Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Duplicate page titles and hreflang tags
-
Moz is flagging a lot of pages on our site which have duplicate page titles. 99% of these are international pages which hreflang tags in the sitemap.
Do I need to worry about this? I assumed that it wasn't an issue given the use of hreflang. And if that's the case, why is Moz flagging them as an issue?
Thanks.
-
We're all students of the game. I hope I never stop learning about marketing.
I had read about the sitemap implementation but never tried it. Then I ran into an enterprise client who has over 40,000 indexed pages & 20 separate languages.
One of the languages didn't have a subfolder but all the rest did. Instead of coding it in, I figured my way through sitemaps & thought it was SO much easier in the end. I've used it a few times since and it's great.
-
I updated my first answer to point out my error - thanks again!
-
Hi everyone
Oh wow! I can't believe I missed that! I stand 100% corrected - thanks so much guys, I am sorry about that!
Looks like you should be all good then!
Thanks again for pointing this out - cheers everyone
-
No, you don't need to worry. If you've implemented hreflang into the sitemap properly, it will work and you don't have to worry about the Moz reading. Moz tries to cover off the main things that affect you and give you an indication of what Google may like & dislike on your site but by no means are the implementations of everything exactly the same. So yes, Google will understand your 'duplicate' page titles are not.
@Patrick - you can definitely implement hreflang in sitemap. I was surprised when I saw that the first time, too, but I've tried it for a few clients lately and it works well.
-
Hi,
I'm fairly sure you can put the tags in a sitemap rather than the header.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2620865?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
Placing the tags into the header is a much bigger technical issue for us at present.
Cheers
-
Hi there
Are you saying that your hreflang tags are in your sitemap? If that's the case, that's not the proper implementation. THIS IS IN FACT NOT CORRECT AS POINTED OUT BY ahyde & MattAntonino BELOW
These tags are supposed to live in the tag of the page(s) which are region and language targeted.
I would read into hreflang tags and make sure that you have the proper implementation. You should also look at language tags for Bing.
I would also take a look at this chart for guidance and make sure that your international pages have language/region specific content - if you're not changing the language, then the tag isn't really necessary. I would instead focus on canonical tags, setting up Webmaster Tools accounts for each region variation directory or subdomain, and country targeting those profiles to their separate regions in Google and Bing Webmaster Tools.
I would also take a look at the following resources as well:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)Let me know if this helps - I hope I am understanding - good luck!
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
-
Getting the Titles and Headings Right on Product Pages. Userbility vs SEO
Hey Mozzers, I am optimising a chaotic section of the site including many similar products. Writing unique content etc. The titles and urls were all over the place so my first job was to tidy them up so I could make some sense of the situation, especially as sometimes they didn't even match! I should point out were on Magento, so product name = Both the Heading and Title of the page, the meta title can be set separately. When i refer to title I mean both <title>and <h1></strong><br /><br />Before they existed as such<br />URL: domain.com/200-x-0-5-g-rs-232-balance.html<br />TItle: PC-1234 200 x 0.5g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br /><br />This format was (Product Code, Capacities, Resolutions, Accuracy, Product Title)<br /><br />The issue was all 60 products in a page followed this format. Navigating through the page was a nightmare and was just a jumble of numbers and highly confusing even to me who learnt what they all mean, especially when you had 8 products from the same range you got presented with<br /><br />APC-1234 200 x 0.5g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1235 500 x 1g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1236 1000 x 2g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1238 5000 x 10g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1239 10000 x 15g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1210 20000 x 25g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1211 50000 x 50g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance</p> <p>I changed them to something more user friendly.<br /><br />URL: domain.com/200g-precision-balance.html<br />Title: 200g Precision Balance<br /><br />This has seen the following benefits<br />- URL is now clear and means something to the user<br />- Product titles are easy to navigate and the page is more pleasing to the eye<br />- The jumble of numbers in the title are now all labelled and shown below each product listing in bullet point so the user can see the basic spec of a product without having to decipher any titles<br /><br />Upon reflection I has a couple of concerns I was hoping you could discuss, I am wondering if I have made the titles too simple.