Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Same site serving multiple countries and duplicated content

    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.

    Same site serving multiple countries and duplicated content

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    8
    1667
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • GhillC
      GhillC last edited by

      Hello!

      Though I browse MoZ resources every day, I've decided to directly ask you a question despite the numerous questions (and answers!) about this topic as there are few specific variants each time:

      I've a site serving content (and products) to different countries built using subfolders (1 subfolder per country).

      Basically, it looks like this:
      site.com/us/
      site.com/gb/
      site.com/fr/
      site.com/it/
      etc.

      The first problem was fairly easy to solve:
      Avoid duplicated content issues across the board considering that both the ecommerce part of the site and the blog bit are being replicated for each subfolders in their own language. Correct me if I'm wrong but using our copywriters to translate the content and adding the right hreflang tags should do.

      But then comes the second problem: how to deal with duplicated content when it's written in the same language? E.g. /us/, /gb/, /au/ and so on.
      Given the following requirements/constraints, I can't see any positive resolution to this issue:
      1. Need for such structure to be maintained (it's not possible to consolidate same language within one single subfolders for example),
      2. Articles from one subfolder to another can't be canonicalized as it would mess up with our internal tracking tools,
      3. The amount of content being published prevents us to get bespoke content for each region of the world with the same spoken language.

      Given those constraints, I can't see a way to solve that out and it seems that I'm cursed to live with those duplicated content red flags right up my nose.
      Am I right or can you think about anything to sort that out?

      Many thanks,
      Ghill

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • GhillC
        GhillC @KristinaKledzik last edited by

        Thanks Kristina, this is in place now!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • KristinaKledzik
          KristinaKledzik @GhillC last edited by

          I would recommend setting up each country's subdirectory as separate properties in Google Search Console. Then, go to original Search Console, and click on Search Traffic > International Targeting, click the tab Country, and identify which country you're targeting users in.

          That should give GSC enough information to not flag the content as duplicate.

          Good luck!

          GhillC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • GhillC
            GhillC last edited by

            A quick additional question to my initial interrogation though: it seems that there is no difference between HTML tags, HTTP header and XML sitemap to include hreflangs.
            But is there any difference when it comes to GCS, SEO tools, Hreflang online cherckers and so on?

            E.g. if [random] SEO tools spot duplicated content between two regions for a similar page whilst there is hreflang tags within the sitemap, shall I just ignore this warning (provided that the job has been done correctly) or does it mean that there is something wrong still?

            Pretty much the same for GCS, if I find warnings around duplicated content whilst hreflang are in place, what does it mean?

            Thanks!

            KristinaKledzik 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • GhillC
              GhillC @KristinaKledzik last edited by

              Hi Kristina,

              Reading quite a lot of literature on the topic I was confident that hreflang would not help with duplicate content and then I realized they were mainly depreciated and old blog posts.
              Out of curiosity, has the hreflang utilization evolved since its introduction or is it just me going crazy?

              Anyway, thanks loads for your help, seems much "easier" (so to speak as the hrelang introduction is not an easy one for huge international websites) than I thought.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • KristinaKledzik
                KristinaKledzik @GhillC last edited by

                It's for different regions as well. Check out the link I shared. Google lists the reasons for hreflang. The second reason is:

                "If your content has small regional variations with similar content, in a single language. For example, you might have English-language content targeted to the US, GB, and Ireland."

                GhillC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • GhillC
                  GhillC @KristinaKledzik last edited by

                  Hi Kristina,

                  Thanks for your reply.
                  But from my understanding of hreflang, it mainly helps Google understand that the content is available in different languages/other regions. It doesn't sort out duplicate content issues if the language remains the same for different regions.

                  KristinaKledzik 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • KristinaKledzik
                    KristinaKledzik last edited by

                    For any duplicate content you have between countries, use hreflang to differentiate regions. Google lays out how to do that here.

                    Hope this helps!

                    GhillC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • davidmac

                      Upper and lower case URLS coming up as duplicate content

                      Hey guys and gals, I'm having a frustrating time with an issue. Our site has around 10 pages that are coming up as duplicate content/ duplicate title. I'm not sure what I can do to fix this. I was going to attempt to 301 direct the upper case to lower but I'm worried how this will affect our SEO. can anyone offer some insight on what I should be doing? Update:  What I'm trying to figure out is what I should do for our URL's. For example, when I run an audit I'm getting two different pages: aaa.com/BusinessAgreement.com and also aaa.com/businessagreement.com. We don't have two pages but for some reason, Google thinks we do.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidmac
                      1
                    • Taysir

                      Cached version of my site is not showing content?

