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.
Wrong country sites being shown in google
-
Hi,
I am having some issues with country targeting of our sites.
Just to give a brief background of our setup and web domains
We use magento and have 7 connected ecommerce sites on that magento installation
1.www.tidy-books.co.uk (UK) - main site
2. www.tidy-books.com (US) - variations in copy but basically a duplicate of UK
3.www.tidy-books.it (Italy) - fully translated by a native speaker - its' own country based social medias and content regularly updated/created
4.www.tidy-books.fr (France) - fully translated by a native speaker - its' own country based social medias and content regularly updated/created
5.www.tidy-books.de (Germany) - fully translated by a native speaker - uits' own country based social medias and content regularly updated/created
6.www.tidy-books.com.au (Australia) - duplicate of UK
7.www.tidy-books.eu (rest of Europe) - duplicate of UK
I’ve added the country and language href tags to all sites.
We use cross domain canonical URLS
I’ve targeted in the international targeting in Google webmaster the correct country where appropriate
So we are getting number issues which are driving me crazy trying to work out why
The major one is for example
If you search with an Italian IP in google.it for our brand name Tidy Books the .com site is shown first then .co.uk and then all other sites followed on page 3 the correct site www.tidy-books.it
The Italian site is most extreme example but the French and German site still appear below the .com site.
This surely shouldn’t be the case?
Again this problem happens with the co.uk and .com sites with when searching google.co.uk for our keywords the .com often comes up before the .co.uk so it seems we have are sites competing against each other which again can’t be right or good.
The next problem lies in the errors we are getting on google webmaster on all sites is having no return tags in the international targeting section.
Any advice or help would be very much appreciated. I’ve added some screen shots to help illustrate and happy to provide extra details.
Thanks
UK%20hreflang%20errors.png de%20search.png fr%20search.png it%20search.png
-
We are having the same issues. We have already implemented hreflang. Is there anything else that might help solve this problem?
- topic:timeago_earlier,12 days
-
Hi Geraldine,
So, meanwhile just jumped in what would be most cost efficient implementation for the HREFLANG on your website.
Give the following article to your developer: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2620865?hl=en
Basically he will create a sitemap for each of the websites, which will indicate what is the alternate version of every single page in other languages.
You will then submit this sitemap to EACH of the Google Webmaster Tools accounts for the websites (.fr, .de, .com, etc.)
This should be the fastest and most cost efficient in your case.
Reminder: Remove the Hreflang link from current versions. It is the best to indicate alternate via only once channel.
Gr., Keszi
-
Could you write me Private Message with your email address? I need to ask a few questions to your developer in order to search for a good implementation.
-
Hi Keszi,
Thank you for the response. I've added the general Hreflang tags So just the top level part of the domain. ie
and so forth
We use Magento, it's likely I will have to get our developers to do it so I'm seeking some advice to hopefully minimise cost or do it ourselves.
Thanks again
-
Hi Geraldine,
I checked it quickly but I do not see the implementation done.
Regarding of how you could do it fast, what Content Management System are you using?
Gr., Keszi
-
Hi so we need to have the hreflang tags setup so they show the url of that page?
like this?
http://www.tidy-books.eu**/bookcases-storage**" />http://www.tidy-books.co.uk//bookcases-storage" />
http://www.tidy-books.com/bookcases-storage" />
http://www.tidy-books.com.au**/bookcases-storage**" />
http://www.tidy-books.it//mobili-librerie-contenitori-libri" />http://www.tidy-books.fr/bibliotheques" />
http://www.tidy-books.de/http://www.tidy-books.de/kinderbuecher-regal-buecheraufbewahrung-33" />Any ideas of how to do this with oout spending hours manually adding the different urls etc?Cheers -
Thanks for the answers I'm going to look into this further with you suggestions
-
Hi!
Like Jamie has mentioned it, you have a HREFLANG issue on the site.
Try implementing for each of the domains the following code:
<- default for international
<- default for US
<- default for Aus
<- default for italian language!
<- default for french language
<- default for german language!I would implement it like this.
The difference is compared to Jamie's implementation idea, is that I wouldn't put the .com version as the x-default.
All of the hreflang markups have to appear on each of the pages! For example:
Read through the articles Jamie provided, they will be a huge help to kick-start the implementation.
Gr., Keszi
-
It appears that you do not have “link rel="alternate” for all locations, I'm not sure if that’s going to fix it completely but Google will not understand if you do not associate each alternate version.
It's a good idea to provide a generic URL for geographically unspecified users if you have several alternate URLs targeted at users with the different languages, but in different locales.
E.G each separate domain with a different language should be mentioned.
Also double check language code as incorrect language codes can cause issues. Also make sure you canonical them and add a language specific sitemap. You also want to add a default for example.com is default add the following.
So in the code it would look like this
http://www.internationalseomap.com/hreflang-tags-generator/
http://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
Hope that makes sense.
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
-
Trying to get Google to stop indexing an old site!
