Country Code Top Level Domains & Duplicate Content
-
Hi looking to launch in a new market, currently we have a .com.au domain which is geo-targeted to Australia.
We want to launch in New Zealand which is ends with .co.nz
If i duplicate the Australian based site completely on the new .co.nz domain name, would i face duplicate content issues from a SEO standpoint?
Even though it's on a completely separate country code.Or is it still advised tosetup hreflang tag across both of the domains?
Cheers.
-
Jay,
This is pretty common, and as long as you follow international SEO best-practices, you'll be alright. Here's a couple resources that include everything you'll need to do this properly:
The hreflang tag is basically a canonical tag that lets search engines know you have other versions of this content out there meant for different countries and/or languages.
-
Yes you would face DC. I would recommend to use Google search console and tell Google you now have a new language on the same site. This should do the work for you as far as I know.
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
-
International SEO and duplicate content: what should I do when hreflangs are not enough?
Hi, A follow up question from another one I had a couple of months ago: It has been almost 2 months now that my hreflangs are in place. Google recognises them well and GSC is cleaned (no hreflang errors). Though I've seen some positive changes, I'm quite far from sorting that duplicate content issue completely and some entire sub-folders remain hidden from the SERP.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GhillC
I believe it happens for two reasons: 1. Fully mirrored content - as per the link to my previous question above, some parts of the site I'm working on are 100% similar. Quite a "gravity issue" here as there is nothing I can do to fix the site architecture nor to get bespoke content in place. 2. Sub-folders "authority". I'm guessing that Google prefers sub-folders over others due to their legacy traffic/history. Meaning that even with hreflangs in place, the older sub-folder would rank over the right one because Google believes it provides better results to its users. Two questions from these reasons:
1. Is the latter correct? Am I guessing correctly re "sub-folders" authority (if such thing exists) or am I simply wrong? 2. Can I solve this using canonical tags?
Instead of trying to fix and "promote" hidden sub-folders, I'm thinking to actually reinforce the results I'm getting from stronger sub-folders.
I.e: if a user based in belgium is Googling something relating to my site, the site.com/fr/ subfolder shows up instead of the site.com/be/fr/ sub-sub-folder.
Or if someone is based in Belgium using Dutch, he would get site.com/nl/ results instead of the site.com/be/nl/ sub-sub-folder. Therefore, I could canonicalise /be/fr/ to /fr/ and do something similar for that second one. I'd prefer traffic coming to the right part of the site for tracking and analytic reasons. However, instead of trying to move mountain by changing Google's behaviour (if ever I could do this?), I'm thinking to encourage the current flow (also because it's not completely wrong as it brings traffic to pages featuring the correct language no matter what). That second question is the main reason why I'm looking out for MoZ's community advice: am I going to damage the site badly by using canonical tags that way? Thank you so much!
G0 -
I added an SSL certificate this morning and now I noticed duplicate content
Ok, so Im a newbie, therefor I make mistakes! Lots of them. I added an SSL certificate this morning bc it was free and I read it can help my rankings. Now I just checked it in screaming frog and saw two duplicate content pages due to the https. So im panicking! What's the easiest way to fix this?? Can I undue an SSL certificate? I guess what's the easiest that will also be best for ranking. Thank you!! Rena
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | palila0 -
Linking from & to in domains and sub-domains
What's the best optimised linking between sub-domains and domains? And every time we'll give website link at top with logo...do we need to link sub-domain also with all it's pages? If example.com is domain and example.com/blog is sub-domain or sub-folder... Do we need to link to example.com from /blog? Do we need to give /blog link in all pages of /blog? Is there any difference in connecting domains with sub-domains and sub-folders?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Pros & Cons of Switching Your Main Domain to Mask Links & Combat EMDs
Hello Mozzers, I'd love to receive some advice for a client of mine and insights you may have regarding pros and cons on changing your main domain to mask links. Within a competitive niche there are about 4 different sites that routinely rank 1-4. Our site crushes all three on just about all metrics except we have a high volume of nofollow links and our site remains at #4. Our site is much older so we have significantly more links than these smaller sites, including pre-penguin penalty spammy links (like blog comments that make up 50+ nofollow links from 1 comment per domain). Obviously we are attempting to remove any toxic links and disavow, however the blog comment nofollow links skew our anchor text ratio pretty intensely and we are worried that we aren't going to make a dent in removing this type of links. Just disavowing them hasn't worked alone, so if we are unable to remove the bulk of these poor quality links (nofollow, off-topic anchor text, etc..) we are considering 301 redirecting the current domain to a new one. We've seen success with this in a couple of scenarios, but wanted to see other insights as to if masking links with a 301 could send fresh signals and positively effect rankings. Also wanted to mention, 2 of the 3 competitors that outrank us have EMD's for the primary keywords. Appreciate your time, insights, and advice on this matter.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leadhub0 -
