Duplicated titles and meta descriptions
-
Hi,
Dealing with both my duplicated titles and meta descriptions i'm wondering if there's a "quick" win I could potentially implement asap.
A bit of background:
Say I've 4 pages structured that way:- domain.com/us/productA.html for the US
- domain.com/gb/productA.html the UK
- domain.com/fr/productA.html for France
- domain.com/de/productA.html For Germany
At the moment, both my page titles and meta-descriptions are duplicated all over the place for product A.
Title is reading "Product A - company name"
MD is a bit better, being translated in all 3 languages (En, Fr, DE). Therefore being the same for the US and for the UK.Ideally, I would get unique page titles and MD all over the place. However, due to time and resource constraints, I can't make it happen overnight.
So my questions are pretty simple:
1. Can I create a rule for page titles to be "Product A - country - company name" or similar? Would that be enough to make the page titles unique? Is there any value doing so?
2. Can I "localize" duplicate MD by simply naming the country? I assume it is not enough in this case as all the rest would be copy/pasted.Ideally speaking, both my page titles and MD would be completely unique but I can't afford doing so in the short term.
Thanks!
-
it can involve a lot of work, but every meta title every meta description should be unique to that page and written in a white hat way.
It can cost a lot for a copywriter to do this work, but it is well worth it as it can improve the CTR.
-
it can involve a lot of work, but every meta title every meta description should be unique to that page and written in a white hat way.
It can cost a lot for a copywriter to do this work, but it is well worth it as it can improve the CTR.
-
Thanks Kate, will do the best I can in the light of your answers.
But as you've probably understood by now, with quite limited resources. -
I know we are way too late for this, but why did your company decide to internationalize the site structure if you can't get localization resources. I would have suggested using cookies and JS to set the currency, etc.
Anyway to your questions:
Or am I chasing ghost and this rule won't change much in the eyes of Google and my ranking? You can implement the title rule above, but I don't think it is going to help much.
**I don't care so much if US content shows up in the UK in term of content though are eCommerce experts would be quite pissed off as it would biased reporting. **
I recommend setting up IP location detection. If the user SEEMS to be in a different country, ask them if they are from the other country and if they say yes, then redirect them there. Don't assume they are in a specific country though.
Focus on getting those resources, you won't make a big impact without them in a high competition area.
-
Hi Kate,
Thank you so much for your answer. Some clarifications on your points:
On the competition part, there is a fair bit of competition indeed. But is an interim solution possible whilst more resources get eventually unlocked next year? And by an interim solution, I'm referring to that page title rule I mentioned in my question.
Or am I chasing ghost and this rule won't change much in the eyes of Google and my ranking?I don't care so much if US content shows up in the UK in term of content though are eCommerce experts would be quite pissed off as it would biased reporting. From my point of view, the only issue is around currency if visitors then decide to purchase something.
Lastly, I can't do much when it comes to the duplicated content as I stated in a different question since there are no available resources to solve this from a content perspective nor from a site architecture standpoint.
-
1. Can I create a rule for page titles to be "Product A - country - company name" or similar? Would that be enough to make the page titles unique? Is there any value doing so?
I think this depends on a few things.**First, what is the competition like in the SERPs? if you are in a super competitive space in any of those countries, this is probably not going to be enough. But it is possible it would be in some but not others. Competitive markets are game changers. **
**Second, how much do you care if the US content shows up in the UK? I worry about the similarities of the content in your examples. A title tag can get stupid "duplicate title" warnings to disappear, but I can't promise it'll make a difference in the SERPs. **
There is no harm in trying, however.
2. Can I "localize" duplicate MD by simply naming the country? I assume it is not enough in this case as all the rest would be copy/pasted.
**Duplicate MDs are less of a worry from my perspective. What I'd worry about more is the duplication of the actual pages. The content on the page is infinitely more important than what is in the MD. **
-
Thanks Tim.
I already have hreflang implemented and I wanted to dive more in the details of my international SEO so to speak.Alternate meta is definitely something I'm considering as per my question. And from my understanding of it, the variants I'm proposing are not enough to differentiate them. Correct?
But what about title tags? Neither you or Roman mention them. They don't matter much?