<br />1) I have no product code in the title<br />We have our own products manufactured and sell existing brands with their own product codes. Some of these can be lengthy. Adding them makes them hard to the eye and the page looked cramped.<br /><br />The codes are listed beneath each product title on category pages and on a list on the actual product page, but no where in the titles. <br /><br />2)None of our products have a brand listed in the title<br />None of the products on the site had brand names in anything but the images when i started and as such it snuck under my radar. But should i pre-fix all titles with a brand name?<br /><br />Should </p> <p>URL: domain.com/200g-precision-balance.html<br />Title: 200g Precision Balance</p> <p>become</p> <p>URL: domain.com/BRAND1-200g-precision-balance.html<br />Title: BRAND1 200g Precision Balance<br /><br />My instinct tells me to change things to include brands as its useful to the customer and should have an SEO benefit, but to leave out product codes as they are accessible to the customer where they are now and dont make things messy and unreadable.<br /><br />As always, thanks for the input!</p></title>
On-Page Optimization | Feb 19, 2016, 6:32 AM | ATP0 -
Duplicate Content with ?Page ID's in WordPress
Hi there, I'm trying to figure out the best way to solve a duplicate content problem that I have due to Page ID's that WordPress automatically assigns to pages. I know that in order for me to resolve this I have to use canonical urls but the problem for me is I can't figure out the URL structure. Moz is showing me thousands of duplicate content errors that are mostly related to Page IDs For example, this is how a page's url should look like on my site Moz is telling me there are 50 duplicate content errors for this page. The page ID for this page is 82 so the duplicate content errors appear as follows and so on. For 47 more pages. The problem repeats itself with other pages as well. My permalinks are set to "Post Name" so I know that's not an issue. What can I do to resolve this? How can I use canonical URLs to solve this problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | Sep 23, 2014, 11:21 PM | SpaMedica0 -
Should we add our company's name in page title tag or not?
We have been adding our company (Townscript) name in all the page titles. For example, in an event page of Lucknow Conclave: www.townscript.com/lucknowconclave the page title is Lucknow Conclave | Alexis Society | Townscript I read somewhere that it's not necessary to put your company's name in the title tag. Is it right? Please help!
On-Page Optimization | Jun 20, 2014, 3:17 PM | sanchitmalik0 -
Category page canonical tag
I know this question has been asked a few times on here but I'm looking for very specific advice. Currently when you go to a category, say http://www.bronterose.co.uk/range.html, a canonical tag is added to the head of the page. There are plenty of "variant" pages which carry the same tag, for example: /range.html?p=2
On-Page Optimization | Aug 31, 2013, 12:29 AM | crichardson9
/range.html?p=3
/range.html?dir=asc&order=price
/range.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price Is it wise to push the "link juice" for each of these variant pages to the top level page? Or should each variant page have its own unique canonical tag? After reading many blog posts, guides and papers I'm truly confused! Any general guidance or recommendations would be much appreciated. Chris.1 -
Can I use Same Keyword for Multi pages Title Tags?
Hello All, I am working on client website and currently they are targeting One Keywords for multi pages. As I have search with Allintitle: Search query and Google display around 37 pages of website which carry same keyword in "Title Tags". I have told to client to change the "Title Tags" but they want that keyword for all relevant pages. So I want to know is that harm in Search Engine Ranking? Note: They have not done the link building activities for multi pages with same Keyword, they are using only in "Title Tags" only
On-Page Optimization | Apr 2, 2013, 9:02 AM | jemindesai0 -
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
On-Page Optimization | Jan 20, 2013, 10:02 PM | Web3Marketing870 -
Does Title Tag have to be in the HEAD tag?
We are using templates that load the same header for every page. I'd like to just include a different title tag in the "body" template of each page. If I was to do this, does it affect SEO at all?
On-Page Optimization | Dec 11, 2012, 8:41 AM | moziodavid0 -
Should I include location in title tag to rank higher in local search
I'm working on a site for a small guest house (http://www.tommysonthebeach.com). I have created a Google Place page (Bing and Yahoo Local) as well and I have the address in the footer on every page. I have the location (Indian Rocks Beach) at the beginning of most titles tags because that is how people tend to search, e.g. "Indian Rocks Beach vacation rental." In theory I would think that I don't need location in the title tag because Google knows the location, and I could use the real estate for other keywords suchs as "pet friendly" or "beach hotel," etc. But when I look at the SERPS, those ranking highly all seem to have the location at the beginning of the title tag. Thanks. P.S. The site is currently not showing up in Google local search apparently because Google thinks it's a vacation rental agency, which are not allowed in local search. I'm trying to get that fixed.
On-Page Optimization | Feb 28, 2013, 10:46 PM | bvalentine0