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.
How to avoid duplication across multiple country domains
-
Here's the scenario:
- I have a client currently running one Shopify site (AU)
- They want to launch three more country domains (US, UK and EU)
- They want each to be a standalone site, primarily so the customers can purchase in their local currency, which is not possible from a single Shopify site
- The inventory is all from the same source
- The product desscriptions will all be the same as well
Question: How do we avoid content duplication (ie. how will canonical tags work in this scenario)?
-
No problem. Your best bet would be to avoid subdomains and have separate entities via ccTLD as you've mentioned is the plan. You could do a sub-directory structure (.com/au, .com/us, etc..) but honestly that gets pretty messy. I've got a client that has some countries on different ccTLDs and some that share a TLD, and the ones that share the .com are the messy ones.
-
Hey Logan,
Thanks for clarification on the hreflang tags - sounds good.
Re the .eu TLD, the client is keen to go this route just to enable Euro currency in the checkout. But I agree it is sub-optimal. If there is sufficient business case (ie. traffic), then I will suggest .fr, .de, etc. I believe the Langify app in Shopify works well. Otherwise, I might suggest .com in US$ for all countries other than Aus and UK.
Also wondering on your thoughts re domainuk.com, versus domain.co.uk?
-
You can specify English as the language for each one. The tag's main purpose is language, but it has deeper implications than that. The hreflang tags and Search Console specification will still help your .co.uk URLs in google.co.uk, your .com URLs in Google.com, and your .com.au URLs in google.com.au.
Regarding your .eu TLD, you might need to rethink that strategy. The primary language in Aus, UK, and US is English, so the plan you've laid out will be fine for those countries. But when you get into a .eu domain, there is no Google.eu and there's no single primary language spoken throughout. Serving up English content to everyone in Europe is sub-par UX since there's a plethora of languages in the region.
-
Furthermore, it appears that region targetting only works for specific countries ('eu' is not an option).
So it appears that the proposed solution isn't going to achieve the desired outcome after all:
- because the hreflang tags are intended for different languages and all four of our sites will be in English
- because 'eu' is not recognised by the tags
Anyone out there got a solution?
-
Hi Logan,
OK, there's a possible gotcha here. All four sites (.com, au, uk and eu) will be in English. So content will be identical. The purpose of the hreflang tags seems to be for multi-language versions of the same site. This is not the case here. The primary reason for country specific TLDs is just to allow customers to transact in their local currency, but also to be indexed in the local version of Google.
Make sense?
-
Happy to help!
-
That's very helpful - many thanks Logan
-
Hi,
There's a couple things you'll need to do. First is to set up a Search Console account for each TLD version of your domain. Once you've setup and verified, you'll want to specify the target country for each. To do this, go to Search Traffic on the left nav, then click International Targeting, then head to the Country tab. Set each for its respective domain.
Next, you'll need to implement hreflang tags. They work similar to canonical tags, but instead of telling search engines the preferential version of the content, these tags point them to the other country/language versions. Everything you need to know about this tag can be found here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag.
These two actions will help the country-specific versions of Google serve up the appropriate versions of your content and avoid getting dinged for dupes.
Hope that's helpful!