Duplicate Content in News Section
Our clients site is in the hunting niche. According to webmaster tools there are over 32,000 indexed pages. In the new section that are 300-400 news posts where over the course of a about 5 years they manually copied relevant Press Releases from different state natural resources websites (ex. http://gfp.sd.gov/news/default.aspx). This content is relevant to the site visitors but it is not unique. We have since begun posting unique new posts but I am wondering if anything should be done with these old news posts that aren't unique? Should I use the rel="canonical tag or noindex tag for each of these pages? Or do you have another suggestion?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rise10 -
SEO - Product Related MiniSites: Hosting & Domains
Hey Mozzers, I would first like to thank everyone in advance for replying to my question 😉 Actually, my question is 2-part: Hosting & Domains 1) We are currently researching product-related domains and would like to build-out review style mini-sites on WordPress that link back to our main site product pages. We're using X-Cart platform and X-Cart offers a WordPress module. My Dev. recommends installing a main WordPress mini-site template on my server and replicating this template under different domains/unique content, obviously ;-). -My questions is; For backlink purposes, would it be better to host these WordPress pages in a different location/server? 2) Domains (which domain extensions are the best): I have read mixed reviews on this subject ... a) Do dashes (i,e. brand-model.com) have an impact as well?? I read a post regarding this; http://www.commonsensemarketing.net/do-domain-name-extensions-matter/ - and the general feeling was that .com and .net ranked higher, faster but that .info wasn't a bad runner up. I was a bit excited to hear that .info wasn't a bad choice as they are actually "available" and cheap as well (under 3 bucks) until a comment was posted about a "Market Samurai" study. They reported testing 4 domain names (below) with the same article, date & time post . 1. domainname.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | k9byron
2. domainname.org
3. domainname.net
4. domain-name.com -My question is: Can anyone give any advise on which domain extensions work better/rank higher faster? com / .net / .org / .info / ect? Also, is it better to have more product related keywords in the domain? Example, one of my products is the "Dogtra 280ncp Platinum". WordStream exact match tells me that "dogtra 280ncp" gets 210 searches per month and that "dogtra 280ncp platinum" gets another 91 searches per month. I'm guessing that its better to buy www.Dogtra280ncpPlatinum.com instead of www.Dogtra280ncp.com as we would pick up the searches for the "platinum" term as well? Question Summary: Is it better to host these mini-sites on another server than my main site? Which domain extensions work better? Is it better to use as many product related keywords in the domain as possible and maybe even throw modifiers in there as well such as "buy" or "review"? Thanks Again!
Byron-0 -
How to compete with duplicate content in post panda world?
I want to fix duplicate content issues over my eCommerce website. I have read very valuable blog post on SEOmoz regarding duplicate content in post panda world and applied all strategy to my website. I want to give one example to know more about it. http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas Non WWW version: http://vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas redirect to home page. For HTTPS pages: https://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas I have created Robots.txt file for all HTTPS pages as follow. https://www.vistastores.com/robots.txt And, set Rel=canonical to HTTP page as follow. http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas Narrow by search: My website have narrow by search and contain pages with same Meta info as follow. http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas?cat=7 http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas?manufacturer=Bond+MFG http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas?finish_search=Aluminum I have restricted all dynamic pages by Robots.txt which are generated by narrow by search. http://www.vistastores.com/robots.txt And, I have set Rel=Canonical to base URL on each dynamic pages. Order by pages: http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name I have restrict all pages with robots.txt and set Rel=Canonical to base URL. For pagination pages: http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name&p=2 I have restrict all pages with robots.txt and set Rel=Next & Rel=Prev to all paginated pages. I have also set Rel=Canonical to base URL. I have done & apply all SEO suggestions to my website but, Google is crawling and indexing 21K+ pages. My website have only 9K product pages. Google search result: https://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&pws=0&gl=US&q=site:www.vistastores.com&biw=1366&bih=520 Since last 7 days, my website have affected with 75% down of impression & CTR. I want to recover it and perform better as previous one. I have explained my question in long manner because, want to recover my traffic as soon as possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
How do I fix the error duplicate page content and duplicate page title?
On my site www.millsheating.co.uk I have the error message as per the question title. The conflict is coming from these two pages which are effectively the same page: www.millsheating.co.uk www.millsheating.co.uk/index I have added a htaccess file to the root folder as I thought (hoped) it would fix the problem but I doesn't appear to have done so. this is the content of the htaccess file: Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^millsheating.co.uk RewriteRule (.*) http://www.millsheating.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.millsheating.co.uk/ [R=301,L] AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JasonHegarty0