Duplicate content on subdomains.
-
Hi Mozer's,
I have a site www.xyz.com and also geo targeted sub domains www.uk.xyz.com, www.india.xyz.com and so on. All the sub domains have the content which is same as the content on the main domain that is www.xyz.com.
So, I want to know how can i avoid content duplication.
Many Thanks!
-
It would probably be better (and more likely to get you responses) if you started a new question - this one is three years old. Generally, I think it depends on your scope. If you need some kind of separation (corporate, legal, technical), then separate domains or sub-domains may make sense. They're also easier to target, in some ways. However, you're right that authority may be diluted and you'll need more marketing effort against each one.
If resources are limited and you don't need each country to be a fully separate entity, then you'll probably have less headaches with sub-folders. I'm speaking in broad generalities, though - this is a big decision that depends a lot on the details.
-
Dear all,
I have bought 30 geo top level domains. This is for an ecommerce project that has not launcehd yet (and isn't indexed by Google).
I am now at a point where I can change/consolidate all domains as sub domains or sub folders or keep things as they are.
I just worry that link building would be scattered and not focused and that it might be better to concentrate the efforts on one domain.
What are your views on this?
Many thanks.
-
Yeah - I'm really afraid that stacking all those sub-domains is going to cause you long-term issues with your link-building, and that some of those sub-domains could fragment. If the country needs to be in a sub-domain, then I think the hybrid approach (with "/shop" as a sub-folder) may cause you less trouble.
I will warn, though, that any change like this carries some risk. You'll have to put proper 301-redirects in place.
I might try the href lang tags first, though, and see if it helps the current problem (it may take a few weeks). Changing too many aspects of the on-page SEO at once could cause you a lot of grief.
-
shop. pages are simply new pages which are added for products to be sold with ease. I think that i might move shop.uk.xyz.com pages to uk.xyz.com/shop/product as in a sub folder. Do you think this will help in passing on the link juice to those pages after the change and would be easy for me to include them in the sitemap as well??
-
If you have separate GWT profiles, then I think the XML sitemap may have to be under the sub-domain - Google has to be able to access it from a sub-domain URL. It doesn't have to be in the root of the sub-domain.
I'm not clear on what the "shop." pages are, but stacking sub-domains like that sounds like it's getting pretty messy. Why the separation?
-
I have already created separate profiles for the subdomains, but my only worry is where to place the sitemap on the server eg in the root directory of the root domain or in the root directory of the sub domain.
Coming to the (2) the pages which i want to include in the site map are my product pages. so want to know if shop.uk.xyz.com can be included in the sitemap which will be for uk.xyz.com and also if does that count as a internal page of uk.xyz.com
-
It is probably best to create separate profiles in Google Webmaster Tools, because then you can target the sub-domains to the countries in question. At that point, you could also set up separate sitemaps. It'll give you a cleaner view of how each sub-domain is indexed and ranking.
I'm not sure I understand (2) - why wouldn't you include those pages in the sitemap?
-
Thank you for your inputs. I has relly helped me understand the situation.
I will try to implement this and let you know how I have done on this. Also I had few more things on this:
1. do i require a separate sitemap and robots file for all the sub domains and where shall i place it on the server?
2. in the sub domain there are pages like shop.uk.xyz.com/product1. so can i include that in the sitemaps as those are the pages which i really want to rank for.
-
There's no perfect answer. Canonical tags would keep the sub-domains from ranking, in many cases. The cross-TLD stuff is weird, though - Google can, in some cases, ignore the canonical if they think that one sub-domain is more appropriate for the country/ccTLD the searcher is using.
Sub-domains can be tricky in and of themselves, unfortunately, because they sometimes fragment and don't pass link "juice" fully to the root domain. I generally still think sub-folders are better for cases like this, but obviously that would be a big change (and potentially risky).
You could try the rel="alternate" hreflang tags. They're similar to canonical (a bit weaker), but basically are designed to handle the same content in different languages and regions:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
They're basically designed for exactly this problem. You can set the root domain to "en-US", the UK sub-domain to "en-UK", etc. I've heard generally good things, and they're low-risk, but you have to try it and see. They can be a little tricky to implement properly.
