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
-
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 | Feb 20, 2017, 10:57 AM | mattdinbrooklyn0 -
How to interlink 16 different language versions of site?
I remember that Matt Cutts recommended against interlinking many language versions of a site.
International SEO | Jul 28, 2015, 11:52 AM | lcourse
Considering that google now also crawls javascript links, what is best way to implement interlinking? I still see otherwhise extremely well optimized large sites interlinking to more than 10 different language versions e.g. zalando.de, but also booking.com (even though here on same domain). Currently we have an expandable css dropdown in the footer interlinking 16 different language versions with different TLD. Would you be concerned? What would you suggest how to interlink domains (for user link would be useful)?0 -
Multiple You-Tube Channels for Geo-Targeting ??
Hi I have a UK based e-commerce client/project who has authorised a US distributor/dealer to set up their own US site along with US focused Facebook & other socials etc etc Should they also have country specific YouTube channels (even if both target countries English language i.e. UK & US) ? They brand has lots of video content of 2 main types: Product reviews to host on the website (to win serps, snippets and hence conversions from search) Longer more entertaining productions to put on YouTube channel to captivate, entertain and eventually drive YT target traffic to website via 'in video annotations' external link feature etc. Hence it makes sense to me that the US agent should set up their own YT channel along with their other social pages like FB etc, since annotated links go to different sites (US & UK). Does Google allow this (multiple channels) If not and sticking with the one channel is it possible to geo-target in video annotated external links so depending upon viewer location serves up relevant country link ? Any other ideas, help/advice, comments from anyone who has experience in this type of scenario ? Many thanks Dan
International SEO | Jan 6, 2014, 10:20 AM | Dan-Lawrence0 -
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 | Jul 5, 2013, 4:35 AM | bjs20100 -
Does the location of my Domain Registrar affect SEO?
Does the location of my Domain Registrar affect SEO? For example, if my hosting company is in the U.S., but the domain registrar is overseas. Also, is it better to have both services be met by one company?
International SEO | Dec 20, 2012, 11:51 PM | greenfoxone0 -
Redirecting users based on location
My site is available in EN, DE, SW, SP, FR, IT, CH and JP. However, the EN sites ranks much better than the other languages, and even when searching in another language the EN homepage is normally the result that appears. Would it be worthwhile to automatically redirect users to the site in the same language they are searching in or country they are searching from? If so, how do I go about this? Thanks!
International SEO | Jan 5, 2016, 6:07 PM | theLotter0 -
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 | Apr 1, 2012, 7:25 AM | vanvallejo0 -
How can I see what my web site looks like from a different country?
I've tried a few proxy tools to try to see how my site looks from other global locations, but haven't found one that works very well yet -- or a list of reliable proxies around the world. I need to do this to test various geo-targetted ads and other optimizations. Can anyone make a recommendation? Thanks!
International SEO | Oct 25, 2011, 7:55 AM | Dennis-529610