International SEO - How do I show correct SERP results in the UK and US?
-
Hi, Moz community.
I hope you’re all OK and keeping busy during this difficult period. I have a few questions about international SEO, specifically when it comes to ranking pages in the UK and the US simultaneously. We currently have 2 websites set-up which are aimed towards their respective countries. We have a ‘.com’ and a ‘.com/us’.
If anybody could help with the issues below, I would be very grateful. Thank you all.
Issues
-
When looking in US Google search with a VPN, the title tag for our UK page appears in the SERP e.g. I will see:
-
UK [Product Name] | [Brand]
-
When checking the Google cache, the UK page version also appears
-
This can cause a problem especially when I am creating title tags and meta descriptions that are unique from the UK versions
-
However, when clicking through from the SERP link to the actual page, the US page appears as it should do. I find this very bizarre that it seems to show you the US page when you click through, but you see the UK version in the SERP when looking in the overall search results.
Current Set-Up
-
Our UK and US page content is often very similar across our “.com” and “.com/us” websites and our US pages are canonicalised to their UK page versions to remove potential penalisation
-
We have also added herflang to our UK and US pages
Query
- How do I show our US SERP as opposed to the UK version in US Google search?
My Theories/ Answers
-
US page versions have to be completely unique with content related to US search intent and be indexed separately - therefore no longer canonicalised to UK version
-
Ensure hreflang is enabled to point Google to correct local page versions
-
Ensure local backlinks point to localised pages
If anyone can help, it will be much appreciated. Many thanks all.
-
-
Same to you! Happy to help!
-
Thank you for taking the time to help me with all of my questions Kate. It is refreshing to know that experienced SEO marketers like yourself are happy to help others build their knowledge.
I hope you have a good weekend!
-
Yeah, that is actually what hreflang was intended to be. Just to differentiate content pages that had the same content just translated, even if in just dialect. Alas it is also used to show geo-targeting, but I try to not be mad about it
Change as much as needed to make the target market user comfortable. There is no hard and fast rule.
-
Thanks again Kate. This makes sense to me now and it seems to be a nice, easy method. I just have one final question when it comes to differentiating content between UK and US pages.
If we have a page that is relatively similar in terms of content, but the language has been amended to match the local dialect, will this remove the duplication issue if hreflang is in place?
Say, for example, there are 5 key features about a product on a page, and 3 of them are suited to both the US and UK markets. Is it enough to add localised spellings to each description, or would the entire paragraph have to be re-written from scratch to create 2 unique copies?
I see that some competitors re-write their content entirely which makes sense if they're appealing to differing local user intent but some only alter the spellings and their price points where needed. What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks
Katarina -
If the page is https://www.example.com/us/product/ then the hreflang on that page should be:
If it is on https://www.example.com/product/ then it is actually the same
The other two lines are not needed. x-default is for your homepage when there is no target and you are asking users to set their target. If you visit https://www.ikea.com/ in an incognito window, you'll see what I mean.
And general en is not needed here. You are using hreflang for helping the SEs understand the difference in the content across countries that use the same language. As much as I hate it for that purpose, they do use this as a signal. General "en" is if you had a business that didn't geo-target and rather just had translations. One page in English, one in Spanish, etc. But no localization.
-
Hi Kate!
Thanks for your response, I really appreciate the help. What you say makes a lot of sense. The reason we are opting for US and UK sites is that we offer different package and pricing information to each market so it was important to have a distinction between the two.
One thing that is very new to me, however, is the use of hreflang. Here is a sample of what we currently have on our UK and US pages:
I wasn't sure whether we needed to only include the emboldened line of code on US pages. Are the other 3 lines necessary? The same layout appears on our UK pages also.
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Katarina!
Your theories are right but let me explain a little more.
-
US page versions have to be completely unique with content related to US search intent and be indexed separately - therefore no longer canonicalised to UK version.
If you are going to create a US and UK version of your page, there needs to be a reason why. If there is no reason why other than "someone told us we should," then only do one page. If there is a reason like differing product information then the pages need to be distinct from each other. -
Ensure hreflang is enabled to point Google to correct local page versions
This is blended with what you said above. If you use a canonical and hreflang, the engines will get confused. You are telling them with the canonical that they are the same page. Then the hreflang tells them that the pages are different because of localization. You can't have both. Remove the canonical and make sure the hreflang is right. -
Ensure local backlinks point to localised pages.
Yes!
-
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
-
I have followed all the steps in google speed ranking on how to increase my website http://briefwatch.com/ speed but no good result
My website http://briefwatch.com/ has a very low-speed score on google page speed and I followed all the steps given to me still my website speed doesn't increase
Local Website Optimization | | Briefwatch0 -
Regional multilingual seo
Hello, I have a problem related to 3 website that we are publishing in Belgium. 90% of the content will be exactly the same. The domain names are going to be xxxx-flanders.be (content in NL) xxxx-wallonia.be (content in FR and DE) xxxx-brussels.be (content in FR and NL) My problem is that I will have duplicate content in French between xxxx-wallonia.be and xxxx-brussels.be and duplicate content in Dutch between xxxx-flanders.be and xxxx-brussels.be The granularity of hreflang language annotation and geotargeting in the Google Search Console is at the country level. How can I do that at the regional level?
