Same language, Different countries. What would be the best way to introduce it?
-
Hello,
We have a .com magento store with the US geo targeting
We're going to launch a different versions soon, one for the US, and another one for Canada (we're going to add a Spanish and French versions later as well)
The stores content will be same, except currency and contact us page.
What would be a better strategy to introduce it to Google?
-
What is better URL structure? example.com/ca/ , example.com/en-ca/ , or ca.example.com/ ?
-
Should we stay with the original www.example.com/ (example.com) and just close an access to /ca/ and /us/ / or use rel=canonical / or use "alternate" hreflang to avoid duplicate content issues?
Thanks in advance
-
-
Thanks for your input Gianluca,
The ecommerce ( http://www.fiberscope.net/ ) doesn't seem big compare to bigger fishes. What do you think, are we on the right path with the current structure?
-
Regarding this:
Here is thing - we are going to add /ca/ and /us/ versions for clients' convenience only. Native currency, shipping options, and direct contact of our US office. We don't want them ranked separately.
What do you really mean with "we don't want them ranked separately"?
Maybe I'm lost in translation, but I don't understand if you that means that you don't want to have the Canadian version ranking for some sort of fear it may cause issue with the organic visibility of the US version.
However, if you simply mean that you want to use the same domain name for both the US and CA versions, while for the Spanish one you will build the site under a different domain name... then, that's totally fine and I don't see many problems with this mixed subfolders/different domain names strategy.
Using the hreflang annotation will be enough in order to avoid "duplicated content issues" between the CA and US versions.
Regarding if using subfolders or subdomains, I would look at how complex is your ecommerce. If it is based on a very big products' database, hence with added complexity... I would probably choose the subdomain option. Remember also that if you client's side did not have a canadian version, multiplying per 2 the quantity of URLs of the site will also mean an extreme dilution of the domain's pagerank, and a bigger dilution as bigger is the number of the URLs you will add.
Instead, if the ecommerce is a small one (and will stay a small one), using subfolders can be a good option.
Regarding the blog, if you will publish the same posts both for the canadian and usa markets, then my suggestion is to have only one blog for both markets (domain.com/blog/)
-
I say keep the blog under the same directory, unless you produce it in different languages.
-
Thanks guys,
Here is thing - we are going to add /ca/ and /us/ versions for clients' convenience only. Native currency, shipping options, and direct contact of our US office. We don't want them ranked separately. Client is coming to our general website and base on his IP we ask if he want to shop at the specific country store. He has an option to choose, or not to choose the country site.
From other side, when other version will be added later (Spanish one, for Central and South America customers), we would like to see it ranked independently from our main website.
So, it looks like the hreflang should work for /ca/ and /us/ without closing them from indexation.
BTW, if we have a blog at example.com/blog should we have it available at e.g. example.com/us/blog as well (with added tags), or just keep it as is?
-
-
I would go with example.com/ca/. example.com/en-ca/ is longer and more difficult to type. A subdomain ca.example.com would not inherit the domain authority of your current site.
-
I would keep the original example.com. Moving urls results in a small loss of link equity, even with a 301 redirect, so I would avoid moving urls if at all possible.
-
-
Hi there.
Hreflang is the way to go. No matter how you decide to organize domain - subfolder or subdomain, if actual content is the same, you'll have duplicate issues. Also canonical link is probably not the way to go, unless you want one of your contents (let's say canadian) not rank.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Best approach to rank for this keyword?
Hi i want to rank for the keyword "white sandals" on Google Australia. Currently, the top 5 ranking pages are not optimised and specific to white sandals. See screenshot: https://image.prntscr.com/image/WenSRHqTTFSqYNg2MHvH1A.png To rank for this keyword, would you create a page dedicated to white sandals even though it looks like it doesn't matter and you could rank the broader sandals page (not colour specific). Any recommendations? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | crazy4seo780 -
ECommcerce internal linking structure best practice
Hi, Can anyone advise on the best internal linking practice for an eCommerce website? Should the introduction copy on each category page contain naturally placed links down to sub categories and products and should each sub category link back up to the main category page. Is there a 'best practice' method of linking categories, sub categories and products? In terms of internal linking product pages, I presume the best practice would be to link other relevant products to each each? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SmiffysUK0 -
Whats the Best way to Protect Wordpress Website from Getting Hacked.
Hi All, I just like to know whats the best way to protect wordpress website for getting hacked. I tried using Wordfence but nothing much happened. I m in shared Host and when ever there is a sign of attack my hosting company takes the site off which affects my site ranking a lot. I m trying to keep all my plugins updated but still it happens . Like to know what other people do . I am open for Paid tool suggestion as well. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Verve-Innovation0 -
What's the best URL structure?
I'm setting up pages for my client's website and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this. Which of the following would be best (let's say the keywords being used are "sell xgadget" "sell xgadget v1" "sell xgadget v2" "sell xgadget v3" etc.). Domain name: sellgadget.com Potential URL structures: 1. sellxgadget.com/v1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zing-Marketing
2. sellxgadget.com/xgadget-v1
3. sellxgadget.com/sell-xgadget-v1 Which would be the best URL structure? Which has the least risk of being too keyword spammy for an EMD? Any references for this?0 -
Mobile website on a different URL address?
My client has an old eCommerce website that is ranking high in Google. The website is not responsive for mobile devices. The client wants to create a responsive design mobile version of the website and put it on a different URL address. There would be a link on the current page pointing to the external mobile website. Is this approach ok or not? The reason why the client does not want to change the design of the current website is because he does not have the budget to do so and there are a lot of pages that would need to be moved to the new design. Any advice would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andypatalak0 -
Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed
Hello, The search engines have indexed a sub-domain I did not want indexed its on old.domain.com and dev.domain.com - I was going to password them but is there a best practice way to block them. My main domain default robots.txt says :- Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml global User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /category//
Disallow: */trackback/
Disallow: */feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /?0 -
Redirect aspx files to a different path structure on a different domain using a different server-side language?
Without getting into the debate/discussion about which server-side language should or should not be used, I am faced with the reality of moving an old ASP.NET site to a Coldfusion one with a different domain and different folder structure. Example: www.thissite.com/animals/lion.aspx --> www.thatsite.com/animals/africa/lion.cfm What is the best way to redirect individual .aspx pages to their .cfm counterparts keeping in mind that, in many cases, the folder paths will be different? If it would mean less work, I am hoping this can be done at the server level (IIS 6) rather than modifying the code on each now-defunct page. And on a related note, how long should any redirects be kept in place? My apologies if this has been answered in this forum in the past, but I did do a lot of searching first (both here and elsewhere) before posting this query.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hamackey0 -
Best way to stop pages being indexed and keeping PageRank
If for example on a discussion forum, what would be the best way to stop pages such as the posting page (where a user posts a topic or message) from being indexed AND not diluting PageRank too? If we added them to the Disallow on robots.txt, would pagerank still flow through the links to those blocked pages or would it stay concentrated on the linking page? Your ideas and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640