Google cache is showing the wrong URL with CCTLD's
-
Hi Folks,
At Lightspeed we decided to setup local websites with CCtld's. Momentarily we have issues with the Google cache. I'm not sure what's going wrong. For example if I check the Google cache of www.lightspeedhq.be in the Belgium Google it refers to www.lightspeedhq.nl. See link:
We have the same problem for our www.lightspeedhq.co.uk website, which is referring to www.lightspeedhq.com:
Does Google sees it as duplicate content? Or don't we have to use 'Alternative Hreflang'? A week ago we changed our canonical links which were actually randomly referring from .be > .nl and .co.uk to .com.
What can we do now to make sure all is properly indexed?
Best,
Ruud
-
Hi Rudd,
You have answered yourself to your questions by giving the background of the issue (thanks for doing it too as this is key to identify these type of issues):
"A week ago we changed our canonical links which were actually randomly referring from .be > .nl and .co.uk to .com."
This was certainly the problem which is still causing this as a consequence today... as you were telling before to Google that the original versions of your Belgian pages were the Dutch ones, and the same with the UK version pointing to the .COM one, so Google did what you were specifying and that's the reason why it was showing these other pages in their cache instead of the Belgian and UK ones, because they were "their originals". This has nothing to do with hreflang... it had to do with the way you were configuring your canonicals and what it meant.
It's great that you already fixed your canonicals though The thing is that Google seems to not having yet updated the information... you will certainly give it a bit of more time if that just happened a week ago. My recommendation is that you should resubmit for recrawling your Belgian and UK versions via Google Search Console so Google recognizes your current configuration and not the old one... once they do it, they will correctly show the right content in the cache, as now you have your canonicals set to inform that they're the original versions of themselves.
Thanks,
Aleyda
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
-
What is the 2020 Google ranking weight for EMD (exact matching domains)
I know EMD's ranking factor have been significantly reduced in the past decade, but do you think it can help at all in 2020? Thanks, Ryan
Local SEO | | RyanMeighan0 -
Miriam's 7 Local SEO Predictions for 2019
Greetings to our great Moz Community! It's been a fascinating year in Local Search, and I thought it would be good to jot down a few of my personal predictions for the year ahead. I'd love you to add yours, as well, so that we can all think together about the local businesses we'll be marketing in the new year. Here we go: 1) Major player weaknesses could lead to a changing of the local guard Whether it's Facebook's ethics scandals or Yelp's downward stock trends, loss of public confidence could mean a shift in a local search platform hierarchy that's been pretty well established for some years. These brands' ongoing challenges could spell out opportunity for newcomer brands, or could simply drive more people to Google. Google has had its own problems this year, but nevertheless... 2) Google will continue to dominate and monetize local search For so many users, Google IS the Internet, and that's an advantage no competitor has been able to overcome. In 2019, I expect to see further monetization of local SERPs, including LSA, in-pack local ads, booking buttons, and other forms of lead gen. Local search marketing will become more spendy. For more on creating strategy in this environment, read: Why Local Businesses will Need Websites More Than Ever in 2019. And, for retailers... 3) Real-time Online Local Inventory will become a real "thing" I'll have an article coming out on this in early 2019 on the Moz blog (Update: Now Published: https://moz.com/blog/taking-local-inventory-online), but in a nutshell, we're on course to cross a new threshold in search. You'll finally be able to search for local inventory and get accurate information about who near you stocks what in their stores. Google's See What's In Store feature will be part of this, but so will emerging third party technology. User behavior will change as a result of this, and just like we've all integrated online mapping/local search into our daily lives, we'll soon be familiar with using search to find local inventory. This is really great news for retailers of all sizes! Meanwhile... 4) The line between brands and people will blur further 2018 has been a fascinating study in what appears to be a rising consumer expectation that brands align with customers at a philosophical level. We saw Nike's stock go to a record high due to their deft read of the nation and company alignment with Colin Kaepernick, while other retailers lost millions over culturally-insensitive content. Big rewards and boycotts represent the two extreme ends of this spectrum in which your CEO isn't really a private person anymore, but rather, a member of the larger society with a voice that will be assessed for its empathy to causes, groups and events. This puts brand employees in unfamiliar territory, having some of their fate rise or fall based on the public stances of company leadership, and it puts a new premium on skillful awareness of societal trends. Because of this... 5) Smart local brands will speed up focus on sustainability Political pundits are predicting that the 2020 US election may be referendum on Climate Change. This means that US customers will be inundated with messaging and news surrounding this over the next two years. We're already seeing big brands like Patagonia respond by saying that they're "in the business of saving the planet" and Salesforce co-CEO billionaire Mark Benioff promising that his company will be running on 100% renewable energy by 2022. I predict that a growing body of consumers will increasingly expect and reward sustainable brand practices. 2019 will be a very good year for the local businesses you market to do a green audit of their business model, implement change and then promote their Climate-friendly practices. Think big on this, because... 6) Reputation will be key Everything a local business can do to please and retain customers should sit at the core of the business model. Whatever it is that gets your customers to leave positive reviews, return for repeat business, recommend you via WOM to their friends and family, and view you as a vital component of local commerce will have a serious impact on your reputation, rankings and revenue. Google recently stated that 27% of local searches have an intent of reading reviews about a specific business and our recent State of Local Industry Report here at Moz found that 91% of respondents agree that reviews impact rankings. Reputation, and the awareness of its role, will be very big in 2019. 7) Link building will become more deeply integrated into Local SEO Local Search Ranking Factors 2018 cited links as the 6th most influential local pack factor. This means that smart local SEOs will double down on their organic skills and start pursuing relevant links for their clients with professional, organized strategies and good tools. Any Local SEM package that leaves out link building will be incomplete. All in all, I predict we're in for an exciting, challenging year in which clear vision and a dedication to service will be the keys to local business success. **Now it's your turn! Where do you see us going in 2019 in the local search industry? Please, share your own predictions! **
Local SEO | | MiriamEllis8 -
What's the best approach to deleting a location page ?
