Multiple Countries, Same Language: Receiving Duplicate Page & Content Errors
-
Hello!
I have a site that serves three English-speaking countries, and is using subfolders for each country version:
- United Kingdom: https://site.com/uk/
- Canada: https://site.com/ca/
- United States & other English-speaking countries: https://site.com/en/
The site displayed is dependent on where the user is located, and users can also change the country version by using a drop-down flag navigation element in the navigation bar. If a user switches versions using the flag, the first URL of the new language version includes a language parameter in the URL, like:
In the Moz crawl diagnostics report, this site is getting dinged for lots of duplicate content because the crawler is finding both versions of each country's site, with and without the language parameter.
However, the site has rel="canonical" tags set up on both URL versions and none of the URLs containing the "?language=" parameter are getting indexed.
So...my questions:
1. Are the Duplicate Title and Content errors found by the Moz crawl diagnostic really an issue?
2. If they are, how can I best clean this up?
Additional notes: the site currently has no sitemaps (XML or HTML), and is not yet using the hreflang tag. I intend to create sitemaps for each country version, like:
- .com/en/sitemap.xml
- .com/ca/sitemap.xml
- .com/uk/sitemap.xml
I thought about putting a 'nofollow' tag on the flag navigation element, but since no sitemaps are in place I didn't want to accidentally cut off crawler access to alternate versions.
Thanks for your help!
-
Yep, given your resource constraints, I'd focus on translations for now. If you ever get to a point that there is something bigger than price differentiating your content, then you can think about geo-targeting. You will need the resources to differentiate the content though.
Right now, my recommendation is to drop the country specific content and just offer English for now. Your content can rank for any English speaking search, regardless of country. However, if the terms people use in the US, UK and Canada differ that much, you can "translate" the content (en-us, en-gb, en-au) and use the HREFLANG tag.
For price changes, that's tricker, but do you offer the price in search results via schema? Does it show up? If not, then you can use cookies to set the prices dependent on the country the person chooses (try not to use IP address, and if you do, make people confirm the setting).
For now, focus your time and efforts getting the flow right for the user. Only worry about HREFLANG if your English content needs to be differentiated for term usage. Then focus your efforts on getting those upcoming translations right. When that is ready, then really use HREFLANG.
Hope that helps!
-
Hi Kate,
Nifty quiz and flowchart! Thanks for sharing it. All the countries targeted are English-speaking, though further expansion to non-English speaking countries is planned for 2015. Here are the answers to the questions:
1. Does your business/product/content change in different countries?
A: Not really. 90% of the products are available in all three countries, and only one country is currently lacking the remaining 10%, and it will start selling those products there in 2015.
2. Would it make sense to an international visitor to see different site content? (ex. currency, localization, etc.)
A: Currency - yes. Otherwise, not really.
3. Do you have the resources to differentiate the content?
A: Not currently. This is a set of branded products, and the product descriptions use extensive "on-brand" language.
4. Are there multiple official languages for any of these countries?
A: Yes, Canada's official languages are English and French. There is no French version currently available.
5. Do you plan on offering the site content in all official languages?
A: Next six months - no. Late 2015 - maybe.
Going through the quiz, if I answer:
1. No, 2. Yes, 3. No
This is the recommendation:
Your International Strategy is:
Translate Only
- Don’t machine translate, while manual translation is costly, it’s the best for your goals.
- Put your HREFLANG in XML sitemaps.
- Use the Language Meta tag for Bing translation targeting.
- Don’t use a ccTLD. That is for Geo-Targeting only.
Aside from the manual translation portion, do you think #2 and #3 are still the best solutions for this situation?
Thanks for your help!
-
Hi!
This is a tough one because I can't tell if you mean to be geo-targeting or translate. It's not a one or the other thing, but it usually is when you are just targeting english speaking countries. Can you do me a favor and go to http://www.katemorris.com/issg/ and go through the questions there? Let me know what the "answer" is for your situation and I'll help you get to the right solution.
But in short, yes, the duplicate content is a real issue with or without the lang parameter.
Let me know!
-
Oh this is a tough one. The problem is that no matter the tags and language, the content is the same. It is reflecting duplicate content because it is duplicate content. Duplicate content within your site is serious, especially if you are trying to target keywords on those pages.
The hreflang tags should help you be able to display languages without using so many duplicate pages. I don't have much experience with that tag, but my advice would be to look into it further to help with your duplicate content issue. No following the duplicate pages will ultimately effect their rankings, so that probably isn't the best thing to do.
