Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Canonical: Same content but different countries
-
I'm building a website that has content made for specific countries. The url format is:
MyWebsite.com/<country name="">/</country>
Some of the pages for <specific url="">are the same for different countries, the <specific url="">would be the same as well. The only difference would be the <country name="">.</country></specific></specific>
How do I deal with canonical issues to avoid Google thinking I'm presenting the same content?
-
In response to your second question, it's fine to have /usa/ although /us/ or /en/ would be a more typical deployment (lots of people go like, /en-us/ and /en-gb/ as that structure allows for really granular international deployment!)
As long as the hreflangs are accurate and tell Google what language and region the URLs are for, as long as the hreflangs are deployed symmetrically with no conflicts or missing parts - it should be ok
Note that Google will expect to see different content on different regional URLs, sometimes even if they're the same language but targeted at different countries (tailor your content to your audience, don't just cut and paste sites and change tags and expect extra footprint). Stuff like shipping info and prices (currency shown) should also be different (otherwise don't even bother!)
Your hreflangs, if you are doing USA as your EN country, should not use 'en-gb' in the hreflang (instead they should use 'en-us')
If you're thing God the HTML implementation will make the code bloated and messy, read this:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
There are also HTTP header and XML sitemap deployment options (though IMO, HTML is always best and is the hardest, strongest signal)
-
Yep every page should reference every language, including its own language. but obviously with different URLs in the link fields, as different pages should have different regional equivalents (hope that makes sense)
-
Thank you, so if I had approximately 30 different countries, then I would reference all 30 different country URLs?
-
Basically the canonical tags should self reference, so long as they are also supported by hreflangs.
So for example if you had these two URLs:
... then on site.com/en/category/product you'd need:
**... and on site.com/fr/category/product you'd need:**
It's pretty simple really! Remember, only canonical URLs (usually not parameter-based child URLs) should self-reference with a canonical tag. Remember that Hreflangs need to be mutually agreed between pages for them to work (so if the FR page links to the EN page with a hreflang, but there's no hreflang coming back - it fails!) - Keep hreflangs simple and exactly symmetrical
-
Hi, newbguy,
It appears that your concern is about losing the different language versions of the same page? I assume that the content is the same apart from language or location. If this is the case here are some links that should help.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077
https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/
https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization
If after having a look through these you are still stuck, let me know.
If you do need further help can you please tell me
- Is the content the same on each page?
- Is the content in the same language on each page?
Please keep in mind that the URLs in your example are technically different as they <country name="">is different in each one.</country>
I hope this helps,
Steve
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
-
Duplicate content in sidebar
Hi guys. So I have a few sentences (about 50 words) of duplicate content across all pages of my website (this is a repeatable text in sidebar). Each page of my website contains about 1300 words (unique content) in total, and 50 words of duplicate content in sidebar. Does having a duplicate content of this length in sidebar affect the rankings of my website in any way? Thank you so much for your replies.
On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov1 -
Does hover over content index well
i notice increasing cases of portfolio style boxes on site designs (especially wordpress templates) where you have an image and text appears after hover over (sorry for my basic terminology). does this text which appears after hover over have much search engine value or as it doesnt immediately appear on pageload does it carry slightly less weight like tabbed content? any advice appreciated thanks neil
On-Page Optimization | | neilhenderson0 -
Product Colour Variation and Canonicals
Hi there, We are currently doing an SEO audit of an ecommerce website and we ar eunsure on the best practice in terms of using canonical link tag for some product variations. An example is that the company has a product with two colour variations: Black and Tan. These are for the same product and have 99% the same content. Within the content of the page the colour is the only thing that changes (along with the meta information and imagery of course). My question is should we choose one product and canonically link back to that one i.e. Black is the main product and we link Tan back to this via a canonical link? Many thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | yousayjump0 -
Duplicate Content - Blog Rewriting
I have a client who has requested a rewrite of 250 blog articles for his IT company. The blogs are dispersed on a variety of platforms: his own website's blog, a business innovation website, and an IT website. He wants to have each article optimised with keyword phrases and then posted onto his new website thrice weekly. All of this is in an effort to attract some potential customers to his new site and also to establish his company as a leader in its field. To what extent would I need to rewrite each article so as to avoid duplicating the content? Would there even be an issue if I did not rewrite the articles and merely optimised them with keywords? Would the articles need to be completely taken by all current publishers? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Duplicate content on partner site
I have a trade partner who will be using some of our content on their site. What's the best way to prevent any duplicate content issues? Their plan is to attribute the content to us using rel=author tagging. Would this be sufficient or should I request that they do something else too? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ShearingsGroup0 -
Canonical URL, cornerstone page and categories
If I want to have a cornerstone "page", can I substitute an actual page with a category archive of posts "page" (that contains many posts containing the target key phrase)? This way, if I make blog posts about a certain topic/ key phrase (example "beach weddings") and add a canonical URL of the category archive page to the individual posts, am I right then to assume google will see the archive page as the cornerstone page (and thereby won't see the individual posts with the same key phrase as competing)?
On-Page Optimization | | stephanwb0 -
Sliders and Content Above the Fold
I was just inspecting a wire frame that is going out to a client and realized that the slider may interfere with the "content above the fold." Can't believe this had not struck me on others. If the Header has basic business info, etc. in it and you place a slider to display images in the area just beneath the Header or slightly down from it, does that decrease the amount of content seen a being above the fold? Or, is content above the fold established by virtue of H1,2, 3, etc.?
On-Page Optimization | | RobertFisher0 -
Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?
Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy
On-Page Optimization | | MeghanPrudencio0