I'm also still having the issue, thanks for revisiting it.

Thank you James

Hi,

Moz has flagged a whole lot of pages as dupe content, but I cannot see how they qualify as such.
Not sure if I'm allowed to post actual URLs here....happy to if I can, but I feel certain that the pages are not 90% similar.

Has anyone else had this experience?

~Caro

Thanks for that input Egol. Sounds logical.

I just read a great article on the SEO benefits of external links to relevant authoritative sites. But it didn't state if the benefits still existed if the external links were nofollows.
The article concluded: “Outgoing relevant links to authoritative sites are considered in the algorithms and do have a positive impact on rankings.”

I found this old article on the subject, but opinions on the nofollow issue were mixed:
https://moz.com/blog/external-linking-good-for-seo-whiteboard-friday

Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks! ~Caro

Thanks Egol,

Their site content is definitely good, so we're looking good on that front

Thanks for your feedback.

I have a client who's thinking of placing their blog on a separate domain because the plug-ins and various other functionality is becoming bulky and slowing things down for the main site.

There will be a 'Blog' link on the company's website navigation, just as there is now, that will take people to the blog.

As an SEO person, this seems like a bad idea, even if we set up 301s from all the old posts to all the new ones.

In my research I came across these two points:

1. All backlinks to blog posts contribute directly to a website’s OVERALL SEO strength because those backlinks are pointing to your main domain.  Removing them may reduce overall link juice to the site.
2. Simply having fewer content pages on the site will cause entire site to rank lower because Google loves content-rich authority sites.

Does anyone know this to be true for sure?

Thanks,
~Caro

I would view this a a usability matter. Where would someone expect to land after clicking on a link in an author bio? I would likely expect to land on your home page, or a good About me page.

Chances are, if it's a well set up bio section, it will be a nofollow link. So there won't be any benefits other than to the user who clicks on it.

~Caro

Thanks Kate...I think this will be our best option for now...differentiate the content as much as we can. I'll refer back to this thread when we're ready to move forward with foreign language pages next year.

Tom, thanks.

The company is small-med and is growing fast, with a presence in some other countries to handle business there as it grows. I think I understand how we have to handle the foreign languages. We may be able to go with ccTLDs as we introduce more languages instead of the subfolder we currently have for Germany only.

But the real issue that we're trying to zero in on is a small group of 'international' English pages designed for non-USA/Canda visitors that have some differences in how the free trial for the product is processed. We want to make it clear to Google that these are not duplicate content. We will be promoting them via advertising etc, but we still don't want them seen to be duplicated content.

Thanks,
Caro

Kate, although the pages are the same as the USA ones, there's no reason we cannot switch up the language a bit for countries outside the USA...alter the message a little. If we did, would we then be able to use hreflang to indicate to google that there's a different version of the pages for select other markets and prevent them from thinking it's duplicate content?

No, hardly at all.

There are two major phrases they all use, with modifiers at the end:
EG:
keyword
keyword solution
keyword software
keyword product
keyword download

etc

Kate,

What they have is:

1. a subfolder for the German content which has 6 pages that will be targeted to German speakers both inside and outside of Germany - which I'm assuming will need hreflang code specifying language but not country, right?

2. URLs for the English pages targeting English speakers outside the USA that are simply different page names. So:

USA page - www.company.com/product-A
Equivalent International page with different form - www.company.com/product-A-international (we've identified 5 countries we want to show up in, and then any other one by default)
And I'm assuming hreflang is not appropriate for the international page, but I'm not sure what one does  instead to avoid dupe content.

Does this help?

Kate, I've been on this all day and I think I need to rephrase my question. I've figured out that if the pages for the international audience are all English and have no real LANGUAGE variations, I don't need to use hreflang, correct?

The difference between the USA pages and the other English countries is that there is a slight variation in how the product licence is issued once they complete the free trial form. So the form processes differently from different pages.

So, with everyone seeing the same content (99% the same) on different URLs, what is the correct way to:
1. Indicate to Google the audience is in a different region
2. Prevent duplicate content issues.

Thomas when you say "This is the code you should add in a page's tag for the UK version of company.com would be:" are you referring to the code above or the code below? Because the code below refers to Germany. So I'm assuming you meant the code above that text, right?

To answer some of your questions:

The USA site is English only...no plans for Spanish yet.
The Canada site is English only...no plans for French yet.
For Germany customers we have some German pages in a Folder on our company.com domain

Kate should I use the tool twice...once for English speaking countries with no translation needs (UK, Australia etc), and once for foreign language pages (which will for now be in folders on our .com domain)?