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 canonical tag issue
i have this site https://www.dealsmango.com/ which i have selected for canonical , but google is still selecting my old website https://www.selldealsmango.com/ , i have removed everything from old site only one page with new site link, and also put 301 redirect , but still when i click on request for indexing on google search console same error appears regarding duplicate canonical tag . what should i do? remove the canonical tag from old site which i don't want google to index, or what will be the best possible solution.
Moz Pro | | MudassirSultn0 -
Duplicate Content
Hello, I'm managing a site which shows as having duplicate page issues (in the crawl analyser) for 3 pages. Basically the site is offering 3 different options of the same product so depending on which size you select, you are directed to the relevant page. These 3 pages are basically identical apart from a slight difference in copy regarding the size (small, medium, large) Is this likely to be a big issue regarding SEO, and what would the moz community suggest re this? Thank you!
Moz Pro | | wearehappymedia0 -
Why is Moz Reporting as Duplicate Page Titles?
Our most recent MOZ crawl campaign is reporting 931 duplicate page title errors, most of which are "Product Review" pages like the following. Although there is only one review on this page, http://www.audiobooksonline.com/Cell_Stephen_King_unabridged_compact_discs.html, MOZ is reporting 15 duplicate page title, four of which I present below. http://www.audiobooksonline.com/reviews/review.php/full/0743554337/0/name/desc
Moz Pro | | lbohen
http://www.audiobooksonline.com/reviews/review.php/full/0743554337/0/rating/asc
http://www.audiobooksonline.com/reviews/review.php/full/0743554337/0/rating/desc
http://www.audiobooksonline.com/reviews/review.php/full/0743554337/0/state/asc Why is MOZ reporting these "pages" as duplicate page title errors? Are these errors hurting our SEO? How to fix?0 -
I need an interlinking report for my site, is there a report in Moz or another application that tell me how all of my pages are linked to other pages on my site?
I am in the process of doing a redesign for one of my sites. I need an interlinking report for my site. Is there a report in Moz or another application that tell me how all of my pages are linked to other pages on my site?
Moz Pro | | seoflorida0 -
How Moz takes a page title is duplicate?
Suppose i have added suffix and prefix to each of my product (ex: i have two tittles like buy online t-shirt at abc.com & buy online poster at abc.com, so in this buy online and abc.com are suffix and prefix) so .. will it take these two page tittles as duplicates ?
Moz Pro | | vayush0 -
404 Errors generating in WP
Our crawl reports are generating back several 404 errors for pages with urls that look like: /category/consulting/page/5/ The tag changes, the page number changes, but the result is always the same: A big glaring 404. Our sites are built on WordPress Multi-site, and I am fairly certain this issue is on the WP end, but I can't figure out why it is generating pages out to infinity, essentially, from the tags and categories. It is worse on some sites than others, but is happening across the board (my initial concern was that it might be a theme issue, but that does not seem to be the case). If anyone has run into this issue and knows a fix, you're insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | SIXSEO0 -
Is the on page optimization tool not working?
i received a grade f for one of my keywords/page. i corrected some of the points but when i tried to submit the form again, it doesn't check off those corrected items. is there something wrong with the tool right now? also, how does the tool work if i'm targeting 2 different keywords for one page? e.g. digital marketing philippines and digital marketing agency philippines I'm pretty sure one of the keywords will have problems with at least 3 critical and high importance on page factors (broad keyword usage in page title, exact keyword usage in page title, etc.) is there an effect if there's a critical factor left unchecked because using both keywords in the title might look redundant?
Moz Pro | | optimind0 -
This Rookie needs help! Duplicate content pages dropped significantly.
So I am pretty new to SEO Moz. I have an e-commerce site and recently did a website redesign. However, not without several mistakes and issues. That said, when SEO Moz did a crawl of my site, the results showed A LOT of Duplicate Content Pages on my site due to my having one item in many variations. It was almost over whelming and because the number of pages was so high, I have been trying to research ways to correct it quickly. The latest crawl from yesterday shows a drastic drop in the number of duplicate content pages and a slight increase in pages with too long page titles (which is fixable). I am embarrassed to give the number of duplicate pages that were showing but, just know, it's been reduced to a third of the amount. I am just wondering if I missed something and should I be happy or concerned? Has there been a change that could have caused this? Thanks for helping this rookie out!
Moz Pro | | AvenueSeo0