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.
Showing different content according to different geo-locations on same URL
-
We would like our website to show different content according to different Geo-locations (but in the same language). For example, if www.mywebsite.com is accessed from the US, it would show text (in English) appealing to North Americans, but, if accessed from Japan, it would show text (also in English) that appeals more to Japanese people. In the Middle East, we would like the website to show different images than those shown in the US and Asia.
Our main concern is that we would like to keep the same URL.
- How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives?
- Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL?
- What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan?
- Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for?
Kindest Regards
L.B.
-
Thanks Chris Menke! Checking out the videos now!
-
seoec,
How your content is cached in different data centers, will have a lot to do with the architecture of your site(s) and where they may be hosted. CC TLD's may be the way for you to go but it does require an investment in the domains. You can also set up subdomain or us location specific sub folders to separate unique content for each market. Each option has its own set of pros and cons.
Matt Cutts did a video that goes over the duplicate content issue on country code top level domains here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo and Rand did a white board Friday that covers your architectual options here http://moz.com/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday
-
Thank you so much Paddy Displays for such a prompt and detailed answer.
-
Our system does this and I think its a bad Idea (for us any way), our target market is UK and Ireland. But when google was crawling our pages they were only getting the US version of the site, so all that nice text we had for the UK and Ireland pages was was missed by google (the US page was the systems default page, with no custom text). I just copied and pasted our UK & Ireland text to the US default page, then we started to rank for some of the targeted keywords.
Now our problem is that is google bot is getting the prices us dollers instead of Pounds or Euros so for some of our rankings it picking up meta data and showing $ prices in the serps for the UK.
So my advice is be careful, it might seem like a good idea for users, but google will only see the US version of the site
To answer you questions:
- How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives?
It will only index US version for all
- Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL?
To my knowledge no (we used they system for 3 years and rank modestly)
- What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan?
Not sure what you mean, but you need different urls for different content
- Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for?
See what I said above
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
-
Using same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags
Hi,I have a question. Is it okay if I use the same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags? For example, for my en-us page: Is this okay with Google? What are your thoughts on this?
International SEO | | Avid_Demand0 -
International URL paths
Wanted to ask everyone a questions: So our company is going to be doing a website that is going to be full of videos. The url path will be country.domain.com/language/slug/content-id. We redirect the user when they go to the different country. So if you're in spain on a train to france your URL will change from es.domain.com/es/slug/content-id to fr.domain.com/es/slug/content-id. Each country can listen to each video in all languages. My question is with hreflang tags and canonicals. Aside from targeting users in a certain country via Google Search Console, how do I eliminate duplication and tell Google which I'd like to show up via which country. In spain I would like es.domain.com/es/slug/content-id to show in Google and would have hreflang tags on each of the es.domain pages but what about fr.domain.com/es/slug/content-id since it would show the same content? I can't canonical to one of them since I need them to show in their respective country. How do I show the difference in language and country without showing duplication?
International SEO | | mattdinbrooklyn0 -
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 -
What language to use for URL's for Russian language?
Hi, Our site is in English, Spanish, Danish and Russian - the URL's are individual to the language they are in, but of course, Russian contains some strange characters so I decided not to use them in the URL's Any advice on how to create the URL's for russian language pages? thanks
International SEO | | bjs20100 -
Translating URLs worth it?
My company has content in 23 different languages in 30+ countries. We translate page content but we don't translate URLs. I am trying to figure out whether it would be worth the considerable extra overhead to translate the URLs as well. I'd really appreciate hearing the thoughts of the Moz community. Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | Logi0 -
Does Keyword and Location Matter?
Hi Everyone, I'm always learning, but here's a question. I would like to know if keyword and location truly matter. For example, I've been trying to rank my website for a LONG time for a UK English term. My site is hosted in the US. My site has great content and internal and external links using the keyword. I cannot seem to climb the SERPs although my "American" keywords do fine and I see results. If anyone wants to take a look, that would be great. My website is JourneyBeyondTravel.com and I wish to rank for "Morocco Holidays" (I am at about #20 currently). I am also having trouble with "Morocco travel" although I have continuously ranked well for "Morocco tours" and "trips." Along this same line, I've been doing some quality guest posting and blogging. I've used longer phrase-type keywords (3-5 words) in the article text that have keyword terms in them. Should keywords be varied like this? How long until I see results? And, should I look for blogs in different countries to keep things balanced (such as blogging on .co.uk sites so that I can get link juice for UK keywords). Thanks again! Thomas
International SEO | | journeybeyondtravel0 -
International (foreign language) URL's best practices
I'm curious if there is a benefit or best practice with regards to using the localized language on international sites (with specific ccTLDs). For example, should my french site (site.fr) use the french language as keywords within the URLs or should they be in english? e.g. www.site.fr/nourriture vs. www.site.fr/food Is that considered best practice for SEO (or just for brand perception those markets?). Is there a tangible loss in SEO if we do not use the correct language for those URLs and just stick with English around the world? I recall seeing a Matt Cutts video on the topic and he said that google does support i18n URL's but other SE's might not support them as gracefully but he didn't come down with a hard recommendation to go with i18n URL's or just English. Would love a strong ruling in favor one direction based on best practices.
International SEO | | mongillo0 -
SEO for Subdomains for different languages .com/fr, .com/es
Hi All, I was wondering how best to to approach optimisation of a site that exists on a single .com domain, but has different subfolders for different languages. The site is a .com and it has subfolders for French, Spanish, Russian and English. The business is situated in France and the vast majority of clients are French and English speakers. I've read that it's possible to geo target these subfolders using webmaster tools however I believe this is an inferior method of optimisation than having tld's. Just wondered if anyone had experience of htis and could provide any advice ? As they won't be rebuilding the site for another year or so I wondered if there were any quick wins? My second question is to do with how best to set these campaigns up within SEO Moz. would it be better to track at a subdomain or subfolder leverl (for different languages)? If someone could advise I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks, vantresca
International SEO | | vanvallejo0