English pages given preference over local language
-
We recently launched a new design of our website and for SEO purposes we decided to have our website both in English and in Dutch. However, when I look at the rankings in MOZ for many of our keywords, it seems the English pages are being preferred over the Dutch ones. That never used to be the case when we had our website in the old design. It mainly is for pages that have an English keyword attached to them, but even then the Dutch page would just rank.
I'm trying to figure out why English pages are being preferred now and whether that could actually damage our rankings, as search engines would prefer copy in the local language.
An example is this page: https://www.bluebillywig.com/nl/html5-video-player/ for the keywords "HTML5 player" and "HTML5 video player".
-
Possible Reasons for English Page Preference:
Technical SEO:
Hreflang tags: Double-check your hreflang implementation to ensure it's correctly pointing to the Dutch version for Dutch users.
Content differences: Verify if the content on the Dutch page is identical to the English page, including title tags, meta descriptions, and headings. Even slight differences can impact rankings.
Mobile responsiveness: Ensure both versions are mobile-friendly and optimized for different screen sizes.
Content Quality:
Keyword targeting: Analyze keyword usage in both versions. Are the Dutch pages properly optimized for Dutch keywords?
Unique content: While mirroring content is acceptable, unique value in the Dutch version can attract Dutch users and improve rankings.
User engagement: Check analytics to see if users engage more with the English page (e.g., higher time on page, lower bounce rate). This can signal search engines about user preference.
Potential Impacts and Actions:Ranking Damage: While having English pages rank for Dutch keywords isn't necessarily damaging, it can divert traffic from the intended audience. Ideally, the Dutch page should rank for Dutch keywords in the Netherlands.
Investigate: Use tools like Google Search Console and Moz to analyze specific keyword rankings, crawl errors, and user engagement metrics for both versions.
Optimize Dutch Pages: Ensure proper technical SEO, optimize content for Dutch keywords, and consider adding unique value to attract Dutch users.
Monitor and Refine: Track progress and adjust your approach based on ongoing analysis and results.
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
-
Understanding Redirects and Canonical Tags in SEO: A Complex Case
Hi everyone, nothing serious here, i'm just playing around doing my experiments 🙂
Technical SEO | | chueneke
but if any1 of you guys understand this chaos and what was the issue here, i'd appreciate if you try to explain it to me. I had a page "Linkaufbau" on my website at https://chriseo.de/linkaufbau. My .htaccess file contains only basic SEO stuff: # removed ".html" using htaccess RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.*)\.html\ HTTP RewriteRule (.*)\.html$ $1 [R=301,L] # internally added .html if necessary RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$ RewriteRule (.*) $1\.html [L] # removed "index" from directory index pages RewriteRule (.*)/index$ $1/ [R=301,L] # removed trailing "/" if not a directory RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$ RewriteRule (.*)/ $1 [R=301,L] # Here’s the first redirect: RedirectPermanent /index / My first three questions: Why do I need this rule? Why must this rule be at the top? Why isn't this handled by mod_rewrite? Now to the interesting part: I moved the Linkaufbau page to the SEO folder: https://chriseo.de/seo/linkaufbau and set up the redirect accordingly: RedirectPermanent /linkaufbau /seo/linkaufbau.html I deleted the old /linkaufbau page. I requested indexing for /seo/linkaufbau in the Google Search Console. Once the page was indexed, I set a canonical to the old URL: <link rel="canonical" href="https://chriseo.de/linkaufbau"> Then I resubmitted the sitemap and requested indexing for /seo/linkaufbau again, even though it was already indexed. Due to the canonical tag, the page quickly disappeared. I then requested indexing for /linkaufbau and /linkaufbau.html in GSC (the old, deleted page). After two days, both URLs were back in the serps:: https://chriseo.de/linkaufbau https://chriseo.de/linkaufbau.html this is the new page /seo/linkaufbau
b14ee095-5c03-40d5-b7fc-57d47cf66e3b-grafik.png This is the old page /linkaufbau
242d5bfd-af7c-4bed-9887-c12a29837d77-grafik.png Both URLs are now in the search results and all rankings are significantly better than before for keywords like: organic linkbuilding linkaufbau kosten linkaufbau service natürlicher linkaufbau hochwertiger linkaufbau organische backlinks linkaufbau strategie linkaufbau agentur Interestingly, both URLs (with and without .html) redirect to the new URL https://chriseo.de/seo/linkaufbau, which in turn has a canonical pointing to https://chriseo.de/linkaufbau (without .html). In the SERPs, when https://chriseo.de/linkaufbau is shown, my new, updated snippet is displayed. When /linkaufbau.html is shown, it displays the old, deleted page that had already disappeared from the index. I have now removed the canonical tag. I don't fully understand the process of what happened and why. If anyone has any ideas, I would be very grateful. Best regards,
Chris0 -
How to optimize landing pages for local search?
