Are my translated pages damaging my ranking?
-
Hi there,
I have a site in English but with duplicates in different languages.
The first problem is that these translated versions of my site receive no ranking on google stars (while the english does) - why is this?
The second problem is that SEOmoz counts the errors on my site and then duplicates this error count for all the translated versions of my site - meaning I have a huge amount of errors (too many on-page links).
Add this to the fact that I use affilite ID´s to track different types of traffic to my site - so all page urls in english and other languages, with an affiliate id on the end of the url, count as an error.
This means I have a huge amount of on page errors indicated by SEOmoz, plus no ranking for my translated pages - I think this is really harming my overall ranking and site trust.
What are your opinions on this?
-
Is there a subdomain for each language?
Is there a "default" language that exists on the primary domain (i.e. English on www.yourwebsite.com)?
Are you using rel href lang, X-Default Hrefe Lang, rel canonical, or other "tags" or solutions for this at the moment?
If you could share the website address we wouldn't have to ask these questions, by the way. I know that is especially tough on client sites, but I just wanted to say that Dave has asked some vital questions, including the one about setting each subdomain as its own language / geographic target audience. Here is what he is asking about: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=62399
It is not necessary to have completely unique content for each language, as someone suggested below.
-
Bryan I really don't think that is what Dave is saying.
-
Did you claim the subdomain as a new language in webmaster tools?
-
Hi dave, thanks for your reply.
Our translations across the site are as a subdomain, they are hand-translated
-
What dave is saying is it's better to have unique content for each language because it gets crawled.
-
Do you have the translations on language specific TLDs or as a subfolder or a subdomain on your current site? Is the translation being done by a widget or was the content hand-translated by a professional translator?
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
-
How i rank in Latin America and Spain?
Hi everyone! I need to rank my site with Spanish content in Latin America and Spain. Do I choose a neutral Spanish to try to rank in every country or make content for each country? If you choose a neutral Spanish, which is the most indicated (Spain, Colombia, Mexico, other)?
International SEO | | Ewerton.RD0 -
Wants to Rank Well in Multiple Countries
We have been using moz subscription from last few months & are quite happy so far. We just wanted to explore more out of it & wanted to understand how to approach the optimization for having us rank well in US. At the same time we don't wanted to lose upon what we have achieved till now. I have read through some blog posts & found that changing the international targeting in GWT can also hurt. My vision is to rank well in multiple countries but at the same time do not lose rankings in India. Any help here would be appreciated so whatever we do, we do it right.
International SEO | | fourseven0 -
Duplicate Page Content due to Language and Currency
Hi Folks, hoping someone can help me out please I have a site that I'd like to rank in France and the UK but I'm getting a stack of duplicate content errors due to English and French pages and GBP and EUR prices. Below is an example of how the home page is duplicated: http://www.site.com/?sl=en?sl=fr
International SEO | | Marketing_Today
http://www.site.com/?sl=fr?sl=fr
http://www.site.com
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP?sl=fr
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?sl=fr?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR?sl=fr
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR
http://www.site.com/?sl=en¤cy=EUR
http://www.site.com/?sl=en¤cy=GBP
http://www.site.com/?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP
http://www.site.com/?sl=en?sl=en Each page has the following code in the that updates according to the page you are on: How do I simplify this and what's the correct approach?0 -
Duplicate product description ranking problems (off-site duplicate content)
We do business in niche category and not in English language market. We have 2-3 main competitors who use same product information as us. They all do have same duplicate products descriptions as we. We with one competitors have domains with highest authority in this market. They maybe have 10-20% better link profile (when counting linking domains and total links). Problem is that they rank much better with product names then we do (same duplicate product descriptions as we have and almost same level internal optimisation) and they haven't done any extra link building for products. Manufacturers website aren't problem, because these doesn't rank well with product name keywords. Most of our new and some old product go to the Supplemental Results and are shown in "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the ... already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.". Unique text for products isn't a option. When we have writen unique content for product, then these seem to rank way better. So our questions is what can we do externaly to help our duplicate description product rank better compared to our main competitor withour writing unique text? How important is indexation time? Will it give big advantage to get indexed first? We have thought of using more RSS/bing services to get faster indexation (both site will get products information almost at same time). It seems our competitor get quicker in index then we do. Also are farmpages helpful for getting some quick low value links for new products. We have planed to make 2-3 domains that would have few links pointint to these new products to get little advantage right after products are launched and doesn't have extranl links. Sitemap works and our new product are shown on front pages (products that still mostly doesn't rank well and go to Supplemental Results). Some new product have #1 or top3 raking, but these are only maybe 1/3 that should have top3 rankings. Also we have noticed problem that when we index products quickly (for example Fetch as Google) then these will get good top3 results and then some will get out of rankings (to Supplemental Results).
International SEO | | raido0 -
Human Translation versus Google Translate for Ecommerce Products
Hi all, We want to put our products on our ecommerce site into another language. I have always been under the impression that running text through Google Translate is a no no, not only for the user experience, but also it is a Google tool and I am assuming that Google would notice that it is not translated by a human. I don't know if it would incur a penalty as such but it most likely would not be favoured as a human translation Can anyone confirm their experience or impression on this? Thanks!
International SEO | | bjs20100 -
Pages with Duplicate Page Title
Blog - FDM Group has duplicate page title for all blog posts. We also have multiple localized versions of pages, so the titles are seen as duplicate. Possible resolutions? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | fdmgroup0 -
Any practical examples of ranking 1 domain in multiple countries?
Hi, I've done a fair amount of research on international SEO including here on MOZ but was hoping some fellow Mozzers might have some practical examples of how they have got 1 domain to rank in multiple countries, ideally US & UK. Im possibly looking at getting a high authority domain which ranks great on US into the UK engines. I want to keep to the 1 domain to benefit from the high authority and for logistical reasons. Thanks in advance, Andy
International SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
International Landing Page Strategy
Hello, I'm looking for some insight in an area that I don't have much experience in - hoping the community can help! We are a healthcare staffing company serving clients in the U.S. (www.bartonassociates.com). We are interested in attracting clients in Australia and New Zealand. I'm wondering if anyone as experience with best practices for doing so (both from an SEO and PPC perspective). Would it be best to purchase .au and .nz domains for these landing pages and link back to our US site for more information (or even recreate a modified version of our US site for .au and .nz). My concern here is duplicate content issues, among other things. Or, would it be better to create Australia and New Zealand focused landing pages on our US site and drive PPC there? My concern here is that we would never get organic traffic from Australia and New Zealand to our US site, in light of the competition. Also, the messaging would be a bit mixed if targeting all three countries. Our core term is "locums" and "locum tenens". Greatly appreciate any insight from you guys. Thanks, Jason
International SEO | | ba_seomoz0