-
No, 301 and canonicals are completely different
A 301 will redirect a page and a canonical is setting the preferred version of the page. For example:
301 - you have an old version of the page that looks like this www.example.com/p?=153 and you want it to look like www.example.com/red-apples. You would use a 301 from the old page (www.example.com/p?=153) to the new page (www.example.com/red-apples)
Canonical - Lets go back to the red apples example. Lets say you have a ecommerce site and you have different ways to search for products. One way is to search by fruit and the other by color. So what you'll have is two versions of the end result. For example. You'll have www.example.com/fruit/red-apples and you might have www.example.com/red/red-apples. Since both of those pages show the same information you don't want the engines to think its duplicate content so you can add a rel=canonical link element to both pages to the preferred version of the two. (ie you might want to have the canonical be www.example.com/red-apples) That's all it does. It tells the engines your preferred version of the pages that may be the same.
Back to your original post, you really don't need to "noindex" but I thought you were having a duplicate content issue and that would solve the issue. (Generally, Google won't penalize you this sort of duplicate content)
Here is what I would do.
If you don't have Google Webmaster tools already set up then do so. Verify each version of your subdomain, (ie. india.xyz.com, uk.xyz.com, etc)(let me know if you need help) and then set your Geo Target for each them manually (You'll have to set this up manually because you have a gTLD and not a ccTLD)
How to set your Geo Target manually.
To to a particular version of your site in WMT (ie. india.xyz.com) and click on "configuration" then "settings". Under "settings" the first sections says "Geographical Target". "Check" the box and then use the drop down to select "india".
Repeat this for all of your subdomains for each specific country.
This will let Google know that you are trying to target users in a specific country.
If you have the money to invest in it, I would also try to have those subdomains hosted by a server in each particular country. (strong signal for Google)
Hope it helps.
-
Thanx Darin!
I have few doubts on this:
1. is rel canonical like a 301 redirect? As my concern is if my user goes to www.uk.xyz.com/productx , will he be redirected to to www.xyz.com/product
2. my sub domain pages are ranking in the country specific search engine. For ex, www.uk.xyz.com is ranking for keywords in google.co.uk. So if i noindex then i will loose my search engine presence in the country specific search engine.
PS the content on the pages is all same apart from the product currency.
-
I disagree. I said "noindex" not "nofollow". Link juice will be passed but not show up in the Serps. I do agree with you though that the strategy as a whole, if there is in-fact exact/duplicate content, seems to be a waste. Unless these pages are in another language, I don't see the point of this subdomain strategy.
-
Canonical will help to remove duplicate issues and also to consolidate your link values. I didn't see any issue with cross domain implementation.
If you add "noindex" to any of these pages, you won't get any link credit.
-
Short Answer: Set a canonical url on the pages to the root domain version and noindex the subdomain pages.
What this does is avoid the duplicate content problem. Generally, those subdomain pages won't rank anyway because the same information is on the "main" site. You can still build links to those subdomain pages and do a strong internal link structure to help the "main" site rankings.
The only negative to this is that the pages in your subdomain won't rank. That's not necessarily a bad thing but just know they won't. But, if the pages are truly duplicate content, they won't rank anyway.
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
-
If I have two brands and I market one in English (BrandA.com) and one in Spanish (BrandB.com), and the websites are identical but in different languages, would that have a negative impact on SEO due to duplicate content?
I have a client who wants a website in Spanish and one in English. Typically we would use a multi-language plugin for a single site (brandA.com/en or /es), but this client markets to their Spanish-speaking constituents under a different brand. So I am wondering if we have BrandA.com in English, and the exact same content in Spanish at BrandB.com if there will be negative SEO implications and/or if it will be recognized as duplicate content by search engines?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Designworks-SJ1 -
Duplicate content issue
Hello! We have a lot of duplicate content issues on our website. Most of the pages with these issues are dictionary pages (about 1200 of them). They're not exactly duplicate, but they contain a different word with a translation, picture and audio pronunciation (example http://anglu24.lt/zodynas/a-suitcase-lagaminas). What's the better way of solving this? We probably shouldn't disallow dictionary pages in robots.txt, right? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jpuzakov0 -
Category Pages For Distributing Authority But Not Creating Duplicate Content
I read this interesting moz guide: http://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt, which I think answered my question but I just want to make sure. I take it to mean that if I have category pages with nothing but duplicate content (lists of other pages (h1 title/on-page description and links to same) and that I still want the category pages to distribute their link authority to the individual pages, then I should leave the category pages in the site map and meta noindex them, rather than robots.txt them. Is that correct? Again, don't want the category pages to index or have a duplicate content issue, but do want the category pages to be crawled enough to distribute their link authority to individual pages. Given the scope of the site (thousands of pages and hundreds of categories), I just want to make sure I have that right. Up until my recent efforts on this, some of the category pages have been robot.txt'd out and still in the site map, while others (with different url structure) have been in the sitemap, but not robots.txt'd out. Thanks! Best.. Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Duplicate content on subdomains
