Duplicate content pages on different domains, best practice?
-
Hi,
We are running directory sites on different domains of different countries (we have the country name in the domain name of each site) and we have the same static page on each one, well, we have more of them but I would like to exemplify one static page for the sake of simplicity.
So we have http://firstcountry.com/faq.html, http://secondcountry.com/faq.html and so on for 6-7 sites, faq.html from one country and the other have 94% similarity when checked against duplicate content. We would like an alternative approach to canonical cause the content couldn´t belong to only one of this sites, it belongs to all. Second option would be unindex all but one country. It´s syndicated content but we cannot link back to the source cause there is none.
Thanks for taking the time in reading this.
-
Using canonical IS NOT the solution, because if you use canonical the FAQ pages of the canonicalized websites are going to be deindexed.
So, just do it if you really don't care about the traffic those answers can generate for your sites (as you can imagine, this is an ironic suggestion...).
Just use the hreflang, because Google in the last months has become quite smart in understanding that it means that you consider those pages relevant enough for the geo-targeted audiences to not filter them out even if they are substantially identical between country versions.
Said that, try to differentiate the FAQ pages (better localization of the language. i.e.: English UK is slightly different than American English), or even offering a local number for phone inquiries and localized email address for question via email.
In general, it is not a good idea using the crossdomain canonical in International SEO, and it should be used just in exceptional cases.
-
In order to make things easier you can implement hreflang via sitemaps.xml using this tool by Mediaflow: http://www.themediaflow.com/tool_hreflang.php.
-
If your site is based on templates so you can easily put in a header code (Wordpress, Joomla, most CMS, anything but a page-by-page HTML usually) you can insert it directly in by calling in the page itself like this:
" hreflang="x-default" />
" hreflang="en-au" />
" hreflang="en-us" />
" hreflang="en-nz" />This works on Apache servers - this starts with the domain and then request_URI pulls in the page you're on so /about, or /faq and adds the appropriate hreflang tag to that.
Also, when you're done implementing hreflang test it using Flang.
-
As the other users have pointed out, the alternate and hreflang tag would be most ideal. I am in a pickle myself with a very similar issue.
You must note that the alternate tag is to be applied on a page level so every page should resolve to the appropriate URL of it's copy on all other country domains.
So your homepage (.com) could have the following alternate tags:
But on your FAQ page, the alternates would be:
You'll have to rinse and repeat on all 3 sites and for every single page.
Tedious if you ask me! Does anyone know an easier way to go around adding alternate tags to 3 or 4 sites without doing it manually?
The advantage of implementing those however is that you are not canonicalising to one domain which means all your domains stand a chance of performing well in their regions (e.g a search on Google Australia will show the .com.au website).
Again, does anyone have a better approach to this or seen / heard of one? Apart from canonical of course.
-
Hreflang tags are great. I would highly suggest implementing these. Something that I was confused about when I first started using them was that all tags should be on all domains including its own.
For example: firstcountry.com/faq.html should have tags for:
and so on.
You can check that these have been implemented correctly in Google Webmaster Tools under "Search Traffic" -> "International Targeting"
-
I would start by implementing hreflang tags:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
Hreflang should take care of these type of issues as Google will associate the right country domain with the content. You may see some overlap for awhile - we've seen hreflang take a bit longer than we'd like to get fully set but once it is, it usually works well.
Short of that, you have 3 options. 1) change the content on all sites to be (somewhat) unique. 2) deindex all but one as you said, 3) canonical, as you said.
1, 2 & 3 all have problems so that's why I would start with hreflang.
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 to avoid duplicate content
Hi, I have a website which is ranking on page 1: www.oldname.com/landing-page But because of legal reason i had to change the name.
Technical SEO | | mikehenze
So i moved the landing page to a different domain.
And 301'ed this landing page to the new domain (and removed all products). www.newname.com/landing-page All the meta data, titles, products are still the same. www.oldname.com/landing-page is still on the same position
And www.newname.com/landing-page was on page 1 for 1 day and is now on page 4. What did i do wrong and how can I fix this?