I ran the tool for the scenario of delivering our English pages with international licensing info on them to English speaking countries outside the USA and it says:

• Don't use HREFLANG; you are not translating inside a country, so it's not necessary.
  Why no HREFLANG? Our german pages are translated for people in germany.
• Don't use IP detection for country targeting, but ask your customers to set a cookie.

How would I ensure Google doesn't see my intl. pages as duplicate content?

Thanks for all this info...looks like I have my work cut out for me this morning. Much appreciated.

Thank you! I'll check this out today!

Thanks for these resources Thomas...I'll take a look at them shortly.

My client is trying to achieve a global presence in select countries, and then track traffic from their international pages in Google Analytics.

The content for the international pages is pretty much the same as for USA pages, but the form and a few other details are different due to how product licensing has to be set up.

I don’t want to risk losing ranking for existing USA pages due to issues like duplicate content etc.

What is the best way to approach this? This is my first foray into this and I’ve been scanning the MOZ topics but a number of the conversations are going over my head,so suggestions will need to be pretty simple

Is it a case of adding hreflang code to each page and creating different URLs for tracking. For example:
URL for USA: https://company.com/en-US/products/product-name/
URL for Canada: https://company.com/en-ca/products/product-name /
URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/products/product-name /
URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/en/products/product-name /

Michael,

Duplicate content wasn't the issue in the end, but your response prompted me to analyse their home page text more closely and I discovered that there was room for improvement - too much of the home page content was also present on other pages of the site. Thanks for that!

Everyone, this has been resolved! The problem turned out to be a code error in the canonical tag for the page. There was an extra space and slash. Ironically, the canonical tag was one of the first things we looked at, yet we all overlooked that error

Thank you all so much for your input and assistance.

Thank you Michael...I'll do that.

Thanks so much for that info. I had not heard of Kerboo...I'll definitely check that out right away. Your input has been extremely helpful Kristina.

Caro

No luck Kristina

I'm wondering if it's an algorithmic penalty in response to back links. We've never done shady linking, but over the years the site has gathered some strange links. Or, is there some chance that about two dozen anchor text links from their blog to the home page could have done it? I deleted them. But I can't request reconsideration if the penalty isn't manual.

I see no serious crawl issues. Mostly things we're already addressing, like duplicate content caused by blog tags and categories, missing meta descriptions (mostly in our knowledge base, so not an issue) and stuff like that.

When I checked the home page alone it said zero high, medium or low priority issues.

The page only de-indexed very recently. Maybe the next crawl will catch something. Same with GSC...it looks like the last 2 days of info is not available yet.

I should mention the home page Optimizely test had been running for at least a week before the page got dropped (will get actual date from client) , plus they have had a product page running  a test for weeks with no problem. But I still think your suggestion to pause the test is a good one as I don't want anything to hinder the process of fixing this.

Update: Optimizely has been paused, code removed, home page submitted in GSC.

Thanks Kristina,

We have not tried pausing the test, but I can request they do that. It may be a good idea to do it regardless of whether it's causing the problem or not, while we get this issue sorted out.

Fetch as Google gave this result:HTTP/1.1 200 OK   -  so looks ok. I understand this also submits your page to Google as an actual indexing request?

site:https://website.com shows all our pages except the home page.

So, it looks like it's decided not to rank it for some reason.

I deleted some links from the blog to the home page - they had a keyword phrase as the anchor text. There were about 20 links that had accumulated over a few months. Not sure if that's the issue.

Still no manual penalty notice from Google.

Jordan, not on the original version of the home page, but there is on the B test version.
The way I understand it the B version is a javascript page that is noindexed. Their redirect system seems to leave the original page looking like there is no redirect. Are you suggesting we use a 302 instead?

A client's home page, which has always done very well, has just dropped out of Google's index overnight!
Webmaster tools does not show any problem. The page doesn't even show up if we Google the company name.

The Robot.txt contains:

Default Flywheel robots file

User-agent: *

Disallow: /calendar/action:posterboard/
Disallow: /events/action~posterboard/

The only unusual thing I'm aware of is some A/B testing of the page done with 'Optimizely' - it redirects visitors to a test page, but it's not a 'real' redirect in that redirect checker tools still see the page as a 200. Also, other pages that are being tested this way are not having the same problem.

Other recent activity over the last few weeks/months includes linking to the page from some of our blog posts using the page topic as anchor text.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Caro

I agree with the Jon Loomer suggestion.

Also take a look at Mari Smith: https://www.facebook.com/marismith

Was the original URL still relevant to the product even though you changed the product title?

Assuming it was, it's best to leave the URLs alone. Changing a URL (even with a 301 in place) just for housekeeping purposes is not great for SEO. I don't usually change URLs without a very good reason. If the original URL has attracted inbound links, that link benefit will be slightly compromised. You also run the risk of losing track of your 301s or incurring looping 301s if you're letting them auto-update without a solid plan.

If you decide to go with the redirects, keep a spreadsheet of all redirecting pages for your own tracking purposes.

~Caro

Also, just to be double sure that another instance of 'sneakers' is not showing up, try checking Google's text version of the cached page:
Search cache:www.website.com/HighPeelsPage, then look at the text version and verify that Google is not seeing sneakers anywhere other than the one nav instance. Once you have eliminated that possibility you can focus on others.

Caro

Thank you Erica.

I am in the process of phasing out a website that has been acquired by another company.

Its web pages are being 301 redirected to their counterparts on the website of the company that has acquired them.

How long should I maintain the hosting of the phased out website? Technically, do 301s still work after the hosting has been discontinued?

Thanks, Caro

I have client scenarios that make me think otherwise too. However, I would never change a domain name to a keyword rich domain name in the hopes of getting better rankings. Work with what you've got and focus on other beneficial factors like creating better content, social media promotion etc. Also, as Ruben mentioned, how's your load time?

Great thanks, that sounds like a plan.

Thank you Laura, that's very helpful. Would you also suggest noindexing the old site once we're done?

I recently added a 'shared address' business to Google and for the first time I noticed an option to 'Add a missing place'. Perhaps that could work for you. I started by searching the address in Google Maps, then using the facility that comes up on the left. You'll probably see "At this location" and a list of businesses already there.

How long ago did you add that title? That page was cached by Google today, and the title shows up in search results. If you added it recently maybe MOZ hasn't picked up the change yet.

~Caro

Hello all,

If a company acquires a smaller company and 'absorbs' its products and services into its own website, what is the protocol with closing down the smaller company's site?

So far we added our branding to the site alerting their visitors to the imminent takeover, and 301 redirected certain pages - soon we'll be redirecting all the pages to their counterparts on the main website.

Once that's done, should we noindex the old site? Anything else?

Thanks, Caro

Thanks for the nudge Matt,

We're in the process of working on the redirects now...and checking GA results based on Matt-Williamson's feedback.

~Caro

Personally, I wouldn't try get 'serious value' out of them. If there are just a couple of these domain names, redirect them to your main site. But focus on getting serious value out of your main site instead. If you have great content for ChairtypeA it should be on your ChairtypeA page, not on a micorsite.

If you gain inbound links, best they point to your main site pages. Not to microsites. You're diluting the potential of ChairtypeA by spreading its content over 2 sites.

We've acquired another company and want to redirect their soon-to-be-obsolete website to ours.

It includes a blog with many blog posts. Should we:

only 301 redirect the top level blog URL
try redirect individual blogs to blogs of a similar topic on our site (least practical I'm sure)
redirect all their individual posts to our main blog URL

Thanks, Caro

I would give my users the option of selecting residential or commercial in a prominent position on the home page AND in the main navigation (under a Products menu item).

That will offer a good user experience and provide clarity regardless of which page they enter the site.

It will also make good sense for SEO as you're catering to two different markets and can address them as such from and SEO point of view.

Thank you Erica, that confirms my suspicions.

Is your service/product offered internationally? If so, it would be appropriate.

If not, how 'loosely' do those sites relate to yours? If you share a common target audience/common theme, the links could still be valuable. If those sites have the potential to send you relevant visitors (in addition to link weight), they have value.

If they come from decent websites, at very worst they won't harm you.

~Caro

Thank You Gyorgy,

Our long term plan is to have a complete German Website optimized for german and on a german domain. But my client was hoping that, in the meantime, we could get our english pages found in Germany, and without risking our USA SEO achievements.

I think I already know the answer to this, but I'd love a second opinion.

If you add German meta data to some web pages will it help those pages turn up in search results in Germany?I'm assuming not. It's an English, USA based site, doing well here for English searches - and I don't want to mess that up.

A German site is being planned, but this client is hoping the English site could be found in the meantime.

~Caro

Thank you Russ. The site does have some quality backlinks, yet ironically, it doesn't even have a Meta Description.

The SEO company has also included an Author meta tag with a link back to themselves.

I have a client whose competitor has great positions in Google, and a quick look at the meta data revealed this (I removed the company name):

I'd love some opinions on this. My gut feel tells me this is spammy. But all my client sees is that this site is on page 1!

~Caro