Duplicated 404 Pages (Travel Industry)
-
Our website has creating numberous "future pages" with no alt tag or class tag that are showing up as 404 pages, To make matters worst, they are causing duplicate 404 pages because we have different languages. The visitors cant find the 404s but the searchbots can. Would it better to remove or add the links to robot.txt or add nofollow/noindex tag? This is an example. http://www.solmelia.com/nGeneral.LINK_FAQ http://www.solmelia.com/nGeneral.LINK_HOTELESDESTINOS_BODAS http://www.solmelia.com/nGeneral.LINK_CONDICIONES http://www.solmelia.com/nGeneral.LINK_MAPSITE http://www.solmelia.com/nGeneral.LINK_HOTELESDESTINOS_EMPRESA
-
Antonio,
For work load and ease of change, I'd edit your robots.txt. Sometimes, search engines will still show the empty page in search results with only the URL if you don't put in a nofollow meta tag, but most of them should obey the robots.txt commands.
Of course, ideally, you'd want your website not to push those "future pages" without content live, but I understand that sometimes there are things that seem easy on a website that aren't.
Hope that helps!
Erica
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
-
Duplicate Content Regarding Translated Pages
If we have one page in English, and another that is translated into Spanish, does google consider that duplicate content? I don't know if having something in a different language makes it different or if it will get flagged. Thanks, Ruben
International SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Pages with Title Element is Too Short (Chinese)
How do these issues apply to a Chinese website? Should I ignore the issues on Moz regarding this? Thanks.
International SEO | | fdmgroup0 -
Is International Geotargeting with Duplicate Content Effective?
A company located in Canada is currently targeting Canada through the geotargeting setting in Google Webmaster Tools. Google.ca rankings are good, but Google.com rankings are not. The company would like to gain more traction for US people using google.com. The idea on the table is to set up a subfolder www.domain.com/us/ and use WMT to designate this version for the US. Here's the kicker: the content is exactly the same. Will Google consider the US version duplicate content? Is this an effective way to target US and Canada at the same time? Is it better to forget a duplicate US site altogether and use the "unlisted" setting in WMT?
International SEO | | AliveWired0 -
Geotarget subfolders with the same language or get rid of duplicates but lose option to geotarget?
Hi, we have a domain that is aimed to cover LatAm region. Currently, the homepage contains country selector for ~20 countries. 95% of them hold content in Spanish. We have only homepages for each regions as separate subfolders, i.e.
International SEO | | eset
www.maindomain.com/co
www.maindomain.com/cl
www.maindomain.com/br
etc. but once the user clicks on menu item he is taken back to main domain subpages, i.e. www.maindomain.com/comprar My struggle is to decide whether it is better to: A) copy all content for each subfolder, which will create huge amount of duplicates (there are no resources to create unique content and it is even impossible taking into account nature of the product - mostly tech.specs, etc.) and implement hreflang sitemaps and configure GWT to target each country with its own Spanish content (the same for each country) OR B) remove all local subfolders and keep only main domain in Spanish that will serve all countries within the region. With this option, we will get rid of duplicates but also lose option to geotarget. So, my questions is which option will do less harm, or if there is any other approach that comes to your minds. I consulted with two agencies but still haven't got clear answer. Thanks a lot for your help!0 -
Is having duplicated content on different domains a problem when using alternate tag, but no canonical?
We will be launching a couple of new language versions. I understand that ccTLD is mostly considered as best option, however I thought that to start with it might be better to launch the new language version first on a subdirectory of our established domain with strong backlink profile as it may rank much better until I can attract some strong links to new ccTLD. I would wait for the pages of new language versions to be indexed on the main domain and then after a month launch the same content paralell on the ccTLD setting up an alternate tag in the main domain pointing to the ccTLD. I would not setup any canonical tag. As I understand google would rank whatever of the 2 versions ranks higher. Should not cause duplicated content issues right?
International SEO | | lcourse
Any thoughts? EDIT:
For clarification. The language we are launching are mostly spoken in several countries. E.g. for Portuguese I would add in main domain an altnernate tag for Brazilian visitors to Brazilian ccTLD, but no alternate tag for Portuguese visitors. For Corean I would add in main domain an alternate tag for visitors in south corea, but not one for visitors in north corea.0 -
International Landing Page Strategy
Hello, I'm looking for some insight in an area that I don't have much experience in - hoping the community can help! We are a healthcare staffing company serving clients in the U.S. (www.bartonassociates.com). We are interested in attracting clients in Australia and New Zealand. I'm wondering if anyone as experience with best practices for doing so (both from an SEO and PPC perspective). Would it be best to purchase .au and .nz domains for these landing pages and link back to our US site for more information (or even recreate a modified version of our US site for .au and .nz). My concern here is duplicate content issues, among other things. Or, would it be better to create Australia and New Zealand focused landing pages on our US site and drive PPC there? My concern here is that we would never get organic traffic from Australia and New Zealand to our US site, in light of the competition. Also, the messaging would be a bit mixed if targeting all three countries. Our core term is "locums" and "locum tenens". Greatly appreciate any insight from you guys. Thanks, Jason
International SEO | | ba_seomoz0 -
How to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries?
Dear all, what is the best way to fix the duplicate content problem on different domains (.nl /.be) of your brand's websites in multiple countries? What must I add to my code of websites my .nl domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? What must I add to my code of websites my .be domain to avoid duplicate content and to keep the .nl website out of google.be, but still well-indexed in google.nl? Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | HMK-NL3 -
Internationally targetted subdomains and Duplicate content
A client has a site they'd like to translated into French, not for the french market but for french speaking countries. My research tells me the best way to implement this for this particular client is to create subfolders for each country. For ease of implementation I’ve decided against ccTLD’s and Sub Domains. So for example… I'll create www.website.com/mr/ for Mauritania and in GWT set this to target Mauritania. Excellent so far. But then I need to build another sub folder for Morocco. I'll then create www.website.com/ma/ for Morocco and in GWT set this to target Morocco. Now the content on these two sub folders will be exactly the same and I’m thinking about doing this for all French speaking African countries. It would be nice to use www.website.com/fr/ but in GWT you can only set one Target country. Duplicate content issues arise and my fear of perturbing the almighty Google becomes a possibility. My research indicates that I should simply canonical back to the page I want indexed. But I want them both to be indexed surely!? I therefore decided to share my situation with my fellow SEO’s to see if I’m being stupid or missing something simple both a distinct possibility!
International SEO | | eazytiger0