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
-
Ecom: Hreflang start working - anything I can do about SERP currencies?
Hello everyone, Finally, after moving our hreflang tags from our sitemap to our header HTML, Google seems to start displaying the correct URLs in the SERPs. From what I can see - Google folds URLs, so instead of indexing all pages, it only selects an English version of our site but displays a different URL based on our hreflang tags (not sure if that's good or bad or if I should work towards a full indexation). However - I am now facing the issue that the wrong currency will often be displayed in my SERPs. E.g. in Australia I may have Euros or in Canada we see British Pounds (i.e. /en-ca/* URL shows in SERPs but the /en-gb/* URL is actually indexed). Is there any way around this? I was searching for a solution and found some but seems like most don't exist anymore (https://moz.com/community/q/topic/53216/international-seo-ecommerce-rich-snippets/3) at least if I try and dig deeper into the source. What's the current recommendation?
International SEO | | sriffs0 -
Using same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags
Hi,I have a question. Is it okay if I use the same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags? For example, for my en-us page: Is this okay with Google? What are your thoughts on this?
International SEO | | Avid_Demand0 -
Targeting an Specific Country Audience - Domain Q
Hiya everyone! I know this might entail a novice SEO question, but i am having some doubts. Hope you can give your opinions. Its kind of technical question regarding domain and country targeting. I have a Steel Construction company targeting only the audience of the particular country. Last year, i bought the targeted domains for my brand (company name), as in domain.country specific TLD, Should i use these domains, redirect them, or something? Would that help?. I currently use domain.com, but i am constantly being beaten down by websites with domain specific with overly thin content, no PA or DA, and 0 links to their site. Should i use my country specific domains, would that make a difference? Note: I also run some marketing campaigns for charitable foundation i started, and i used country specific domain and server, and with little effort i ranked top 3 in most of the desired terms. Any help or comment is appreciated, Thanks!
International SEO | | JesusD0 -
Geotargeting two locations using root and /country
Hello, I am in the process of turning my UK targeted website into a global website in multiple languages. I will be using the new HREFLANG tag but I'm wondering about geotargeting. I've set this up in Webmaster Tools as: example.com = UK content
International SEO | | Seaward-Group
example.com/us = US content
example.com/de = German content
example.com/es = Spanish content
example.com/fr = French content
example.com/it = Italian content
example.com/nl = Dutch content Will the root UK content override the following sub directories that are set as a different location because its not /uk? Thank you.0 -
How can I rank couple of pages to a specific geography ?
Hi guys, I have a pretty good success in many of my keyword on google US. We are a multi-country company and would like to get better ranking on all these countries. I know it's a long run and we need to by patient to get the rank desired. We are getting the slowly, bu surely. In the next couple of months, we will be attending a conference where we will have a booth and we would like to conduct a campaign to invite customers to join us. My question is : Is there an efficient way to have just couple of pages on our web site that could potentially rank fast on a specific geography ? Europe is my target audience ( France an UK ). If you have any advice, I would appreciate. Best regards,
International SEO | | processia1 -
Use country-specific domains or stick to already strong .com domain?
We run an online store with the majority of our customers coming from 4 different European countries. The site is accessible through TLD's of all of these countries. However our .com domain currently has the most links pointing to it and the highest domain authority. Unfortunately, we are unable to tell through which TLD visitors reach our site. The niche is rather competetive, and therefore I am unsure whether it would be worth it to solely use our .com domain for the English language, and try to rank for each of the seperate languages with its own country-specific domain. **Question/discussion: **Will it be worth the costs and time to spent to build links for the country specific domains in these countries, or should we focus on making our .com domain stronger and use it for all countries? I'm aware of the benefits of ranking with a domain in the country the user is in. Note: We have major duplicate content issues at this moment, due the content being available in different languages, on a handful of domains. On each domain, users can view the site in different languages. In addition, the language indication in the url is not very clear (?lang=x) so I believe this should be improved to make it easier for search engines to tell which language is presented. If I choose to use a different language for each TLD, then the language flag in the navigation on the site will point to a different domain, so each language is hosted on 1 domain and there is no more duplicate content. However, I'm afraid this will lead to lower rankings, as the (strong) .com domain will no longer host the content in different languages.
International SEO | | 1200wd0 -
Differents TLDs and same contents not a problem Matt Cutts says?
Matt Cutts says on this video that you can have the same content on different TLDs and there is no duplicate content for Google. Have someone try this experience? For example : same content on "mysite.fr" and "mysite.be". And for the visitors from Belgium, will they see into the SERPs "mysite.be" and for the visitors from France "mysite.fr"? Thank you for your answer guys. Jon watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo&feature=player_embedded
International SEO | | JonathanLeplang1 -
Google Webmaster Tools - International SEO Geo-Targeting site with Worldwide rankings
I have a client who already has rankings in the US & internationally. The site is broken down like this: url.com (main site with USA & International Rankings) url.com/de url.com/de-english url.com/ng url.com/au url.com/ch url.com/ch-french url.com/etc Each folder has it's own sitmap & relative content for it's respective country. I am reading in google webmaster tools > site config > settings, the option under 'Learn More': "If you don't want your site associated with any location, select Unlisted." If I want to keep my client's international rankings the way it currently is on url.com, do NOT geo target to United States? So I select unlisted, right? Would I use geo targeting on the url.com/de, url.com/de-english, url.com/ng, url.com/au and so on?
International SEO | | Francisco_Meza0