How to avoid getting penalized for having same website in 2 languages
-
Hi,
I have a price comparison website in English with .com domain. Now as we are expanding, we want to localize our website and target different markets in their local languages. The first market we are targetting is France. For that purpose we have
-
a different domain name in French
-
.fr domain
The website however, will have the exact same content & mostly translated in French. My question is what is the best way to avoid getting penalized by Google for having duplicate content?
Thanks,
-
-
If you are targeting the .com at English speaking countries, then why start targeting other sites at specific countries rather than languages? If you targeted the French language (in which you should not use .fr), you'd target more people than targeting France.
Based on your situation, I would have one site with translated content, rather than country-specific content. This would allow you to use the strength of one domain while giving your users the right content in their language.
Using hreflang tags between translated content is how you alert the search engines that the content is the same, just translated.
-
Ok I don't think anyone mentioned dynamic Google Cloud API Translator? It's definitely not going to be perfect, however if it isn't something that you paid a lawyer to make exact, Then I suppose if you used Max Mind Geo-Ip to deturmine the location of visitors, you could still do the subdomain based on that and an output language.
It would totally make the entire process quite a bit more simple, and still cater to your potential leads. No matter what you end up doing, I suggest using more icons as they are the universal language
-
Hi Kate,
Thanks for your answer. I think there is no one answer for this question. Yes, we are targetting countries, but as long as the language of any country is English we would not start a new website. Then, we are a price comparison website so our website content is majorly the products. Any website that we might start we will always have 90% of the content same. We could change a bit of written content maybe, but not more than that.
Does that give you more clarification?
Thanks,
Priyam
-
Hi!
First, it sounds like you are targeting countries, not languages. Can you confirm that? Meaning, someday you might want to target Canada, which will need French language content that is in the Canadian dialect of French.
If you are targeting countries, this is the right setup. The key is to treat each site like it's own site. Don't just make a copy and translate to general French. If you want to go about targeting languages, not countries, then I suggest using one domain and having a subfolder per language. In that case, you would use hreflang tags to show the SEs that the content is the same just translated.
It all depends on what you want to do in the future. It sounds more like you want to do language translation, not geo-targeting. But again, I'll need you to confirm that to give the right answer.
-
Hi there,
What you are needing is to implement Hreflang tags and, just to make sure Google comprehends it, set the geo targetting in each of the Search Console properties.
Remember always to have both tags in both sites (as you are only woking woth 2 sites). Hreflang tags MUST be self referential and point to the other versions of the web.Here some useful resources, specially the ones from Aleyda Solis:
Hreflang generator - Aleyda Solis International SEO - Moz Learning Center The Guide to International Website Expansion: Hreflang, ccTLDs, & More! - Moz Blog The International SEO Checklist - Moz Blog Using the correct hreglang tag - Moz Blog Tool for checking hreflang anotations - Moz Blog
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR
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 do I redirect my old PHP website to my new Java website?
Please could you help? My old website is written in php. I've created a new design of the website in Java. I'll be using the same domain name though. example.com and I'd like to pass my link juice to my new redesigned website. When I turn the domain name to point to my new website how do I make sure pages that are ranked in google that don't exist on my new website transfer 301 from my old website to a similar page on my new website. Old Website Example example.com/bootcampuk.php New Website Example example.com/bootcamps.jsp Many Thanks, Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | puamethod0 -
Website gone from PR 2 to PR 0
Hi guys! We're looking at a site in the trade industry here in Australia and it appears that around the Panda/Penguin updates in September & October last year, they've had their Google PageRank wiped out back to zero. I know we shouldn't be focusing too much on PR these days, but can't help but wonder what's caused this. It's a local business website who aren't selling links etc. I'm thinking backlinks pointing at the site that were giving them a boost have been discounted, however, they still have quite a number of quality links coming into them. Would love to pick your brains! Regards.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WCR0 -
Moving half my website to a new website: 301?
Good Morning! We currently have two websites which are driving all of our traffic. Our end goal is to combine the two and fold them into each other. Can I redirect the duplicate content from one domain to our main domain even though the URL's are different. Ill give an example below. (The domains are not the real domains). The CEO does not want to remove the other website entirely yet, but is willing to begin some sort of consolidation process. ABCaddiction.com is the main domain which covers everything from drug addiction to dual diagnosis treatment. ABCdualdiagnosis.com is our secondary website which covers everything as well. Can I redirect the entire drug addiction half of the website to ABCaddiction.com? With the eventual goal of moving everything together.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Getting Your Website Listed
Do you have any suggestiongs? I do not know local websites where I can get some easy backlinks. I guess a record in Google Places.would be great as well. Any sound suggestion will be appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stradiji0 -
Tips do join 2 domains
I would like to move all my old domain content ( dicasdogoogle.com.br) with more than 1200 tutorials pages to a new one (seomartin.com)... and then unify them. I´m using wordpress in both but the permalinks are different... Any tips 4 me folks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoMartin10 -
New Website Launch - Traffic Way Down
We launched a new website in June. Traffic plummeted after the launch, we crept back up for a couple of months, but now we are flat, nowhere near our pre-launch traffic or previous year's traffic. For the past 6 months our analytics have been worrying us - Overall traffic and new visitor traffic is down over 10%, bounce rate is up almost 35% since site launched, keywords aren't ranking where they used to, and of course, web sales are down. Is this supposed to happen when a new site is launched, and how long does a new this transition last? We have done all the technical audits, adding relevant content, we're at a loss. Any suggestions where to look next to improve traffic to pre-launch numbers?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WaySEO0 -
Someone To Review My Website
I want someone to review My Website as I'm tired of doing everything but its not getting ranked, one day its in top 50 and on the very next day it jut gets disappear, Website URL: http://goo.gl/duJPf I'm trying to get my inner pages rank in google, http://goo.gl/Ha1Vm http://goo.gl/913DR Can someone please review it and tell me if m doing something wrong or if m missing something! Please suggest Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AnkitRawat0 -
Website rebranding, what should I worry about?
Hey guys, A client of mine will be doing a rebranding exercise, this include changing their brand name and their domain name. They are considered a well known brand within their industry (Their brand name shows up in Google's "Search Related to..." section) My question is: Apart from making sure all 301 are put in place,changing all the links to point to the new domain and doing PR exercise, is there anything else I should keep in mind / be aware of to ensure a smooth transition? Also can anyone come up with possible issues we might encounter during the move? Apart from having a significant drop in traffic and rankings? Thanks, Clement
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NextDigital510