Should we Use rel=canonical in ccTLDs websites
-
We have multilingual eCommerce websites with some content variations but majority of the content remains the same
We have used rel=alternate hreflang on corresponding ccTLDs respective countries. for example on example.com -which is the oldest of these sites- we have used
Now should we also use link rel="canonical" href="example.com" on all ccTLDs?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using it?
-
Hi Cyril,
I've not seen any specific case studies or statements that figure out how much replication is considered duplication, although I'd be as interested in you in this information if anyone out there knows of some?
Personally, I have been working on a 50% minimum basis (e.g at least 50% of the pages written content should be unique), and it's been working well for me.
You might get away with less.
In regards to making sites an authority within their specific countries, whilst using duplicate content and the canonical tag, it's all down to links. Even though you're telling Google that this isn't the original source of the content, it's still possible to build up authority on the domain by acquiring links from strong sites that share the TLD.
But again, without unique content you're not going to see the full strength of these links.
David
-
Thanks for the response David.Can you suggest what should one do if trying to make each site an authority in their respective country and not depend on the original version of the site.
How much content replication is duplicate content- any percentage, ratio defined by google?
-
Hi Cyril.
Google released a webmaster blog post that covers this specific instance quite extensively:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html
But in summary; yes if the content is going to be largely the same then I'd suggest using the canonical tag to identify the .com as the original source. The advantage of this is you wont fall into any duplication issues within Googles algorithm, the disadvantage being that the sites containing the canonical tag may struggle to build up their own authority as you are essentially telling Google that the content is not their own, so some of the link juice should be credited elsewhere.
Have a read of the webmaster article, they go into a lot of detail about the issue which will hopefully guide your path.
Good luck.
David
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
-
Rel-canonical vs Href-lang use for an international website.
I have a multi-country website that uses country subfolders to separate countries. When I run a Moz scan, I am getting canonical related alerts (this is probably related to some of our US content being duplicated on the other country websites). Shouldn't I be using href-lang instead since I am telling search engines that a certain article in country B, is just a copy of the same article in country A?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marshdigitalmarketing0 -
Canonical Chain
This is quite advanced so maybe Rand can give me an answer? I often have seen questions surrounding a 301 chain where only 85% of the link juice is passed on to the first target and 85% of that to the next one, up to three targets. But how about a canonical chain? What do I mean by this:? I have a client who sells lighting so I will use a real example (sans domain) I don't want 'new-product' pages appearing in SERPS. They dilute link equity for the categories they replicate and often contain identical products to the main categories and subcategories. I don't want to no index them all together I'd rather tell Google they are the same as the higher category/sub category. (discussion whether a noindex/follow tag would be better?) If I canonicalize new-products/ceiling-lights-c1/kitchen-lighting-c17/kitchen-ceiling-lights-c217 to /ceiling-lights-c1/kitchen-lighting-c17/kitchen-ceiling-lights-c217 I then subsequently discover that everything in kitchen-ceiling-lights-c217 is already in /kitchen-lighting-c17 and I decide to canonicalize those two - so I place a /kitchen-lighting-c17 canonical on /kitchen-ceiling-lights-c217. Then what happens to the new-products canonical? Is it the same rule - does it pass 85% of link equity back to the non new-product URL and 85% of that back to the category? does it just not work? or should I do noindexi/follow Now before you jump in: Let's assume these are done over a period of time because the obvious answer is: Canonicalize both back to /ceiling-lights-c1/kitchen-lighting-c17 I know that and that is not what I am asking. What if they are done in a sequence what is the real result? I don't want to patronise anyone but please read this carefully before giving an answer. Regards Nigel Carousel Projects.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nigel_Carr0 -
What to use instead of a 404
Hey there Mozzers, What would be preferable to use instead of a 404 on a ecommerce website. Can I use a 301 redirection to the main category of the product? So for example if I have a t-shirt that is not available anymore can I use a 301 to redirect the traffic to the clothing category?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AngelosS0 -
Website Indexing Issues - Search Bots will only crawl Homepage of Website, Help!
