"Duplicate without user-selected canonical” - impact to Google Ads costs
-
Hello, we are facing some issues on our project and we would like to get some advice.
Scenario
We run several websites (www.brandName.com, www.brandName.be, www.brandName.ch, etc..) all in French language . All sites have nearly the same content & structure, only minor text (some headings and phone numbers due to different countries are different). There are many good quality pages, but again they are the same over all domains.Current solution
Currently we don’t use canonicals, instead we use rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default":<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-BE" href="https://www.brandName.be/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CA" href="https://www.brandName.ca/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CH" href="https://www.brandName.ch/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.brandName.fr/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-LU" href="https://www.brandName.lu/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.brandName.com/" />
Naturally this si reflected in ""Duplicate without user-selected canonical” .
Issue
We create the same ad in Google Ads for 2 domains. So the content is mostly identical, ads are identical, target URLs differ only in domain. Yet Google Ads “Quality score” is different (10/10 vs. 6/10) and “Landing page experience” is very different (Above average vs. Average). Some members of our team think lower “Landing page experience” increases the Google Ads costs, which I personally don't believe, but I want to double check.Question: Can “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” issue decrease the “Landing page experience” rating and as result can it cause higher Google ads costs?
Any suggestions/ideas appreciated, thanks. Regards.
-
Hi Alex
I think there's likely two issues here - the SEO one, and the PPC/Ads one.
Hi Alex
Google Ads doesn't particularly care about duplication or indexing, so you can have variants for this purpose that are simply noindex and not linked to on your site. Of course it's also find to use pages that exist as international SEO variants, but it's not necessary to do so.
So, for the PPC issue - I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that landing page experience will affect your cost. However, it isn't related to "duplicate without user-selected canonical" - instead, it's a separate algorithm that figures out whether the ad and the page are relevant to each other. A PPC consultant would be the right person to talk to this about.
For the SEO issue - it sounds like Google maybe isn't respecting your hreflang tags, for it to be flagging them as duplicates. This could be because their content is too similar - even if it's in the same language, it should have localisations for Google to respect it as meaningfully different. Alternatively, it could be because the markup is incomplete.
If you do decide to use canonical tags, each localised page should canonical to itself, whilst keeping the existing hreflang markup pointing to translated versions. Canonical tags can be a good way of sweeping up any variants within a localisation (e.g. UTM tags).
Hope that helps!
Tom
-
Anyone? We are willing to spend some bucks to get a profound answer on this.
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
-
Unsolved I have a "click rate juice" question would like to know.
Hello I have a "click rate juice" question would like to know. For example. I created a noindex site for a few days event purposes. Using a random domain like this: event.example.com. Expecting 5000+ clicks per day. Is it possible to gain some traffic juice from this event website domain "example.com" to my other main site "main.com" but without exposing its URL. Thought about using 301 redirecting "example.com" to "main.com". But it will reveal the example-b.com to the general public if someone visits the domain "example.com". Also thought about using a canonical URL, but it would not be working because the event site is noindex. or it would not matter at all 🤔 Wondering if there is a thing like this to gain some traffic juice for another domain? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blueli0 -
Site is generating long path URLs
Hi, We've seen recently in Search Console Coverage report that website is generating long path URLs that we actually don't have.
Technical SEO | | eUniverse
Here's an example: https://autocovers.co.uk/car-mats/outdoor-basic/indoor-car-covers/shop/contact-us/shipping-delivery/about-us/about-us/indoor-car-covers/ Does anybody knows what's the issue behind it? Thanks!0 -
Adwords disapproving ads with the word "Jewish"?
Hi guys, I do marketing for many nonprofits, and one of my clients is a Jewish women's organization. In the past week or so, Google has started disapproving ads and keywords that have the word "Jewish" in them. I know Facebook got called out recently for allowing people to target based on anti-Semitic sentiments, so I'm wondering if this is just Google's terrible execution of caution. It's telling me that keywords with the word "jewish" in them (like "jewish women's organization in boston" is derogatory or dangerous). I've asked for Google's help, and they've been incredibly slow to respond. Is anyone else facing this with other religions or content? Natalie
Paid Search Marketing | | newwhy1 -
How to deal with the InCorrect Price Issue for the Google Shopping Product Listing Ads?
Hello All, Yesterday when i was checking with the one of the search term for "canvas prints"..i come to know that one of the advertiser EasyCanvasPrints.com is showing Incorrect price. On Search result they guys are showing $7.46 incorrect price for the PLA - Product listing ads. Go to below links: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=webhp&tbs=vw:l,mr:1,seller:8521978&tbm=shop&q=canvas+prints&sa=X&ved=0CJkGELMrahUKEwjmj-PSgfzIAhUHBY4KHc0VBBQ https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=canvas+prints&tbm=shop https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=canvas+prints&start=0 But when we click on it then i can not this price $7.46 http://www.easycanvasprints.com/single-canvas?singlecanvas=1&height=19&width=14&pcode=5345334C6B74647246774137536C786768544B5458776C35644F747855796D39&utm_source=google_base&utm_medium=data_feed I have done various claim and send to Google support about this misguiding price for the Easy Canvas Prints but they not taking any actions on it. Guy Can u please help me how can i pass this message to Google to take actions for this advertiser? Waiting for your reply Regards Dinesh
Paid Search Marketing | | CommercePundit0 -
Do only paid adwords appear in google shopping
Does anyone know if we have to have a paid addwords campain for our products to appear in google shopping. We have a feed set up for google shopping. We have addwords campaigns running for google. But our products do not seem to appear in google shopping. Any advise on how to get them there?
Paid Search Marketing | | CostumeD0 -
CPC or CPM for Google Display Network?
HI all I'm setting up my first Remarketing campaign on the display network. I'm targeting those that have visited a specific product page at the moment and therefore there won't be a massive amount of traffic to remarket to - roughly no more than 50 clicks/day. My question is - what is the best bidding option for a campaign like this? Not sure whether to go for CPM or traditional CPC. I have previously found CPM much better for Facebook but obviously thats very different to Google. All help appreciated!
Paid Search Marketing | | SamMaley0 -
Google PPC Management
Okay, so I have a client who wants me to manage their ppc on Google. It seems like either they give me access to their PPC account or I manage it via my own account and pre-bill for the cost, later supplying reports. Are those the two options? Thanks...MJ
Paid Search Marketing | | 945010