Howdy, I have a small dilemma. We built a new site for a client, but the old site is still ranking/indexed and we can't seem to get rid of it. We setup a 301 from the old site to the new one, as we have done many times before, but even though the old site is no longer live and the hosting package has been cancelled, the old site is still indexed. (The new site is at a completely different host.) We never had access to the old site, so we weren't able to request URL removal through GSC. Any guidance on how to get rid of the old site would be very appreciated. BTW, it's been about 60 days since we took these steps. Thanks, Kirk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 29, 2019, 12:34 PM | kbates0 -
SEO on Jobs sites: how to deal with expired listings with "Google for Jobs" around
Dear community, When dealing with expired job offers on jobs sites from a SEO perspective, most practitioners recommend to implement 301 redirects to category pages in order to keep the positive ranking signals of incoming links. Is it necessary to rethink this recommendation with "Google for Jobs" is around? Google's recommendations on how to handle expired job postings does not include 301 redirects. "To remove a job posting that is no longer available: Remove the job posting from your sitemap. Do one of the following: Note: Do NOT just add a message to the page indicating that the job has expired without also doing one of the following actions to remove the job posting from your sitemap. Remove the JobPosting markup from the page. Remove the page entirely (so that requesting it returns a 404 status code). Add a noindex meta tag to the page." Will implementing 301 redirects the chances to appear in "Google for Jobs"? What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 18, 2017, 5:49 AM | grnjbs07175 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 8, 2015, 10:13 AM | CostumeD0 -
Moving to a new site while keeping old site live
For reasons I won't get into here, I need to move most of my site to a new domain (DOMAIN B) while keeping every single current detail on the old domain (DOMAIN A) as it is. Meaning, there will be 2 live websites that have mostly the same content, but I want the content to appear to search engines as though it now belongs to DOMAIN B. Weird situation. I know. I've run around in circles trying to figure out the best course of action. What do you think is the best way of going about this? Do I simply point DOMAIN A's canonical tags to the copied content on DOMAIN B and call it good? Should I ask sites that link to DOMAIN A to change their links to DOMAIN B, or start fresh and cut my losses? Should I still file a change of address with GWT, even though I'm not going to 301 redirect anything?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 8, 2014, 6:25 PM | kdaniels0 -
Sites in multiple countries using same content question
Hey Moz, I am looking to target international audiences. But I may have duplicate content. For example, I have article 123 on each domain listed below. Will each content rank separately (in US and UK and Canada) because of the domain? The idea is to rank well in several different countries. But should I never have an article duplicated? Should we start from ground up creating articles per country? Some articles may apply to both! I guess this whole duplicate content thing is quite confusing to me. I understand that I can submit to GWT and do geographic location and add rel=alternate tag but will that allow all of them to rank separately? www.example.com www.example.co.uk www.example.ca Please help and thanks so much! Cole
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 11, 2014, 5:51 PM | ColeLusby0 -
So What On My Site Is Breaking The Google Guidelines?
I have a site that I'm trying to rank for the Keyword "Jigsaw Puzzles" I was originally ranked around #60 or something around there and then all of a sudden my site stopped ranking for that keyword. (My other keyword rankings stayed) Contacted Google via the site reconsideration and got the general response... So I went through and deleted as many links as I could find that I thought Google may not have liked... heck, I even removed links that I don't think I should have JUST so I could have this fixed. I responded with a list of all links I removed and also any links that I've tried to remove, but couldn't for whatever reasons. They are STILL saying my website is breaking the Google guidelines... mainly around links. Can anyone take a peek at my site and see if there's anything on the site that may be breaking the guidelines? (because I can't) Website in question: http://www.yourjigsawpuzzles.co.uk UPDATE: Just to let everyone know that after multiple reconsideration requests, this penalty has been removed. They stated it was a manual penalty. I tried removing numerous different types of links but they kept saying no, it's still breaking rules. It wasn't until I removed some website directory links that they removed this manual penalty. Thought it would be interesting for some of you guys.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 24, 2012, 5:38 PM | RichardTaylor0 -
Splitting a Site into Two Sites for SEO Purposes
I have a client that owns a business that really could be easily divided into two separate business in terms of SEO. Right now his web site covers both divisions of his business. He gets about 5500 visitors a month. The majority go to one part of his business and around 600 each month go to the other. So about 11% I'm considering breaking off this 11% and putting it on an entirely different domain name. I think I could rank better for this 11%. The site would only be SEO'd for this particular division of the company. The keywords would not be in competition with each other. I would of course link the two web sites and watch that I don't run into any duplicate content issues. I worry about placing the redirects from the pages that I remove to the new pages. I know Google is not a fan of redirects. Then I also worry about the eventual drop in traffic to the main site now. How big of a factor is traffic in rankings? Other challenges include that the business services 4 major metropolitan areas. Would you do this? Have you done this? How did it work? Any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 15, 2015, 5:04 PM | MSWD0 -
Is it possible to Spoof Analytics to give false Unique Visitor Data for Site A to Site B
Hi, We are working as a middle man between our client (website A) and another website (website B) where, website B is going to host a section around websites A products etc. The deal is that Website A (our client) will pay Website B based on the number of unique visitors they send them. As the middle man we are in charge of monitoring the number of Unique visitors sent though and are going to do this by monitoring Website A's analytics account and checking the number of Unique visitors sent. The deal is worth quite a lot of money, and as the middle man we are responsible for making sure that no funny business goes on (IE false visitors etc). So to make sure we have things covered - What I would like to know is 1/. Is it actually possible to fool analytics into reporting falsely high unique visitors from Webpage A to Site B (And if so how could they do it). 2/. What could we do to spot any potential abuse (IE is there an easy way to spot that these are spoofed visitors). Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 9, 2012, 5:25 PM | James770