International web site - duplicate content?
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I am looking at a site offering different language options via a javascript drop down chooser. Will google flag this as duplicate content? Should I recommend the purchase of individual domains for each country?
i.e. .uk
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To avoid duplicate content you need to use the rel=”alternate” href=”x” tag. You dont have to buy a domain, here are several ways you can organise your website.
ccTLDs - [example.ie]
Pros
- Clear geotargeting
- Server location irrelevant
- Easy separation of sites
Cons
- Expensive (and may have limited availability)
- Requires more infrastructure
- Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes)
****Subdomains with gTLDS [de.example.com]
Pros
- Easy to set up
- Can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting
- Allows different server locations
- Easy separation of sites
Cons
- Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone (is “de” the language or country?)
Subdirectories with gTLDs [example.com/de/]
Pros
- Easy to set up
- Can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting
- Low maintenance (same host)
Cons
- Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone
- Single server location
- Separation of sites harder
URL parameters [site.com?loc=de]
Pros
- Not recommended.
Cons
- URL-based segmentation difficult
- Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone
- Geotargeting in Webmaster Tools is not possible
You can have even the same content for example, if you have a version for the UK and another for the US the content will be very similar.
Hope this helps
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It's been my experience that if you're going to have additional languages on your site, you can do one of a few things to the URL:
or
or
Then you can place the content in the respective languages on those sites. They won't necessarily be seen as duplicated content (semantics change as you translate to different languages). However, Google won't necessarily penalize you if you keep your URL to site.com and just switch up the languages because, again, semantics change as you translate languages.
I worked with several sites that translated content from English to Spanish or English to Hebrew and they were never once penalized for duplicated content.
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