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Bear with me, this is complicated (I REALLY hope one of you comes along and says, no it isn't!) Scenario A client has multiple english pages, as they have a unique product offering in AUS, US, UK, NZ and also have a global site in english. Obviously there is a lot of duplicate content and they have the relevant href lang tags set-up to help Google untangle what should be ranked where. They also have rel-canonical on each page. I've set-up search console for each of the folder structures, i.e. en-us, en-gb, en-au and so on. They have an optimised page for one of their primary keywords, which ranks nowhere for this exact keyword, but this page DOES rank for 40 similar keywords. For the exact keyword, they rank 52nd, and frustratingly, it's the homepage that ranks. We know the correct page is ranking and is indexed because search console tells us so and we see the exact page appear in SERPs for the other 40 keywords. When I look at the en-us site in Search Console, it tells me that the home page is not being indexed, because a rel canonical tag is prioritising an alternative page (probably the global site) - however, the en-us homepage is showing up in rankings for a lot of their important keywords. The site has been live for 6 months and the optimised page for about 3 months. Questions 1. If search console is saying the homepage is not ranking, how is it showing up in SERPs?
2. Why is the homepage ranking for this important keyword, when there is virtually no mention of the keyword versus the page that is almost perfect according to Moz's on-page grader?
3. Do you need href lang tags AND rel canonical on a page?
4. How long before a new page that is optimised for a keyword take to replace (and hopefully surpass) the homepage?
5. If the US is the most important market, should we guide Google to that fact using rel-canonical? Really appreciate your feedback, hivemind. Thanks

Moz Hivemind, I'm working with an ecom beauty brand and retailer who re-platformed their website at the end of August last year. Their CTR dropped from 70% plus for branded terms to 50% over night and has steadily declined ever since, down to the low 30s as an average the last few months. Their rankings for branded terms have remained in the number 1 position, despite a slight blip at launch, which is to be expected. They admit that some new distribution deals with major retailers have added some competition to the mix, but much later in the year. I could totally understand a rankings drop and an initial hit, but has anyone seen anything like this before, is there something on the new site that could impact CTR like this, either in the SERPs or perhaps a reporting issue? As the click itself is taking place in the SERP and their rankings are solid, other than the meta description, which they swear was unchanged the first few months after launch, any ideas what could be happening here? Thanks so much.

Hi everyone, I have a global client with lots of duplicate page issues, mainly because they have duplicate pages for US, UK and AUS... they do this because they don't offer all services in all markets, and of course, want to show local contact details for each version. What is the best way to handle this for SEO as clearly I want to rank the local pages for each country. Cheers

I have an interesting challenge for a new client. Basically, they collect payment from gym users whose monthly subscription payment has failed, and they charge the gym user a fee and not the gym. Their clients love them for this, but the end consumer hates them and as a consequence, every review or ratings site from Google Reviews to Trustpilot is universally filled with angry consumers who didn't read the Ts and Cs of their gym membership. Understandable, but it also means the client can't have a presence on any social channel as they simply become a gripe board for disgruntled consumers. My question is, how are the poor reviews impacting on rankings and domain authority and should I treat this like any other client in terms of fixing crawl issues and seeking quality backlinks or am I always going to be pushing water uphill? Cheers gang!