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.
How to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
-
Dear all,
what is the best way to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
What must I add to my code of websites my .nl domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl?
What must I add to my code of websites my .be domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl?
Thanks in advance!
-
In that case, I'll go for the Alternate link tag as mentionned before:
By using it, you will guide Google and tell him to show the flemish version in first position for your user in Belgium and vice-versa for the dutch users in Holland.
Hope this helps!
Maxime
-
Dear Maxime,
there texts and content are pretty much the same / identical. Maybe there are some slight textual differences since Flemish and Dutch are different sometimes.
Overall, all content is nearly the same.
Thanks for both of your help!
-
BenVer,
Please can you tell us what kind of duplicate content do you have on your different domains (.nl /.be) ?
Are the dutch and belgium page exactly the same? What are the differences?
Thanks,
Maxime
-
Maxime,
I saw this too, and there are certainly variants. Given, that for Google I have generally used WMT as the final source and usually that worked, I lean a bit more that way. But, your point is well stated and not wrong. For purposes of being absolutely safe, it will not hurt to have the hreflang attribute there. A better question might be: is it really necessary given the you have ccTLD's and the same language?
From WMT:
Some example scenarios where
rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
is recommended:- You translate only the template of your page, such as the navigation and footer, and keep the main content in a single language. This is common on pages that feature user-generated content, like a forum post.
- Your pages have broadly similar content within a single language, but the content has small regional variations. For example, you might have English-language content targeted at readers in the US, GB, and Ireland.
- Your site content is fully translated. For example, you have both German and English versions of each page.
I will assume that it is a given that google uses the ccTLD as the indicator of country and that it is considered a "Strong" signal to Google.
WIthin GWMT re: multilingual/regional sites (the bolded/italics are mine
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both __
example.de/
andexample.com/de/
show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers.Again, thanks for the replies. I find it really helpful to discuss back and forth as it adds to the learning adventure we are all on.
Best to you,
Robert
-
Maxime,
While I agree the speed might be different with in country hosting given they are both European countries. (Not true in some others.) But the question was around content duplication.
Again, I think your intent is good. But, since he has two separate domains. ExampleSite.be and ExampleSite.nl, he has no need of hreflang="x" since both are in Dutch. If he had Dutch and English it would not matter if it were the same domain or not:
From Gianluca Fiorelli mozPost**if Page A (US version) exists also in Page B (Spanish), C (French), and D (German) versions from other countires, no matter if they are in the same domain or different, then on page A you should suggest the last three URLs as the ones Google must show in the SERPs in their respective targeted Googles. **
Again, since they are ccTLD's and they are already geotargeted by virtue of same and since they are both in Dutch, there is no other worry re duplicate content.
I am open to being shown I am wrong as it will not be the first time
Best to you, thanks so much for your replies,
Robert
-
Hi Robert, 1. Yes indeed you are right, for a ccTLD, there is no geotargeting in GWMT. 2. Dutch is spoken in both Netherlands and Belgium so having the same content appearing on both .nl and .be domains is likely to be considered as duplicate content. Using rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” seems to be the most appropriate solution. 3. In my opinion, hosting each website in the country targeted is a plus (server response will be quicker) but this is indeed not decisive. So do it only if you have a large budget.
-
Maxime,
I have to question this as you have it. The intent is there, but you are throwing everything at a problem and some of it does not work:
1. for a ccTLD, there is no geotargeting in WMT: from GWMT:
Sites with country-coded top-level domains (such as .ie) are already associated with a geographic region, in this case Ireland. In this case, you won't be able to specify a geographic location.
2. He does not need this in a cross domain setting.
3. Given he has ccTLD's this is an unnecessary expense and will add no value.
Hope this clarifies for you,
-
BenVer
In a short answer, not much. This is from GWMT:
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries.
Since you are using ccTLD's, Google already knows that you are targeting that specific country.
While this will not guarantee that the .nl doesn't outrank the .be in Belgium, it will take care of your duplicate content concerns.
-
Is this the best way?
http://googleproducts-nl.blogspot.nl/2012/02/meertalige-en-multiregionale-websites.html
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
-
Advise on the right way to block country specific users but not block Googlebot - and not be seen to be cloaking. Help please!
Hi, I am working on the SEO of an online gaming platform - a platform that can only be accessed by people in certain countries, where the games and content are legally allowed.
International SEO | | MarkCanning
Example: The games are not allowed in the USA, but they are allowed in Canada. Present Situation:
Presently when a user from the USA visits the site they get directed to a restricted location page with the following message: RESTRICTED LOCATION
Due to licensing restrictions, we can't currently offer our services in your location. We're working hard to expand our reach, so stay tuned for updates! Because USA visitors are blocked Google which primarily (but not always) crawls from the USA is also blocked, so the company webpages are not being crawled and indexed. Objective / What we want to achieve: The website will have multiple region and language locations. Some of these will exist as standalone websites and others will exist as folders on the domain. Examples below:
domain.com/en-ca [English Canada]
domain.com/fr-ca [french Canada]
domain.com/es-mx [spanish mexico]
domain.com/pt-br [portugese brazil]
domain.co.in/hi [hindi India] If a user from USA or another restricted location tries to access our site they should not have access but should get a restricted access message.
However we still want google to be able to access, crawl and index our pages. Can i suggest how do we do this without getting done for cloaking etc? Would this approach be ok? (please see below) We continue to work as the present situation is presently doing, showing visitors from the USA a restricted message.
However rather than redirecting these visitors to a restricted location page, we just black out the page and show them a floating message as if it were a model window.
