Drop in keyword rankings with a multi-region website

[reichey]

Hi everyone,

I know that variations if this question have been asked on this forum and have been answered by Google also.

Google's response seems to be clear that "Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries."

This was our approach when launching a new .co.nz website recently to coincide with us opening a new office in Auckland. Our original site is still our .com.au site. We went with a new domain name over a sub directory or sub domain for the reasons in the same Google article.

After launching the NZ site in February and steadily growing some rankings, we've noticed in the last week or so a drastic drop in our keyword rankings (and traffic) for no apparent reason. There are no apparent issues in Search Console or with the Moz Site Crawl, so I'm wondering what's going on? I know rankings can fluctuate widely, especially when you're not on page 1 (which we're not) but the sudden and drastic drop did concern me.

Currently, our AUS site's content is basically being replicated on the NZ site (e.g. blog posts, about us, company history, etc.).

I just wanted to bounce it off you all to see whether you think it could be the "duplicate content" on the NZ site, or could it be something else?

I'd really appreciate your input!

Cheers,

Nathan

[JonoAlderson]

Ah, all very helpful, thanks!

Some interesting bits to pull apart here, I think:

• hreflang tagging is unlikely to improve your rankings for any given language/territory/page/keyword; rather, it's more likely to prevent the wrong content from showing up in the wrong territory. Make sense?

• I'd try to manage expectations around "restoring" rankings. What if your performance dropped because of strong competitor activity, changing consumer behaviour, or other factors? Whilst your international setup is part of that picture, the reality is much more complex. I'd try to shift the conversation away from working out ways to / waiting for your rankings to "restore" from a magic bullet fix, and start talking about the many strategies and tactics you might deploy to improve rankings gradually moving forwards.

• I'd be _really _nervous of outsourced link building. If you're handing money to a third party to get you links, you're only a small amounts of semantics away from buying links outright. What are the doing, exactly? Are you producing exceptionally high quality, useful information and resources, which they're helping to shine a spotlight on - or are you paying them a fee for them to magically acquire links? It feels like, of all the possible risks and causes of your problems, this is the area I'd want to scrutinise the most; and in the meantime, start looking into ways in which your pages can earn links without having to pay a mysterious third party!

[reichey]

Hey there!

No worries, thought you'd just missed it or something.

OK so I've added the correct hreflang en-AU and en-NZ values to both the .co.nz and .com.au pages.

I've also gone into Google Search Console and confirmed that the .co.nz was targeting New Zealand which it is. I've also gone into Crawl and done a 'Fetch as Google' for the home page and blog page of .co.nz plus 'linked pages.' There are no hreflang errors.

I've also checked all pages on both sites and all correctly have the 'rel=canonical' tag.

Re the blog posts, at this stage we don't have the resources to write different content for each site. We're happy to keep writing the blog posts for the .com.au site and duplicating it for the .co.nz site AS LONG as our SEO isn't being negatively impacted. Our clients/markets/services are very similar — almost identical and just differ in location (i.e. Australia vs New Zealand).

The above was completed about 4 weeks ago now and we still haven't seen an increase in rankings for the .co.nz site (or back to where we were) — only for a couple of keywords that we're actually not targeting.

Just a couple of questions:

1. How long does it usually take for the hreflang tag to kick in and restore rankings?

2. How long does it take to actually get some keyword rankings for the new .co.nz site, considering that our .com.au site is performing reasonably well (although it is 5+ years older)?

3. Is there anything I'm missing here that I could do? Should I be really worried that the .co.nz site isn't ranking for our top 10 targeted keywords since launching the site back in February (6 months ago) or is it normal to break the '51+' ranking for at least some of the keywords. Sorry, a difficult question I know. In addition to Moz, I'm also tracking rankings on Ahrefs.

4. I'm outsourcing some of the link building, but I'm monitoring it closely. Could that be a reason for a drop in rankings also?

I know some of the above is a little hard to answer, but I'd really appreciate your help!

[JonoAlderson]

Yikes, sorry, I didn't see your responses. Sorry for the delayed response!

Your understanding is correct. It doesn't matter whether the content is duplicated within a single domain, across multiple domains, or multiple subdomains - if it's duplicate but targeting different languages and/or territories, then you need to use hreflang tags to manage that. If the pages are the same in all but phone number (where the phone number is targeting a different territory), that's exactly the kind of situation where you should be using hreflang tags.

Separately, all pages should use canonical tags which reference the correct version of themselves (note, not the alternate/hreflang equivalent), as way of declaring that they're the correct version of that localised page. The hreflang tags take care of the relationship between the multilingual versions without the need to try and do anything clever with pointing canonical references between them.