Hi All, The structure of the main website goes by http://abc.com/state/city/publication - We have a partnership with public libraries to give local users access to the publication content for free. We have over 100 subdomains (each for an specific library) that have duplicate content issues with the root domain, Most subdomains have very high page authority (the main public library and other local .gov websites have links to this subdomains).Currently this subdomains are not index due to the robots text file excluding bots from crawling. I am in the process of setting canonical tags on each subdomain and open the robots text file. Should I set the canonical tag on each subdomain (homepage) to the root domain version or to the specific city within the root domain? Example 1:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NewspaperArchive
Option 1: http://covina.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/us/california/covina/
Option 2: http://covina.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/ Example 2:
Option 1: http://galveston.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/us/texas/galveston/
Option 2: http://galveston.abc.com = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/ Example 3:
Option 1: http://hutchnews.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/us/kansas/hutchinson/
Option 2: http://hutchnews.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/ I believe it makes more sense to set the canonical tag to the corresponding city (option 1), but wondering if setting the canonical tag to the root domain will pass "some link juice" to the root domain and it will be more beneficial. Thanks!0 -
Duplicate Page Title/Content Issues on Product Review Submission Pages
Hi Everyone, I'm very green to SEO. I have a Volusion-based storefront and recently decided to dedicate more time and effort into improving my online presence. Admittedly, I'm mostly a lurker in the Q&A forum but I couldn't find any pre-existing info regarding my situation. It could be out there. But again, I'm a noob... So, in my recent SEOmoz report I noticed that over 1,000 Duplicate Content Errors and Duplicate Page Title Errors have been found since my last crawl. I can see that every error is tied to a product in my inventory - specifically each product page has an option to write a review. It looks like the subsequent page where a visitor can fill out their review is the stem of the problem. All of my products are shown to have the same issue: Duplicate Page Title - Review:New Duplicate Page Content - the form is already partially filled out with the corresponding product My first question - It makes sense that a page containing a submission form would have the same title and content. But why is it being indexed, or crawled (or both for that matter) under every parameter in which it could be accessed (product A, B, C, etc)? My second question (an obvious one) - What can I do to begin to resolve this? As far as I know, I haven't touched this option included in Volusion other than to simply implement it. If I'm missing any key information, please point me in the right direction and I'll respond with any additional relevant information on my end. Many thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DakotahW0 -
How to remove duplicate content, which is still indexed, but not linked to anymore?
Dear community A bug in the tool, which we use to create search-engine-friendly URLs (sh404sef) changed our whole URL-structure overnight, and we only noticed after Google already indexed the page. Now, we have a massive duplicate content issue, causing a harsh drop in rankings. Webmaster Tools shows over 1,000 duplicate title tags, so I don't think, Google understands what is going on. <code>Right URL: abc.com/price/sharp-ah-l13-12000-btu.html Wrong URL: abc.com/item/sharp-l-series-ahl13-12000-btu.html (created by mistake)</code> After that, we ... Changed back all URLs to the "Right URLs" Set up a 301-redirect for all "Wrong URLs" a few days later Now, still a massive amount of pages is in the index twice. As we do not link internally to the "Wrong URLs" anymore, I am not sure, if Google will re-crawl them very soon. What can we do to solve this issue and tell Google, that all the "Wrong URLs" now redirect to the "Right URLs"? Best, David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rmvw0 -
How to Best Establish Ownership when Content is Duplicated?
A client (Website A) has allowed one of their franchisees to use some of the content from their site on the franchisee site (Website B). This franchisee lifted the content word for word, so - my question is how to best establish that Website A is the original author? Since there is a business relationship between the two sites, I'm thinking of requiring Website B to add a rel=canonical tag to each page using the duplicated content and referencing the original URL on site A. Will that work, or is there a better solution? This content is primarily informational product content (not blog posts or articles), so I'm thinking rel=author may not be appropriate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Allie_Williams0 -
I have a duplicate content problem
The website guy that made the website for my business Premier Martial Arts Austin disappeared and didn't set up that www. was to begin each URL, so I now have a duplicate content problem and don't want to be penalized for it. I tried to show in Webmaster tools the preferred setup but can't get it to OK that I'm the website owner. Any idea as what to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OhYeahSteve0