While Googlebot would be allowed to visit and crawl the website. I have also read that it would be good to put paywall schema on each webpage to let Google know that we are not cloaking and its a restricted paid page. All public pages are accessible but only if the visitor is from a location that is not restricted Any feedback and direction that can be given would be greatly appreciated as i am new to this angle of SEO. Sincere thanks,0 -
Help! Choosing a domain for a European sub-brand when working as a partner in North America
Background: Let's say there's a European company ABC.com, they have some presence in the US already for a lot of product brands in a certain space (let's say they make widgets). ABC Co gets 1,600 searches a month and all of that volume centers around the widgets they are known for. ABC Co purchases a company that makes gears, let's call it Gears Inc (gears.com). Gears Inc. was known for making gears in Europe, but their brand is not known in the US (search volume 0). Ideally, I would keep the Gears Inc. brand and build up the presence in the US, separating it from ABC Co. ABC Co wants to maintain their brand and eliminate Gears Inc. But we've received permission to keep the Gears brand for bringing that product to the US ... we will have an uphill battle building up the brand recognition, but at least it won't get lost in what ABC Co is already known for in the US. (ie: we don't want calls for widgets). Domain Situation: ABC Co. has redirected gears.com (DA 1) to a subdomain: {gearmakers}.abcco.com (DA 66) ... they have agreed to place a landing page under that 301 that links to the regional domains (theirs in the EU and ours in the US/North America). They are unwilling to let us use or purchase gears.com OR 301 gears.com directly to our domain. What we're trying to do: build Gears Inc. as a recognizable brand when someone searches "gears inc", this domain would rank first create a simple "brand domain" that a less-tech-savvy users could easily navigate to needs to have recognition in US, Canada and Mexico
International SEO | | mkretsinger
I don't know if this helps or provides anything more? The question is what do we use as our domain name? Any feedback is appreciated!0 -
Which Google does a .ie website get shown in?
Hi all, I am working on a .ie website and I was under the understanding that if you have a regional domain, like .ie you will limited to being shown in a search engine like google.ie When I go to International Targeting in Google SEarch Console it says the site is associated with: Ireland Am I limiting my ability to rank well in worldwide Google searches with this domain and if so, how can I counter this? Many thanks.
International SEO | | Bee1590 -
What's the difference between 'en-gb' and 'en-uk; when choosing Search engines in campaign set up?
Hi What's the difference search engine wise and which one should I choose, i presume GB since covers entire British landmass whereas UK excludes Ireland according to political definition, is it the same according to Google (& other engines) ? All Best Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Country subfolders showing as sitelinks in Google, country targeting for home page no longer working
Hi There, Just wondering if you can help. Our site has 3 region versions (General .com, /ie/ for Ireland and /gb/ for UK), each submitted to Google Webmaster Tools as seperate sites with hreflang tags in the head section of all pages. Google was showing the correct results for a few weeks, but I resubmitted the home pages with slight text changes last week and something strange happened, though it may have been coincidental timing. When we search for the brand name in google.ie or google.co.uk, the .com now shows as the main site, where the sitelinks still show the correct country versions. However, the country subdirectories are now appearing as sitelinks, which is likely causing the problem. I have demoted these on GWT, but unsure as to whether that will work and it seems to take a while for sitelink demotion to work. Has anyone had anything similar happen? I thought perhaps it was a markup issue breaking the head section so that Google can no longer see the hreflangs pointing to each other as alternates. I checked the source code in w3 validator and it doesn't show any errors. Anyway, any help would be much appreciated - and thanks to anyone who gets back, it's a tricky type of issue to troubleshoot. Thanks, Ro
International SEO | | romh0 -
How To Rank A UK Website On Google.com (US)
Hi, I've done some research on this but couldn't find any definitive answer I can trust! We have a client who resides in the UK. They have '.com' domain, hosted on a UK server, using UK spelling. Their business objective for this year is to expand in the USA, including the opening of a warehouse over there. They are wanting us to rank their website on both Google.co.uk and Google.com (North America); besides changing the geolocation settings in GWT's, and building links from .com websites is there anything else we can do to increase their visibility on Google.com? Many thanks in advance, appreciated!
International SEO | | Webpresence
Lee.0 -
International (foreign language) URL's best practices
I'm curious if there is a benefit or best practice with regards to using the localized language on international sites (with specific ccTLDs). For example, should my french site (site.fr) use the french language as keywords within the URLs or should they be in english? e.g. www.site.fr/nourriture vs. www.site.fr/food Is that considered best practice for SEO (or just for brand perception those markets?). Is there a tangible loss in SEO if we do not use the correct language for those URLs and just stick with English around the world? I recall seeing a Matt Cutts video on the topic and he said that google does support i18n URL's but other SE's might not support them as gracefully but he didn't come down with a hard recommendation to go with i18n URL's or just English. Would love a strong ruling in favor one direction based on best practices.
International SEO | | mongillo0 -
How to rank in Google for a specific country?
Hi, I've a relative good ranking for a specific keyword in google.com (english queries (hl=en)), but searching for the same keyword in google.com.br (Brazilian Portuguese (hl=pt-BR)), my rank for that keyword is far worst. The question is: I need to do something specific to rank in google.com.br (hl=pt-BR)? I'm doing the regular link building. Creating some blogs, blogging for 10 days before droping my links, and creating link wheels the same way. The blogs I create to make links are written in Brazilian Portuguese, also, the blog that I'm trying to rank higher, is also written in Brazilian Portuguese. Sorry for the english, it's not my native language. Thanks
International SEO | | izaiasalmeida0