Google not index main keyword on homepage in 2 countries same language, rest of pages no problem

[Bossie72]

Hello,

Two the same websites, two countries, same language

http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl / http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.be

The main keyword "relatiegeschenken" in top 10 of netherlands (steady position for 2 years) and in ** belgium** not in top 15****0 the main keyword "relatiegeschenken| but other keywords good positions, thats so strange

I didn't understand and now every thing turned around suddenly:

Now the main keyword "relatiegeschenken suddenly " not anymore in top 10 in the netherslandsits gone and other kewyords still good positions , now **main keyword suddenly in top 10 of belgium 2 years was not **other pages still ok.

It are exactly the same websites and the same language. So double content

But my programmer told me in google webmaster tools settings are right, so no problem with double content ?

I really dont understand first main keyword in netherland in top 10 and in belgium not, now changed, now in belgium top 10 and not findable in the netherland on the main keyword.

Maybe problem in code ?

Maybe problems in code because  websites are identical and active in two different countries wit same language ?

No message about a  penalty message in WMT, no spam links

week i delete two strong but according to Linkdetox a bad links.

I can not find a solution but its really important keyword that my customer want back in top 10 in netherland, like it was. All other positions and visitors are the same.

Befor i have had this with belgium site, also main keyword google not index homepage. But suddenly no google show in belgium in top 10

Its turned around

Kind regards,

Marcel

[Aleyda]

Hi Marcel,

Content duplication shouldn't be an issue if you are using ccTLDs targeting to each country (as you are already doing with The Netherlands & Belgium), the geolocalization feature is disable in the Google Search Console already when you are using ccTLDs as they are "automatically" geolocated to the country of the extension. In fact, this is the "ideal" way to internationalize your web if you're targeting to countries (and not languages) and give the best possible signal to Google that you are targeting to different countries, as in this case.

Nonetheless, additionally you should also implement hreflang annotations: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en in order to avoid the situation that due to a higher authority -with stronger link profile- one of the domains rank instead of the other in the non-relevant country. I've seen that you are already including hreflang annotations on your sites pages, however these are not correctly implemented because you are only pointing to the other country URL and specifying its language and country.

You need to always specify the language and country of the own page where you are adding the annotation as well as its alternative (check out the specification I included above). Please read: https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool and use this tool to see the type of tags you need to add: http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/. This is how you're going to avoid showing a result for the NL in BE and viceversa.

However, the problem that you describe though sounds like if you have suffered from a lost of organic search visibility due to other reasons that don't have to do with internationalization: whether being affected after an update, a configuration change or issue on your site, etc. since I went to check your SEO visibility profile on SEMrush for NL: https://www.semrush.com/nl/info/lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl+(by+organic_positions)?positions=lost that show a few keywords with a negative trend and an overall negative visibility behavior on the site: https://www.semrush.com/nl/info/lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl+(by+organic) since January specifically.

My recommendation is that you run a full SEO audit, instead of just focusing on international configuration that is very unlikely to cause this -unless you had release a new international version that wasn't correctly targeted, but is not your case- and verify especially if this coincides with a recent update (in January there were a few that you can see here: https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change and https://www.seroundtable.com/google-fluctuations-continue-likely-not-penguin-21489.html) and if you are suffering from content optimization issues for example that could have triggered this.

If you have any other question just let me know!

[Bossie72]

two identical webpages in different countries with same content in same language, everything is ok only the homepage got a problem

We do the settings in google webmaster tools and the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”

So only 2 solutions:

1. Can create an url http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl/relatiegeschenken and create a link building profile with good links on that. At the end belgium will find this page for the main keyword and in netherland homepage will come back

2. Create unique content on the categorie webpages and also in the navigation, so google will see this as two different companies. Product pages can be the same in both countries.

That was the solution i hope

[Bossie72]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the answer !

As well as in holland as in belgium we have from all subpages good rankings, .be and . except from the homepage, that only in one country a time.

We wanted that people in belgium see our belgium site and in holland the dutch website, so we make those settings in google webmaster tools.

But than have the double content issue, we have solved it to implentate  this tag:  rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” ta   for both countries.

According to me it must be possible and also i see the competitor has also an identical website, but rank in both countries top 10.

AS told subpages rank same in booth countries, its only the homepage

https://www.google.be/?gws_rd=ssl#q=kaasprikkers

https://www.google.nl/?gws_rd=ssl#q=kaasprikkers

We have tried also to seperate both sites so no connection between the websites, own virtual adress and phonenumber, google places, no links to each other, own social media, no dofollow outgoing backlinks etc. So google will see it as different companies.

I have deleted some toxic links on the .nl domain with linkresearch tools, maybe something to do with it

answer 1: .be ranks better in .be and .nl ranks better in .nl

answer 2: i can make the navigation unique content. But there are so many products that is impossible, but as told a competitor has also identical website and ranks on main keyword "relatiegeschenken" in both countries with different domains top 10.

There are upcoming good quality links to the .nl name.

Its strange its only the homepage not the subpages and the homepage has diffierent unique content and the subpages all have duplicate content.

Hope somebody knows the answer, i never had befor

Grtz

Marcel

[ChrisAshton]

Hi Marcel,

I don't know German at all so I may have missed a few things but from what I can see, there are a few elements that may be causing this.

Your .nl site has the stronger link profile with 197 referring domains and a Domain Rating of 48 compared to 36 referring domains and a Domain Rating of 37 for the .be site.

As you pointed out, the two sites are almost exact duplicates of each other as well. Unless I'm missing something, there is nothing to mitigate this duplication so Google is typically going to rank the strongest of the two duplicates and almost ignore the other.

So, for the question of why you were seeing the .ne site ranking before and not .be, I would expect this is because they're both duplicates and .ne was the strongest.

As for why this has reversed now, I can see you've dropped a lot of links and referring domains from the .be domain recently, perhaps this was an intentional removal of low quality backlinks? If so this will have improved the strength of the profile.

On the other hand, the .ne site has picked up a large volume of links recently and only a handful of new referring domains which suggests these new linking domains are very low quality. Since you seem to have lowered the quality of the .ne profile and improved .be, I would expect to see the situation reverse, which is exactly what has happened.

Suggestions to Fix the Problems Assuming I am correct, there are a couple of ways to go about it:

**1. **Use only 1 website instead of 2. I realise they're for difference countries but the two locations are only 90 minutes apart. This could be dealt with by having 2 location pages on the one site. It removes the duplication you're currently struggling with and means you only have to work on a backlink profile and content for one site instead of two.

**2. **Alternatively, if you have a large budget or a lot of time available, you could tidy up those low quality new links to your .ne site and start writing some unique content for one of the domains so they're no longer duplicate.

So long as Google is seeing 2 identical websites, you're never likely to see them both rank well at the same time. Quality signals may go up and down over time which sees them trade rankings, but you're never going to see them both at #1 while they're duplicates of each other.

I hope that helps!

[Bossie72]

sorry, 2 same websites in two countries