The blog question is more complex. Are your audiences/products/services different enough in those markets to warrant a distinct content strategy? Does that make sense, strategically?

If the content is different, then you don't want hreflang tags on those individual pages, because you've no equivalent resource/page to reference. Challenging!

So, in a nutshell:

Use hreflang tags everywhere where you've very-similar/duplicate pages which only differ in terms of which territory they serve - regardless of which domain they're on.

Use canonical tags on all pages/templates, to reference the correct version of that page/template - but this shouldn't try and do anything clever in terms of its relationship with the hreflang tags.

Where content isn't the same between multiple sites/pages, don't use hreflang tags (but do still use canonical tags).

Make sense?

[reichey]

Also, would you recommend that I rel=canonical in addition to the hreflang tag for any pages on the .co.nz site that are similar (or identical) to the .com.au site — including the .com.nz home page? For example the home pages of both sites are almost identical except for the ccTLD and a phone number...

Just thinking if I do that, the .co.nz site will only rank for a few pages which are unique to itself (e.g. location page about the Auckland office which isn't on the .com.au site).

At present, all of the "product" pages are pretty much identical as are the "blog" posts.

Speaking of blog content, is it also ideal to write "different" blog content for the .co.nz site and the .com.au site going forward to avoid the hrefland and rel=canonical issues?

Sorry lots of questions I know!

[reichey]

Sorry for the delay!

OK I'll give that a go! Although everything I've read/watched from Google and others, seems a little unclear if it is required for a standalone .com.au (Aus) and a .co.nz (New Zealand) ccTLD — more for either sub domains or sub directories of the same domain.

Assuming that without the hreflang, Google views the content as duplicate content and that's the reason for the drop in rankings? Or is it something else?

Yes both sites are correctly targeted in Google Search Console.

Just need to figure out now the best way to do the hreflang now!

Cheers.

[JonoAlderson]

Ah, I definitely suspect that our candidate here is the hreflang tagging.

The use-case definitely extends to the same content/language targeting multiple different countries, and it's implemented in exactly the same way. For each page/URL, you'll need to point to the equivalent page on the other site (either via tags or in the XML sitemap).

You'll want each page to have an _en-_au and _en-_zn value.

I'd double-check that you're targeting the right regions for each site in Search Console, too.

I'd be very surprised if that doesn't fix everything pretty much overnight!

[reichey]

Hey Jono!

Thanks so much for your time and effort here. Really appreciated! Responses below.

• Are you using hreflang tagging between the sites/content; and if so, are you confident that this is correctly configured and maintained? No as I thought that was only required for sites for different languages. Both of our AUS and NZ sites are english. Maybe I've missed something here...
• How much is your content localised to the market in question - or is it just copied without variation? There is some localisation, more around the specific locations where we operate but the overall service offering and our blog posts are pretty much identical. The majority of pages are the same across both sites (e.g. About Us, Our Services, Testimonials, Blog) but there are a few pages which specifically describe each of our locations.
• Does your product/service/price/proposition or availability vary by location? They do slightly but overall the service is very similar. For example, we offer conference venues, meeting rooms and function rooms with a consistent service and pricing, but each location differs slightly in terms of where it's situated, its benefits and the services it offers specifically.
• How much does the competition vary by territory; who's beating you, and what are they doing differently? For AUS, most of the competition is made up of hotels and multi-listing sites plus some of our direct competitors who also specialise in conference venues, meeting rooms and function rooms but aren't hotels. Our main competitors have been around for a few years longer than us. Our NZ site only launched in February so early days.
• Has performance dropped on both sites, or just one? And are there particular pages or keywords which have suffered? No, our AUS site is performing well and increasing in ranking gradually. However, the NZ site dropped dramatically in 1 week and never made it back. Our highest spots were 24/28/29 and in that week, they dropped back to 51+. All pages/keywords were affected.

If you could probe these areas a little, we might be able to steer towards a better understanding of what's going on. So appreciated.

[JonoAlderson]

Hello!

Could I ask a few questions to help me understand the broader context?

• Are you using hreflang tagging between the sites/content; and if so, are you confident that this is correctly configured and maintained?
• How much is your content localised to the market in question - or is it just copied without variation?
• Does your product/service/price/proposition or availability vary by location?
• How much does the competition vary by territory; who's beating you, and what are they doing differently?
• Has performance dropped on both sites, or just one? And are there particular pages or keywords which have suffered?

If you could probe these areas a little, we might be able to steer towards a better understanding of what's going on.