                      Hi mozzers, I am a bit worried since I looked a cache version of my site and somehow content is partially showing up and navigation has completely disappeared. Where could this come from? What should I be doing? Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Taysir
                      0
                    • chalet

                      Same content, different languages. Duplicate content issue? | international SEO

                      Hi, If the "content" is the same, but is written in different languages, will Google see the articles as duplicate content?
                      If google won't see it as duplicate content. What is the profit of implementing the alternate lang tag?Kind regards,Jeroen

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chalet
                      0
                    • AMHC

                      Removing duplicate content

                      Due to URL changes and parameters on our ecommerce sites, we have a massive amount of duplicate pages indexed by google, sometimes up to 5 duplicate pages with different URLs. 1. We've instituted canonical tags site wide. 2. We are using the parameters function in Webmaster Tools. 3. We are using 301 redirects on all of the obsolete URLs 4. I have had many of the pages fetched so that Google can see and index the 301s and canonicals. 5. I created HTML sitemaps with the duplicate URLs, and had Google fetch and index the sitemap so that the dupes would get crawled and deindexed. None of these seems to be terribly effective. Google is indexing pages with parameters in spite of the parameter (clicksource) being called out in GWT. Pages with obsolete URLs are indexed in spite of them having 301 redirects. Google also appears to be ignoring many of our canonical tags as well, despite the pages being identical. Any ideas on how to clean up the mess?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC
                      0
                    • JonathanLeplang

                      Contextual FAQ and FAQ Page, is this duplicate content?

                      Hi Mozzers, On my website, I have a FAQ Page (with the questions-responses of all the themes (prices, products,...)of my website) and I would like to add some thematical faq on the pages of my website. For example : adding the faq about pricing on my pricing page,... Is this duplicate content? Thank you for your help, regards. Jonathan

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathanLeplang
                      0
                    • jcgoodrich

                      Where is the best place to put a sitemap for a site with local content?

                      I have a simple site that has cities as subdirectories (so URL is root/cityname). All of my content is localized for the city. My "root" page simply links to other cities. I very specifically want to rank for "topic" pages for each city and I'm trying to figure out where to put the sitemap so Google crawls everything most efficiently. I'm debating the following options, which one is better? Put the sitemap on the footer of "root" and link to all popular pages across cities. The advantage here is obviously that the links are one less click away from root. Put the sitemap on the footer of "city root" (e.g. root/cityname) and include all topics for that city. This is how Yelp does it. The advantage here is that the content is "localized" but the disadvantage is it's further away from the root. Put the sitemap on the footer of "city root" and include all topics across all cities. That way wherever Google comes into the site they'll be close to all topics I want to rank for. Thoughts? Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jcgoodrich
                      0
                    • gXeSEO

                      Is an RSS feed considered duplicate content?

                      I have a large client with satellite sites. The large site produces many news articles and they want to put an RSS feed on the satellite sites that will display the articles from the large site. My question is, will the rss feeds on the satellite sites be considered duplicate content? If yes, do you have a suggestion to utilize the data from the large site without being penalized? If no, do you have suggestions on what tags should be used on the satellite pages? EX: wrapped in tags? THANKS for the help. Darlene

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gXeSEO
                      0
                    • irvingw

                      Is SEOmoz.org creating duplicate content with their CDN subdomain?

                      Example URL: http://cdn.seomoz.org/q/help-with-getting-no-conversions Canonical is a RELATIVE link, should be an absolute link pointing to main domain: http://www.seomoz.org/q/help-with-getting-no-conversions <link href='[/q/help-with-getting-no-conversions](view-source:http://cdn.seomoz.org/q/help-with-getting-no-conversions)' rel='<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>' /> 13,400 pages indexed in Google under cdn subdomain go to google   >  site:http://cdn.seomoz.org https://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.seomoz.org%2F&oq=site:http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.seomoz.org%2F&gs_l=hp.2...986.6227.0.6258.28.14.0.0.0.5.344.3526.2-10j2.12.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.Uprw7ko7jnU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=97577626a0fb6a97&biw=1920&bih=936

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irvingw
                      1

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.