Same language, Different countries. What would be the best way to introduce it?
-
Hello,
We have a .com magento store with the US geo targeting
We're going to launch a different versions soon, one for the US, and another one for Canada (we're going to add a Spanish and French versions later as well)
The stores content will be same, except currency and contact us page.
What would be a better strategy to introduce it to Google?
-
What is better URL structure? example.com/ca/ , example.com/en-ca/ , or ca.example.com/ ?
-
Should we stay with the original www.example.com/ (example.com) and just close an access to /ca/ and /us/ / or use rel=canonical / or use "alternate" hreflang to avoid duplicate content issues?
Thanks in advance
-
-
Thanks for your input Gianluca,
The ecommerce ( http://www.fiberscope.net/ ) doesn't seem big compare to bigger fishes. What do you think, are we on the right path with the current structure?
-
Regarding this:
Here is thing - we are going to add /ca/ and /us/ versions for clients' convenience only. Native currency, shipping options, and direct contact of our US office. We don't want them ranked separately.
What do you really mean with "we don't want them ranked separately"?
Maybe I'm lost in translation, but I don't understand if you that means that you don't want to have the Canadian version ranking for some sort of fear it may cause issue with the organic visibility of the US version.
However, if you simply mean that you want to use the same domain name for both the US and CA versions, while for the Spanish one you will build the site under a different domain name... then, that's totally fine and I don't see many problems with this mixed subfolders/different domain names strategy.
Using the hreflang annotation will be enough in order to avoid "duplicated content issues" between the CA and US versions.
Regarding if using subfolders or subdomains, I would look at how complex is your ecommerce. If it is based on a very big products' database, hence with added complexity... I would probably choose the subdomain option. Remember also that if you client's side did not have a canadian version, multiplying per 2 the quantity of URLs of the site will also mean an extreme dilution of the domain's pagerank, and a bigger dilution as bigger is the number of the URLs you will add.
Instead, if the ecommerce is a small one (and will stay a small one), using subfolders can be a good option.
Regarding the blog, if you will publish the same posts both for the canadian and usa markets, then my suggestion is to have only one blog for both markets (domain.com/blog/)
-
I say keep the blog under the same directory, unless you produce it in different languages.
-
Thanks guys,
Here is thing - we are going to add /ca/ and /us/ versions for clients' convenience only. Native currency, shipping options, and direct contact of our US office. We don't want them ranked separately. Client is coming to our general website and base on his IP we ask if he want to shop at the specific country store. He has an option to choose, or not to choose the country site.
From other side, when other version will be added later (Spanish one, for Central and South America customers), we would like to see it ranked independently from our main website.
So, it looks like the hreflang should work for /ca/ and /us/ without closing them from indexation.
BTW, if we have a blog at example.com/blog should we have it available at e.g. example.com/us/blog as well (with added tags), or just keep it as is?
-
-
I would go with example.com/ca/. example.com/en-ca/ is longer and more difficult to type. A subdomain ca.example.com would not inherit the domain authority of your current site.
-
I would keep the original example.com. Moving urls results in a small loss of link equity, even with a 301 redirect, so I would avoid moving urls if at all possible.
-
-
Hi there.
Hreflang is the way to go. No matter how you decide to organize domain - subfolder or subdomain, if actual content is the same, you'll have duplicate issues. Also canonical link is probably not the way to go, unless you want one of your contents (let's say canadian) not rank.
Hope this 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
-
URL Rewriting Best Practices
Hey Moz! I’m getting ready to implement URL rewrites on my website to improve site structure/URL readability. More specifically I want to: Improve our website structure by removing redundant directories. Replace underscores with dashes and remove file extensions for our URLs. Please see my example below: Old structure: http://www.widgets.com/widgets/commercial-widgets/small_blue_widget.htm New structure: https://www.widgets.com/commercial-widgets/small-blue-widget I've read several URL rewriting guides online, all of which seem to provide similar but overall different methods to do this. I'm looking for what's considered best practices to implement these rewrites. From what I understand, the most common method is to implement rewrites in our .htaccess file using mod_rewrite (which will find the old URLs and rewrite them according to the rewrites I implement). One question I can't seem to find a definitive answer to is when I implement the rewrite to remove file extensions/replace underscores with dashes in our URLs, do the webpage file names need to be edited to the new format? From what I understand the webpage file names must remain the same for the rewrites in the .htaccess to work. However, our internal links (including canonical links) must be changed to the new URL format. Can anyone shed light on this? Also, I'm aware that implementing URL rewriting improperly could negatively affect our SERP rankings. If I redirect our old website directory structure to our new structure using this rewrite, are my bases covered in regards to having the proper 301 redirects in place to not affect our rankings negatively? Please offer any advice/reliable guides to handle this properly. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude0 -
Subdomain vs Subdirectory - does the content make a difference?
So I've read through all of the answers that suggest using a subdirectory is the best way to approach this - you rank more quickly and have all of your content on one site. BUT what if you're looking to move into a totally new market that your current site/content isn't in any way relevant to? Some examples are Supermarkets such as Tesco (who seem to use a mix of methods) http://www.tesco.com/groceries/, http://www.clothingattesco.com/, http://www.tesco.com/bank/ which links out from their main site to http://www.tescobank.com/ etc and Sainsburys http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/ who use subdomains - here they have their grocery offering, their bank offering, clothes, phones etc split into subdomains. If you have a product that is totally new to your Brand and different from all the products on your current site, does this change the answer to subdirectory vs subdomain? Would be great to hear your expert opinions on this. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | giffgaff2 -
Subdomain or subfolder for each country
Hi all I have a great .com domain but the cctlds are not available so I plan on using the .com for all the countries and languages. What is the best approach for SEO: subdomains like wikipedia does (de.greatdomain.com) or subfolders (greatdomain.com/de)? I know this question comes up frequently on other websites but I would like to hear the Moz forum.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndersDK0 -
One site two languages - what to do with urls?
Hi, We are working with a client who has a Spanish site which is in English and Spanish, what is the best url structure to go for? www.domain.es and en.domain.es or www.domain.es and www.domain.es/en or none of the above?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J_Sinclair0 -
What's the best way to manage content that is shared on two sites and keep both sites in search results?
I manage two sites that share some content. Currently we do not use a cross-domain canonical URL and allow both sites to be fully indexed. For business reasons, we want both sites to appear in results and need both to accumulate PR and other SEO/Social metrics. How can I manage the threat of duplicate content and still make sure business needs are met?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BostonWright0 -
What would be the best domain choice?
Hello I got a website www.keywordCA.com and I'm ranking #1 spot on "keyword" but what I notice if you have the exact match you get more site links and etc. Like this keyword that match with my domain name "keyword CA" The ideal name will be www.keyword.com but is taken and the owner don't want to sell the domain (at least he is not using it, is just parked) and I also got the domain www.keyword.net Do you think www.keyword.net will be much better than KeywordCA.com in order to get more exposure and google will generate more site links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jpgprinting0 -
Keyword Targeting Best Practices??
What is the best way to target a specific keyword? I rank well for several of my keywords but want to do better on others. How do I go about doing this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
For multi language sites, what is best - two domains or one with both languages?
We are assisting a client in setting up English and Spanish sites in Texas. They want to be able to find customers who are Spanish speaking predominantly or totally along with the customers they now get who are English speakers. We are building them a new site and I have researched to find answers all over the board or less than clear. Should the structure be such that we have one site with a set of English and Spanish pages all with Spanish links to Spanish pages and English links to English pages. Should we instead just have an English site for those people who utilize English and a different site for those who utilize Spanish? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobertFisher0