Can I point some rel alternate pages to a 404?
-
Hi everyone,
I'm just setting up a series international websites and need to use rel="alternate" to make sure Google indexes the right thing and doesn't hit us with duplicate content.
The problem is that rel="alternate" is page specific, and our international websites aren't exact copies of the main UK website. We've taken out the ecommerce module and a few blog categories because they aren't relevant.
Can I just blanket implement rel="alternate" and let it sometimes point to a 404 on the alternate websites? Or is Google going to find that a bit weird?
Thanks,
James -
Hi Greg,
Forgot to say thanks! We ended up taking your advice and we've made sure each page uses rel alternate correctly. Took a bit of development time, but I'm sure it's worth it in the end.
Cheers,
James -
This will be an issue as you are linking to non existent pages and Google will continue reporting 404 errors in G-WMT.
It would be worth your time to do it accurately one channel at a time.
Greg
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
-
DMoz, can I submit 3 top level domains?
Hi Guys, I have 3 top level domains, does anyone know if it is okay to submit all 3 domains? they all cover different countries, NZ, AUS, USA - The NZ one has been submitted, but our main site is the .com (USA) after running a few adwords campaign we decided to work the .com instead! Does anyone know the terms or guidelines around this?
International SEO | | edward-may0 -
Duplicate Page Content due to Language and Currency
Hi Folks, hoping someone can help me out please I have a site that I'd like to rank in France and the UK but I'm getting a stack of duplicate content errors due to English and French pages and GBP and EUR prices. Below is an example of how the home page is duplicated: http://www.site.com/?sl=en?sl=fr
International SEO | | Marketing_Today
http://www.site.com/?sl=fr?sl=fr
http://www.site.com
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP?sl=fr
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?sl=fr?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR?sl=fr
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=EUR
http://www.site.com/?sl=en¤cy=EUR
http://www.site.com/?sl=en¤cy=GBP
http://www.site.com/?sl=en
http://www.site.com/?currency=GBP
http://www.site.com/?sl=en?sl=en Each page has the following code in the that updates according to the page you are on: How do I simplify this and what's the correct approach?0 -
I have more than 4000 pages but still have a low trafic. Would love to know more to be better ranked ?
My website is a magazine about travel and fashion. But even if i have a lot of pages, I am still low in ranking. Why ? Thanks for any advice !
International SEO | | ccjourn0 -
Rel Canonical or Rel Alternate advice please
Hi All, I was hoping to just get some advice on my situation as to the right markup to use for our situation, We are working on a more user/mobile friendly redesign for our website and are hoping to release it soon, Our primary URL is www.cirrusresearch.co.uk as we are a UK based company, This has stayed as our primary international website for historical and political reasons as we still get good traffic from overseas, the .co.uk doesn't really seem to hold us back internationally, However underlying we do have the www.cirrusresearch.com pointed all of our pages, which is not a general redirect but is giving us a duplicate of each of our pages but with the .com extension, we basically have an exact duplication of our .co.uk website but with the .com extension, we are not looking to switch to the .com as a primary domain, I have noticed when doing some USA ranking research that Google is preferring to display the alternate .com versions of each page (Understandably) We have not noticeably been penalized by Google for being a duplicate. I took a look at the documentation on the webmaster support on the use of REL Canonical and REL Alternate and am unsure which of these would be most suited markup for my crazy situation, Any advice on this please? Thanks,James
International SEO | | Antony_Towle0 -
Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO
Hi, I have two questions. Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords? Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions. My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder. Thanks in advance, Sam
International SEO | | Awaraman1 -
Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO
Hi,
International SEO | | Awaraman
I have two questions. Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons and how important is it to include keywords to folders and page URLs. Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords? Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I undertstand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate the language versions. My question is regarding the subfolder. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should you also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder. Thanks in advance, Sam0 -
Cross domain rel alternate, will it help or hurt?
I have a website that has similar pages on a US version and a UK version. Currently we want Uk traffic to go to the US, but the US domain is so strong it is outranking the UK in the UK. We want to try using rel alternate but have some concerns. Currently for some of our keywords US is #1, UK is #4. If we implement rel alternate, will it just remove our US page? We don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot and lose traffic. Is this worth doing, will it just remove our US ranking and our double listing? Any anecdotes, experiences or opinions are appreciated. Thanks.
International SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
Country specific landing pages
I have a client who wants to put a re-direct on his landing pages based on the visitors IP address. The landing page will be a sub domain relevant to the country their IP is located in. I am a little concerned this will effect the SEO. Appreciate any advice. Dylan 🙂
International SEO | | gomyseo0