Maybe remove www.oldname.com/landing-page from Google with Google Webmaster Central or not allow crawling of this page with .htaccess ?0 -
Duplicate content or titles
Hello , I am working on a site, I am facing the duplicate title and content errors,
Technical SEO | | KLLC
there are following kind of errors : 1- A link with www and without www having same content. actually its a apartment management site, so it has different bedrooms apartments and booking pages , 2- my second issue is related to booking and details pages of bedrooms, because I am using 1 file for all booking and 1 file for all details page. these are the main errors which i am facing ,
can anyone give me suggestions regarding these issues ? Thnaks,0 -
Adding academic content for a school in a sub folder, sub domain, or different site?
I manage the website for a school and we are planning to put our academic policies/student handbook online. I’m curious if there is any SEO value to including this content in our main website? This isn’t stuff that anyone is going to link to externally (student orientation procedures, how to enroll/drop credits, academic warning policies etc) and there would be limited internal linking as well (someone looking for course information doesn’t want to see this type of stuff). I’m not interested in SERPs for this content, but I’m wondering if the additional content could help the site’s SEO overall? It is naturally rich with ‘academic’ keywords and the only websites that use this type of content are universities. On a similar note, I need to put up student profiles for potential employers to view. Like the policies, this is not priority content for someone visiting our website, but it is still keyword-rich content, which would add to the overall 'size' of the site. Should this stuff go in a folder, a subdomain, or in a different location altogether?
Technical SEO | | AISFM0 -
Is there an easy solution for duplicate page content on a drupal CMS?
I have a drupal 7 site www.australiacounselling.com.au that has over 5000 crawl errors (!). The main problem - close to 3000 errors- is I have duplicate page content. When I create a page I can create a URL alias for the page that is SEO friendly, however every time I do this, it is registering there are 2 pages with the same content. Is there a module that you're aware of that I can have installed that would allow me to show what is the canonical page? My developers seemed stumped and have given up trying to find a solution, but I'm not convinced that it should be that hard. Any ideas from those familiar with drupal 7 would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | ClintonP0 -
Duplicates on the page
Hello SEOMOZ, I've one big question about one project. We have a page http://eb5info.com/eb5-attorneys and a lot of other similar pages. And we got a big list of errors, warnings saying that we have duplicate pages. But in real not all of them are same, they have small differences. For example - you select "State" in the left sidebar and you see a list on the right. List on the right panel is changing depending on the what you selecting on the left. But on report pages marked as duplicates. Maybe you can give some advices how to improve quality of the pages and make SEO better? Thanks Igor
Technical SEO | | usadvisors0 -
How unique does a page need to be to avoid "duplicate content" issues?
We sell products that can be very similar to one another. Product Example: Power Drill A and Power Drill A1 With these two hypothetical products, the only real difference from the two pages would be a slight change in the URL and a slight modification in the H1/Title tag. Are these 2 slight modifications significant enough to avoid a "duplicate content" flagging? Please advise, and thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | WhiteCap0 -
Duplicate Content Issue
Hello, We have many pages in our crawler report that are showing duplicate content. However, the content is not duplicateon the pages. It is somewhat close, but different. I am not sure how to fix the problem so it leaves our report. Here is an example. It is showing these as duplicate content to each other. www.soccerstop.com/c-119-womens.aspx www.soccerstop.com/c-120-youth.aspx www.soccerstop.com/c-124-adult.aspx Any help you could provide would be most appreciated. I am going through our crawler report and resolving issues, and this seems to be big one for us with lots in the report, but not sure what to do about it. Thanks
Technical SEO | | SoccerStop
James0 -
How to Solve Duplicate Page Content Issue?
I have created one campaign over SEOmoz tools for my website. I have found 89 duplicate content issue from report. Please, look in to Duplicate Page Content Issue. I am quite confuse to resolve this issue. Can any one suggest me best solution to resolve it?
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0