According to this article, it does. -
You would not worry about this at all?
I mean, say I do what you suggested above, then I should still review my titles and meta descriptions as per my initial question right? -
Have you taken a look here - it provides you with quite a few quality nuggets of information on international SEO.
I would certainly consider hreflang and alternate meta to help distinguish each location channel to help reduce duplicate content.
There are some other great resources on this too.
-
I would not worry about it, as long you made the right set it fo
- The canonical tags
- The language and region tags
- You submitted the sitemaps for every single region on Search Console
- Another good point to keep in mind is adding schemas to your pages
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 Content and Subdirectories
Hi there and thank you in advance for your help! I'm seeking guidance on how to structure a resources directory (white papers, webinars, etc.) while avoiding duplicate content penalties. If you go to /resources on our site, there is filter function. If you filter for webinars, the URL becomes /resources/?type=webinar We didn't want that dynamic URL to be the primary URL for webinars, so we created a new page with the URL /resources/webinar that lists all of our webinars and includes a featured webinar up top. However, the same webinar titles now appear on the /resources page and the /resources/webinar page. Will that cause duplicate content issues? P.S. Not sure if it matters, but we also changed the URLs for the individual resource pages to include the resource type. For example, one of our webinar URLs is /resources/webinar/forecasting-your-revenue Thank you!
Technical SEO | | SAIM_Marketing0 -
Site Hack In Meta Description
Hey MOZ Community, I am looking for some help in identifying where the following meta description is coming from on this home page - https://www.apins.com. I have scrubbed through the page source without being able to locate where the content is being pulled from. The website is built on WordPress and metas were updated using Yoast, but I am wondering if an installed plugin could be the culprit. On top of this, I have had a developer take a look for the "hack" and they have assured that the issue has been removed. I have submitted the URL in GSC a couple of times to be re-indexed but have not had much luck. Any thoughts would be much appreciated, the displayed description is below. The health screening plays http://buyviagraonlineccm.com/ a significant and key role in detecting potentially life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, heart ...
Technical SEO | | jordankremer0 -
Pages with duplicate meta descriptions
We have around 17 pages have underscores in the URL. From the 17 pages, we have changed 3 pages URL for example if the url is test_sample_demo.html, we have changed as test-sample-demo.html After the updates, we have made redirect as follows Redirect 301 test_sample_demo.html test-sample-demo.html Presently google webmaster tool shows as "Pages with duplicate meta descriptions" & "Pages with duplicate title tags" for changed pages How to fix this. Please help us
Technical SEO | | Intellect0 -
Meta tag Syntax
Hi, This might seem silly. What is the correct syntax for the meta tag used when noindexing webpages? I have "". I have seen it both with and without the forward slash before the greater than sign. Does it make any difference if the forward slash is present or not? Cheers
Technical SEO | | McCaldin0 -
Miss meta description on 404 page
Hi, My 404 page did not have meta description. Is it an error? Because I run report and seomoz said that a problem. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | JohnHuynh0 -
Meta-robots Nofollow
I don't understand Meta-robots Nofollow. Wordpress has my homepage set to this according to SEOMoz tool. Is this really bad?
Technical SEO | | hopkinspat1 -
Duplicating Keywords in Page Title
Hello All, I am currently trying to establish the TITLE tag of my homepage. I am trying to target 2 terms plus my company name. For example, purposes, the two keywords are: Widget Program Widget Software My company Name is: Widget Direct I originally had the title as: Widget Program | Software | Widget Direct My thought was that I didn't want to repeat the word "Widget" too many times. However, the SEOmoz on-page report card keeps telling me I should have the exact keyword in my title tag. In that case it would make the title: Widget Program | Widget Software | Widget Direct Do you think that is better so that I have each keyword in the title or will that result in a penalty because it looks like I'm stuffing the title with the keyword 'widget'? Any insight is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Robert-B0 -
Duplicate page titles on Ecommerce
Hi, My question is in reference to an E-commerce site- Our SEO MOZ scan is showing many errors for Duplicates- such as Duplicate titles - The majority of these are on the products map- and the page titles are Products Map :: Company Name How do we get correct this or does Google not penalize for it? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | frankrizzo0