We have several locations that moved to be under a parent location. Should I do a 404 redirect or a 301 redirect to parent page where they can find information about the location they are searching for.
Local SEO | | lina_digital0 -
Does having 3 city's in my Title Tag help or hurt me?
Hello!! I have a health insurance agency located in a small city. I need to reach more area's, and I'm wondering if adding a couple more cities to the Title Tag actually helps? Or should I go the other route and try achieving it with location landing pages? I've seen other websites do it, but I'm hesitant. Any advice welcome 🙂 The site is http://wilkersoninsuranceagency.com/ in Coppell, Tx It currently ranks 3rd on Google. Thank you in advance!! 🙂 xx
Local SEO | | MissThumann0 -
Getting Schooled in Local by 'Lesser' Brands?
Hi Moz! First question I've asked here. I've been working on campaign for my company (regional solar installation company in Northeast USA) for close to 7 years, we've always done well in local search but recently have noticed sites that, for lack of a better word, we 'school' in terms of all the usual metrics - better/more consistent local listings, better domain strength, better backlink profile, bigger company (in the real world), brand recognition, etc... However recently we have started seeing smaller competitors beat us in state-specific rankings, using stuff I would call 'old school' SEO that is no longer really tolerated, in theory - stuffing keywords onto page, keywords in domain, etc... domains of much less strength pulling #1 or #2 terms. Based on data I don't actually think keywords like "solar + state name" are actually that powerfully but frankly it is bit embarrassing to get crushed by 1-2 person companies when you have a 150+ company with a three-person in-house digital marketing team. My strategy so far has consisted of building a better Google review solicitation process, adding schema markup to our project gallery, and some SEO 101 stuff like reworking keywords and title tags. I've noticed a strong uptick on our site of leads from outside our territory (like folks from all across the USA who are NOT in our service territory) - I'm almost thinking I've done 'too good' a job of building a nationally relevant website and not enough state-specific options. Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Any clever strategies beyond the obvious? Can share more specifics if it'll be helpful. Cheers,
Local SEO | | revisionsolar
Fred0 -
My First SEO strategy - What's next?
I have recently embarked on an SEO strategy for my website. I've done a lot of reading and researching here on Moz and on search engine land and have got a good idea of how to build a basic SEO strategy. My own expertise is in PPC, so keyword strategy came easy to me. I rebuilt my website and focused on the on page SEO with every single page, this has brought really great results - instantly. For some of my chosen keywords I have gone from not being ranked to being on Google's first page - within a couple of days of my new website going live, for other's I've gone from being outside the top 50 to being ranked in the top 50, so my on page SEO has really strengthened my position and I now understand how important it is as a ranking factor. I've also started to create content on a regular basis with 2 or 3 new blogs being uploaded each week, the blogs are based around my businesses main target market's - PPC, Web design, digital marketing etc. These blogs have a lot of links out to good websites, EG "to learn about adwords check out the adwords fundamentals course on lynda.com" and useful info like that. I also signed up to whitespark for citation idea's so have started adding my site to all relevant directory suggestions that it gives me. So my question is this, after seeing great early results because of my on page SEO, what are my next steps to increase my rankings? And more specifically how do I use Moz to help increase my ranking? During the week, I've started using Open site explorer to find my competitors backlinks, should I now spend my time trawling through these links to find opportunities to add links for my website where I can. Is this a good thing to be doing at this stage? Anything else that I should be doing now to capitalise on my early results please let me know what it is and please tell me how to take full advantage of Moz to gain a better ranking. I appreciate all insight!
Local SEO | | michealbren0 -
All of our clients are showing an increase in traffic from Brazil?
Hello, I am concerned as all 30 of our clients show traffic coming from Brazil-and they are all locally-serving businesses. What's more, the visitors from Brazil is increasing in GA. It's looking more and more like our competitor is trying to thwart our good rankings by using some overseas IPs to mess with traffic. Is there anything I can do? There is no reason why any of our clients would be relevant to Brazil, as they serve only local clients. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
Local SEO | | lfrazer0 -
Google "pigeon" update, is Google turning search over to all the directories?
The recent news re an update by Google is beginning to show some interesting changes. The first major piece on this came from SearchEngineLand and had top local people like Linda Buquet commenting. Another post on this regarding a "yelp" correction from Search Engine Land was also illuminating. With the real estate vertical, I am seeing zero local companies in Houston, in the first couple of SERP's, other than the large MLS system, HAR. The others showing are all real estate directories that are nationwide like realty com, zil low, tru lia, etc. You literally cannot get a local brokerage to show on the first two pages of serps using any high volume keyword.
Local SEO | | RobertFisher
Does this mean Google is choosing to begin relegating its search results to the directories? Obviously, there is no right answer, but it certainly means those of us in the agency world need to be very careful (yes, even more so) going forward. I appreciate your comments. Robert2