an example : www.mywebsite.com/apple-phone (selling apple phone for US with product avalaible only in US). www.mywebsite.de/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Germany with product avalaible only in Germany, the available models might be different from US and other websites). www.mywebsite.it/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Italy with product avalaible only in Italy, the available models might be different from US and other websites). www.mywebsite.es/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Spain with product avalaible only in Spain, the available models might be different from US and other websites). www.mywebsite.pt/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Portugal with product avalaible only in Portugal, the available models might be different from US and other websites).
Local Website Optimization | | manoman880 -
Site Audit: Indexed Pages Issue
Over the last couple of months I've been working through some issues with a client. One of my starting points was doing a site Audit. I'm following a post written by Geoff Kenyon https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 . One of the main issues of the site audit seems to be that when I run a "site:domain.com" query in Google my homepage isn't the first page listed in fact it isn't listed in this search when I go through all of the listings. I understand that it isn't required to have your homepage listed first when running this type of query, but I would prefer it. Here are some things I've done I ran another query "info:homepage.com" and the home page is indexed by Google. When I run a branded search for the company name the home page does come up first. The current page that is showing up first in the "site:domain.com" listing is my blog index page. Several months back I redirected the index.php page to the root of the domain. Not sure if this is helping or hurting. In the sitemap I removed the index.php and left only the root domain as the page to index. Also all interior links are sent to the root, index.php has been eliminated from all internal links everything links to root The main site navigation does not refer to the "Home" page, but instead my logo is the link to the Home page. Should I noindex my blog/index.php page? This page is only a compilation of posts and does not have any original content instead it actually throws up duplicate content warnings. Any help would be much appreciated. I apologize if this is a silly question, but I'm getting frustrated/ annoyed at the whole situation.
Local Website Optimization | | SEO_Matt0 -
Doorway Pages & Service Area Business
I see many national brand franchises that offers restoration services such as water damage (Servpro, Service Master etc.) There are local websites for each franchise. Each franchise has 50+ locations that they service They currently have pages like 'water damage + city' that have about 500-700 words each Some websites have 30- 100 location pages optimized for 'water damage city' These location pages do not have a physical offices None have duplicate content (word for word) above 20% The only different between these pages is perhaps 200 words about the city Example: www.servicecompany/water-damage-los-angeles www.servicecompany/water-damage-reseda www.servicecompany/water-damage-van-nuys Are these doorway pages?
Local Website Optimization | | MilestoneSEO_LA0 -
Website Mods and SEO for Multi-Location Practice?
We're in the process of taking over a WordPress website within the next week for a 3 location medical practice. These are in 3 different cities. 1 location is in a pretty competitive market, while the other 2 are not. The current site isn't bad for design and navigation and they don't have the budget for a full-redesign. Structurally, it is sound. It lacks a lot of content though and a blog. It is not responsive, should we convert to make it responsive? At first glance you can't tell they have 3 locations and their content for each location and services offered is pretty weak. What other suggestions do any of you have for getting the main site to rank for all 3 locations? I know it'll take some time since they are no where to be found now, but just looking for any other tips you may all have. Thanks!! - Patrick
Local Website Optimization | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Canonical for 80-90% duplicate content help
Hi . I seem to spend more time asking questions atm. I have a site I have revamped www.themorrisagency.co.uk I am working through sorting out the 80-90% duplicated content that just replaces a spattering of geographical and band styles eg: http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/greater-manchester/ 'manchester' being changed to : http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/oxfordshire/ etc So I am going through this slow but essential process atm. I have a main http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/ page My question is: Would it be sensible to (using Yoast SEO plug in) use a canonical redirect as a temp solution from these dup pages to http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/ Rather than remove them What are your thoughts as I am aware that the damage using a rel= could make it worse. Thanks as always Daniel
Local Website Optimization | | Agentmorris0 -
How do I fix duplicate content issues if the pages are really just localized versions?
Does this still hurt our SEO? Should we place different countries on their own respective domains (.co.uk, etc)?
Local Website Optimization | | fdmgroup0