I'm trying to understand how to optimize landing pages to appear in local search. For example, if someone in Chicago searches for "plumber", Yelp has a page "Top 10 Plumbers in Chicago." They are generating these pages for numerous business types and cities. I can't see anything on the page or metadata that indicates a geographic location or business type. What optimizations are they doing to get Google to know that it's a page for a specific city and type of business?
Local SEO | | Tourizee0 -
these sites where you have to pay to generate backlinks?
After opening a site here, we created a post containing a backlink and discovered a company with a top exposure. After opening the site in the same way, I created a post that included a backlink, but after a few days my account was suspended. By any chance, are these sites where you have to pay to generate backlinks? Of course, each site has a different policy, but my account is suspended every time.
SEO Tactics | | znjfl
Please reply if you have experienced anything similar to mine.0 -
No Appreciable Effect of Moz Local?
I've been using Moz Local for over a year and these are the results for $129?! ... https://moz.com/products/local/check-listing?ubrecheckid=152151793&ubrechecktoken=zc2pg9Ic2qkADDYL Please advise.
Local SEO | | ianpritchardphd0 -
How to Get a New Organic SERP Image Pack
I have been doing a little on-page SEO on our site today and came across the following images embedded within organic SERPs, please see the screenshot. Obviously the users eye is drawn to these and therefore they are likely to result in more clicks. It would be great to know what they are called and how to go about getting these for our own results? If we managed to implement these across our site it would make a big difference for us, as working in the travel space, images are so strong when painting a picture of the destination. Thanks
SEO Tactics | | wildernessscotland
Ben 0073280b-3daa-4558-b5fd-3cbde422d623-image.png0 -
National services provider and localized SEO (no physical stores)
Doing work for a telecom provider who operates in over 25 states. They are not trying to drive traffic to their brick-and-mortar stores. They want their marketing website to show products/services/pricing dynamically when a user enters their zip code. Previously, we could not show this until the shopper was already in the purchase flow that began with their serviceable address. They want to move these location-based details more forward in the shopping experience. They would likely have a "default" zip and set of services/pricing displaying until a user changes their location. My question is how does Google treat local SEO on a site where all location-targeted content is dynamic? Will the website suffer in localized search, when a shopper, say, in Colorado, wants to search for Internet providers? Is it better to have distinct landing pages for each territory with services/pricing?
Local SEO | | sprydigital0 -
How to best handle search landing pages - that don't exist
I have quite a bit of blog information that can be searched, which results in "pages" that don't actually live anywhere. These are scanned by Moz and appear as poor page quality for speed, etc. How do I get the service to either ignore all of these or is there a way to treat them as a real page with content? As there are quite a few generated over time, I'd like to be able to capture them somehow. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | amac70 -
Unsolved GMB Local SEO question
I am trying to diagnose how one particular competitor is smoking us in local rankings. I came across a text field “Service Details' within Google My Business Services. This allows me to put in a brief description of each service we offer. My thought is that this could be a good place for keywords. That said, the descriptions are not public facing (or to the best of my knowledge) so I am reluctant to do all the work for nothing. I am wondering if anyone has filled these out and if there were any noticeable results. Any insight is appreciated
Local SEO | | jorda0910