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
-
Moving from single domain to multiple CCTLDs
Hi, I have a website targeting 3 markets (and therefor 3 languages). I was currently using a single domain with each market being targeted in the following format: www.website.com/pl
International SEO | | cellydy
www.website.com/de
www.website.com/hu It's clear to me by looking at organic results, that in my industry (Real Estate) Google is putting a large emphasis on local businesses and local domains. Top 10 organic results for all my keywords in all markets have country specific CCTLDs. I decided to migrate from a single domain strategy to a multi domain strategy. I own the domains. The new structure is www.website.com/pl -> www.website.pl
www.website.com/de -> www.website.de
www.website.com/hu -> www.website.hu All the website have been added to google search console and 301 redirects are in place and working correctly. The pages are all interlinked and have rel=alternate to each other. The sitemaps are all done correctly. My question is how do I tell Google about this. The change of address feature only works for changing one domain to one other domain. It's been a week and the old www.website.com domain is still showing up (even considering 301 redirects). Or do I just need to be patient and wait it out? Any tips?0 -
Hreflang tags and canonical tags - might be causing indexing and duplicate content issues
Hi, Let's say I have a site located at https://www.example.com, and also have subdirectories setup for different languages. For example: https://www.example.com/es_ES/ https://www.example.com/fr_FR/ https://www.example.com/it_IT/ My Spanish version currently has the following hreflang tags and canonical tag implemented: My robots.txt file is blocking all of my language subdirectories. For example: User-agent:* Disallow: /es_ES/ Disallow: /fr_FR/ Disallow: /it_IT/ This setup doesn't seem right. I don't think I should be blocking the language-specific subdirectories via robots.txt What are your thoughts? Does my hreflang tag and canonical tag implementation look correct to you? Should I be doing this differently? I would greatly appreciate your feedback and/or suggestions.
International SEO | | Avid_Demand0 -
Can multiple hreflang tags point to one URL? International SEO question
Moz, Hi Moz, Can multiple hreflang tags point to a single URL? For example, if I have a Canadian site (www.example.com/ca) that targets French and English speakers can I have the following: or would I use: Any insight would be very helpful and greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
International SEO | | DA20131 -
E-Commerce - Country Domains versus 1 Domain?
Hi, Just wanted to get some feedback and opinions re the idea of segmenting our ecommerce site languages under various domains, like .jp for japanese, .it for italian etc... I do understand the geolocation benefits that this could bring us, but on the flipside, it would mean that we would need to grow our domain authority, link buiding per country domain, which is quite a bit of work. Has anyone ever considered or implemented this and any thoughts? Thanks!
International SEO | | bjs20100 -
URL Structure - Homepage, Country and State Pages
Hello, I am creating a website (or websites if best format) that will have state-specific boating license courses for every state in the US, Canada and Australia. I would like the content to be available on the website in English, French and Spanish. I want to be the global leader in providing boat test courses. For the (1) homepage, (2) country pages, and (3) state pages, what is best SEO format I should use for:
International SEO | | Monologix
(a) URL structure
(b) "href lang" code
(c) rel canonical code
(d) will meta content with non-English pages need to also be in the non-English language of that page? Also, what server company do you recommend I host my website with? I am a non-programmer and learning SEO, so any and all help will be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much in advance!!!0 -
Multiple hreflang tags
I'm trying to advise on the multi country seo for a site in terms of markup. We've already decided on using sub folders rather than separate sites or subdomains due to an established link profile and good rankings in all countries. The question is in relation to the homepage. Obviously this is the page most likely to rank well in any country (the site is a .com). But can multiple hreflang tags be put on the page to say that the page targets many countries? Or would leaving the hreflang tag off allow it to just rank for all countries? Also do Yahoo and Bing follow hreflang tags? I can't find any info on this anywhere! Thanks very much in advance for any help!
International SEO | | Bdig0 -
Best domain for spanish language site targeting ALL spanish territories?
hi, we're have a strong .com domain and are looking to launch a site for spanish speakers (ie latin america + spain). we already have various subdirectories for some foreign language sites (eg. ourdomain.co.uk, us.ourdomain.com, ca.ourdomain.com, ourdomainchina.com, ourdomainindia.com etc) we already have a B2B site ourdomain.com-es which will remain the same. I'm thinking best practice would be to launch translated copy for the following: ourdomain.com/es ourdomain.com/cl ourdomain.com/mx ourdomain.com/pt etc etc firstly is this the best option? secondly, i'm really interested to hear whether there is a less time/resource intensive route that would give us visibility in ALL spanish speaking territories? Also - if we go with just one of the above (eg ourdomain.com/cl) how likely are we to get traction in other spanish speaking territories? any help much appreciated!
International SEO | | KevinDunne0