Cross-domain canonical
-
HI,
We've got a German e-commerce site on an .at domain and would like to have a copy on a .de domain as we expect higher conversions for German users there. The idea now would be to make use of the cross-domain canonical tag, create a "duplicate" on the .de domain and add a canonical tag on all sites and refer to the original content on the .at domain. That would mean the .de won't rank, but German users could see the .de domain, Austrian users the .at domain in the address bar and everybody could feel "at home" ... that's the theory.
What do you guys think? Valid strategy?
-
See today's Whiteboard Friday... Rand talks about cross-domain canonical with examples.
-
Servus, Tom
Thanks for your reply. Right, AdWords would be the first thing to think of ... in any other way we have thought of, we're always running into duplicate content issues within our sites (apart from the issues with other sites selling the same products and using manufacturer texts as our client does).
-
Well, it depends! Use of the rel=canonical tag sounds fine to me, I agree they'll feel more 'at home' with a .de domain.
However, what is the strategy for the German users to find the .de version of the site? I'm guessing AdWords or similar where you display the .de domain to increase the CTR. However, it would be nice to be able to bring users in via the organic rankings.
Seeing as this is a valid problem faced by many, it is a shame the engines haven't yet provided a better way to handle it.
Viel Glück!
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
-
Ranking over someone else who has your branded domain name
Hello! I have a client who has been in business for a long time, but was very late to the game online. As a result, the branded domain for his business (for explanation purposes I'll call it "Houston Tan"*) was already taken when he decided he needed a website, however it was not being used. He approached the company that owned "houstontan.com" and they refused to sell it to him. Not only that, they turned around and opened a company and developed the website using his trademarked company name as one word instead of two, "HoustonTan." It was brought to court and the judge determined that since they created a new name by combining the two words, there was nothing that he could do. Still having to create a website for his company, he chose the domain "HoustonSunTan.com." Not sure who was advising him on that one. So now he has a domain name with only a partial match to his company name. As you would imagine, when you search Houston Tan, HoustonTan.com is number 1, 2 & 3, and HoustonSunTan.com is #4. My question is, do you think it is even possible for his company to overtake the top spot of Google? Or have you ever come across a situation like this and if so what worked for you? FYI: Even though it says Houston, the company is a global company in over 500 cities (with one 800 number unfortunately), so local SEO strategies wouldn't necessarily apply. *Names are made up to protect both parties 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | American.Made0 -
Cross-linking for mobile SEO
Hi everyone! I am having a hard time finding information about weather to/how to apply internal seo linking to mobile versions of sites. We decided to go with dynamic serving with user agent detection. Our desktop site has a quite heavy seo-internal-cross-linking. As I understand, for mobile we should simplify and focus on usability, so get rid of unnecessary links. But I have a doubt about weather removing this part of the web structure can hurt our SEO. Do Google mobile bots look at and rank mobile versions of pages from scratch or do they use what they know about the site and the site's structure from its desktop version?
On-Page Optimization | | ofertia0 -
My main domain is missing in google, subdomain appears instead.
I have two SEO optimised pages in my website targeting different keywords www.example.com <-- main selling page (Pocket Guitar | Guitar Instruments)
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
www.example.com/index/ <-- 2nd selling page (Guitar Australia | Guitar Perth) Q: At first my website "www.example.com" is ranking on google first page. Suddenly it disappears and the link "www.example.com/index/" appears instead. No matter what i search, "Pocket Guitar | Guitar Instruments | Guitar Australia | Guitar Perth", the link www.example.com/index/ appears on the front page instead of www.example.com. What is happening to my main domain? Should i be worried?0 -
Canonical URL Category and Tags
Hello, I would like to know that I want to use both category and tags in my blog StylishMahi. If I index both category and tags, should I use canonical URL tag to pass referring to main category. As I want more my categories in SERP results ranking higher? I have also attached a picture. Can someone please confirm? Photo by Moz ZigdWMx
On-Page Optimization | | PratapSingh0 -
Two sites, one with a ccTLD domain, the other with TLD domain, same content
Hi there! I have a site which can be accessed with two different domains: one ccTLD for Spain: www.piensapiensa.es one TLD www.piensapiensa.com Should I take care of something regarding SEO? I have also a redirection from www.piensapiensa.com to piensapiensa.com. I have set up them in webmasters tools individually, with the same sitemap obviously. Thanks in advanced.
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing?
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing? I had "twin" domains so I redirected my .com to www..com and now I have a lot of Rel Canonical Links.
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
Can I exclude sub-domains from the crawl diagnostics?
I am working with a site with 7500 pages in a sub-domain. The root site has 650 pages, but I am having difficulty finding and working with those 650 pages due to all the "noise" from the sub-domain pages that are in Ning and can't be fixed. Can i exclude sub-domains from the crawl?
On-Page Optimization | | robertdonnell0 -
"Canonical URL Tag Usage" recommendation in SEOmoz "On-Page Optimization" Tool
Here comes another one related to SEOmoz "On-Page Optimization" Tool. The tool says the following about one of our pages: Canonical URL Tag Usage Explanation: Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to
On-Page Optimization | | gerardoH
use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future
developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe
the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic
today. Recommendation: Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page. Let's say our page is http://www.example.com/brands/abc-brand and on its header we'll place the following tag: Is this correct? I thought the canonical tag was meant for duplicates of the original page, for example: http://www.example.com/brands/print/abc-brand href="http://www.example.com/brands/abc-brand**?SESSID=123** Thanks in advance.0