Local Website Optimization | | Lvet0 -
Correct Localisation of my website on Google
I have a website which services various countries, specifically the United Kingdom and United States of America. I am now expanding the target of my website to focus on Australian and South African customers. The structure of my website is www.websitename.com/us/ for the American audience. This is also what appears on a Google search when browsing in the USA. For the United Kingdom we use just www.websitename.com which works and shows in the UK. When I have created the new versions which are:
Local Website Optimization | | A95Bennett
www.websitename.com/au/
www.websitename.com/za/ I go onto google search my company and still www.websitename.com shows (When browsing from the relevant location). When it should show the /au/ or /za/ versions. I have submitted the relevant sitemaps to Google Search Console. Yet still from Australia and South Africa the .com version of the website it what shows. Please offer any advice to how I can get the correct version of the website showing in the correct location?1 -
Local SEO Over Optimization
We are targeting a bunch of services for our local business that works in and around their location. I'm concerned about over optimization and need some guidance on whether these points should be resolved. The company is based in a city and works mostly in the city but also in the surrounding areas. Currently, the site has 6 services pages (accessible via main nav) targeting the same location i.e. “Made Up Service London”, “Imaginary Service London” (with URLs and H1 tags etc. in place containing this location). However this is soon going to become 9 services pages, I am concerned that the repetition of this one location is starting to look spammy, especially as its where the company is based. Initially, I also wanted pages targeting the same services in other nearby areas. For example “Made Up Service Surrey”, “Imaginary Service Essex”. This has not happened as the info available has been too sporadic. I was going to add links to relevant case studies into these pages to beef up the content and add interest. To that end, we came up with case studies, but after a while, I noticed that these are also largely focused on the primary location. So out of 32 case studies, we have 19 focused on the primary location again with URL’s and H1 tags etc containing the location keyword. So in total, we have 25 pages optimized for the location (soon to be 28 and more if further case studies are added). My initial feeling was that the inclusion of pages targeting services in other locations would legitimize what we have done with the main pages. But obviously we have not got these pages in place and I question whether we ever will. What is my best course of action moving forward?
Local Website Optimization | | GrouchyKids1 -
Local food delivery SEO strategy
Hey guys, I'm working with a new company that doesn't have a brick and mortar storefront, they deliver. They basically deliver pre packaged smoothies in a VERY localized area (Vancouver, BC). I'm wondering how grandiose their goals should be re ranking for keywords that have non localized authority. What do I mean? Lets say their marketing pillars are "health education related to smoothies" "convenient veggies for smoothies" "(insert health benefit here) for smoothies". Should they be trying to compete for these keywords? Or should they really be trying to rank with keywords especially to Vancouver? Side note: What kind of effect does Country and Locality have on keywords that are generally used by content providers and not service related companies building out an inbound strategy? Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | Anti-Alex0 -
International SEO Difficulty With Hreflang
Hi, It seems that multilingual sites can be very tricky sometimes. This is the second problem we are facing with a client this month... A company which already has a presence in Spain wants to expand now in Portugal, Brazil and Argentina. There are some linguistic differences between Spain Spanish and Argentina Spanish so we will have a slightly different content but same url (check below) We will also cover the linguistic differences between Portuguese and Brazilian but with different urls, so we will have 4 pages serving the same content in 3 ( technically 4 ) different languages: company.com/idioma -> (original Spain Spanish page - url stays the same.) company.com/es-ar/idioma (Argentina url) company.com/pt-pt/idioma (Portugal url) company.com/pt-br/lingua (Brazil url) Normally we know we should use alternate hreflang to all 4 pages, but now that the url changes, e.g between Argentina and Brazil, the case is the same or we can omit it for these two countries? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | Tz_Seo0 -
Local franchise seo strategy. what could be the best practice?
Hello what Could be the best practice of seo and website optimization for a franchise company. Business model: Lets say, a company(company.com) situated in a country having stores in different cities (more than 2 stores in some), provides n number of services depending on store's location. Physical addresses for some stores are available and new stores shall be launched in future. But, the seo and website pages are needed for those locations at the moment as well. If I choose a sub folder, to give each store a URL. This is how it should look like Country level pages company.com, company.com/service1/ _ _ _ company.com/serviceN/ City level pages company.com/city1/, company.com/city1/location1/ , company.com/city1/location2/, company.com/city2/ , company.com/city3/ Q1) In case I make each service page specific to a store location for eg. company.com/city1/service1/, it will create duplicate content issue because content of company.com/city1/service1/ and company.com/service1/ shall be 60% same, except for **meta title,description and contact detail in footer. ** So, the question arises that shall i give canonical to country level main services page i.e company.com/city1/service1/ canonical to company.com/service1/ as it is very hard to make unique content for same services page. Q2) Or Do I need to rework on my complete website design and seo strategy?
Local Website Optimization | | Technians1 -
Multilingual site making new URLs, how to preserve SEO juice?
Hello! My site currently serves content in german and english, however without having separate URLs (it depends on Accept-Language and has a submitform for changing language based on set cookies). The site appears extremely well in the search engine, with many keywords ranking at #1-10. They appear on the german and english google search, with the first one bringing the best results. It's however the english site that appears in the results. I want to change to a better approach by having subdirectories for each language, as I'm extending the site, I know how to do this but I have found -nowhere- any infos on how to preserve my search engine ranks? If I keep the english version as homepage and send german visitors to /de/, might this kill my position in the german search engine which is very important, as the new frontpage under /de/ would become more relevant and the english one maybe less? Or should I keep the german version the default one and send english visitors elsewhere? What happens with my search positions, if I have no side on the / but visitors are always send to either /en/ or /de/? Every help is greatly appreciated, as I found a lot of articles everywhere on how to make a multilingual site, but nowhere anything on how it affects current search results.
Local Website Optimization | | innovacy0