Hello Moz World, I am stuck on a problem, and wanted to get some insight. When I attempt to use Screaming Spider or SEO Powersuite, the software is only crawling the homepage of my website. I have 17 pages associated with the main domain i.e. example.com/home, example.com/sevices, etc. I've done a bit of investigating, and I have found that my client's website does not have Robot.txt file or a site map. However, under Google Search Console, all of my client's website pages have been indexed. My questions, Why is my software not crawling all of the pages associated with the website? If I integrate a Robot.txt file & sitemap will that resolve the issue? Thanks ahead of time for all of the great responses. B/R Will H.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingChimp100 -
Canonicle & rel=NOINDEX used on the same page?
I have a real estate company: www.company.com with approximately 400 agents. When an agent gets hired we allow them to pick a URL which we then register and manage. For example: www.AGENT1.com We then take this agent domain and 301 redirect it to a subdomain of our main site. For example
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EasyStreet
Agent1.com 301’s to agent1.company.com We have each page on the agent subdomain canonicled back to the corresponding page on www.company.com
For example: agent1.company.com canonicles to www.company.com What happened is that google indexed many URLS on the subdomains, and it seemed like Google ignored the canonical in many cases. Although these URLS were being crawled and indexed by google, I never noticed any of them rank in the results. My theory is that Google crawled the subdomain first, indexed the page, and then later Google crawled the main URL. At that point in time, the two pages actually looked quite different from one another so Google did not recognize/honor the canonical. For example:
Agent1.company.com/category1 gets crawled on day 1
Company.com/category1 gets crawled 5 days later The content (recently listed properties for sale) on these category pages changes every day. If Google crawled the pages (both the subdomain and the main domain) on the same day, the content on the subdomain and the main domain would look identical. If the urls are crawled on different days, the content will not match. We had some major issues (duplicate content and site speed) on our www.company.com site that needed immediate attention. We knew we had an issue with the agent subdomains and decided to block the crawling of the subdomains in the robot.txt file until we got the main site “fixed”. We have seen a small decrease in organic traffic from google to our main site since blocking the crawling of the subdomains. Whereas with Bing our traffic has dropped almost 80%. After a couple months, we have now got our main site mostly “fixed” and I want to figure out how to handle the subdomains in order to regain the lost organic traffic. My theory is that these subdomains have a some link juice that is basically being wasted with the implementation of the robots.txt file on the subdomains. Here is my question
If we put a ROBOTS rel=NOINDEX on all pages of the subdomains and leave the canonical (to the corresponding page of the company site) in place on each of those pages, will link juice flow to the canonical version? Basically I want the link juice from the subdomains to pass to our main site but do not want the pages to be competing for a spot in the search results with our main site. Another thought I had was to place the NOIndex tag only on the category pages (the ones that seem to change every day) and leave it off the product (property detail pages, pages that rarely ever change). Thank you in advance for any insight.0 -
Rel=canonical
My website is built around a template, the hosting site say I can only add code into the body of the webpage not the header, will this be ok for rel=canonical If it is my next question is redundant but as there is only one place to put it which urls do I need to place in the code http://domain.com, www.domain.com or http://www.domain.com the /default.asp option for my website does not seem to exist, so I guess is not relevant thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | singingtelegramsuk0 -
Am I missing an issue on my website?
Are there any glaring issues that I am missing with my site? I am building links, and growing the profile but had seen a drop in rankings a couple of months ago. Is this do to a site issue or am I just missing something? www.wallybuysell.com Any help would be great.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CKerr0 -
Which index page should I canonical to?
Hello! I'm doing a routine clean up of my code and had a question about the canonical tag. On the index page, I have the following: I have never put any thought into which index path is the best to use. http://www.example.com http://www.example.com/ http://www.example.com/index.php Could someone shed some light on this for me? Does it make a difference? Thanks! Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ryan_Phillips1