Showing different content according to different geo-locations on same URL
-
We would like our website to show different content according to different Geo-locations (but in the same language). For example, if www.mywebsite.com is accessed from the US, it would show text (in English) appealing to North Americans, but, if accessed from Japan, it would show text (also in English) that appeals more to Japanese people. In the Middle East, we would like the website to show different images than those shown in the US and Asia.
Our main concern is that we would like to keep the same URL.
- How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives?
- Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL?
- What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan?
- Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for?
Kindest Regards
L.B.
-
Thanks Chris Menke! Checking out the videos now!
-
seoec,
How your content is cached in different data centers, will have a lot to do with the architecture of your site(s) and where they may be hosted. CC TLD's may be the way for you to go but it does require an investment in the domains. You can also set up subdomain or us location specific sub folders to separate unique content for each market. Each option has its own set of pros and cons.
Matt Cutts did a video that goes over the duplicate content issue on country code top level domains here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo and Rand did a white board Friday that covers your architectual options here http://moz.com/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday
-
Thank you so much Paddy Displays for such a prompt and detailed answer.
-
Our system does this and I think its a bad Idea (for us any way), our target market is UK and Ireland. But when google was crawling our pages they were only getting the US version of the site, so all that nice text we had for the UK and Ireland pages was was missed by google (the US page was the systems default page, with no custom text). I just copied and pasted our UK & Ireland text to the US default page, then we started to rank for some of the targeted keywords.
Now our problem is that is google bot is getting the prices us dollers instead of Pounds or Euros so for some of our rankings it picking up meta data and showing $ prices in the serps for the UK.
So my advice is be careful, it might seem like a good idea for users, but google will only see the US version of the site
To answer you questions:
- How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives?
It will only index US version for all
- Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL?
To my knowledge no (we used they system for 3 years and rank modestly)
- What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan?
Not sure what you mean, but you need different urls for different content
- Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for?
See what I said above
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 - International Sites - AirBNB
Good morning Just a quick question. Why does AirBNB not get penalised for duplicate content on its sites. For example, the following two urls (and probably more for other countries), both rank appropriately in the google (UK and COM), https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/getting-started/how-to-travel
International SEO | | joogla
https://www.airbnb.com/help/getting-started/how-to-travel Their are no canonical tags, no Alternative etc If I look at the following https://www.airbnb.co.uk/s/London--United-Kingdom
https://www.airbnb.com/s/London--United-Kingdom They both have alternative to point to the other language versions which I would expect. However they also both point to them selves as canonical. Would this not be duplicate content ? Thanks for your insights Shane0 -
Google Places - Add external location?
Hi Mozzers, We operate in Belgium and just recently we also opened a location in the Netherlands. This is a trainingslocation but there is no staff present. We want to add this location to our Google Places account. It seems we need to enter it is as different company profile. Does Google have a problem with the fact that there is no staff present on adres of this company profile and the location is managed by our HQ in Belgium?
International SEO | | wellnesswooz0 -
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 -
International hreflang - will this handle duplicate content?
The title says it all - if i have duplicate content on my US and UK website, will adding the hreflang tag help google figure out that they are duplicate for a reason and avoid any penalties?
International SEO | | ALLee1 -
What language to use for URL's for Russian language?
Hi, Our site is in English, Spanish, Danish and Russian - the URL's are individual to the language they are in, but of course, Russian contains some strange characters so I decided not to use them in the URL's Any advice on how to create the URL's for russian language pages? thanks
International SEO | | bjs20100 -
Duplicate content or not ?
Hello, I would like your expert opinion I have a site in spanish for Spain and Mexico As domain name, I have .es and .mx This is the same site. We do not have any redirects. From .mx to .es for example. >> your opinion?
International SEO | | android_lyon
if I declare targeting in Spain in Google Webmaster tools (in settings) and in another profile with in Mexico, we have a duplicate content? Thank you for your feedback. Sorry for my english, i'm french 😉0 -
Geo targeting issue and hosting
Hi guys and gals, this is not a problem per se, but an oddity that I would appreciate some insight on from the big juicy brains in this community. Our site had hosting in the US, and I was concerned that therefore our relevance to our own country (Australia) was diminished because of it. For one of our main keywords we were a few spots behind the competitor on the 1st page for an australian searcher, but when i searched the same keyword from Google.com with gl=us to show US only results, we outranked the competitors by a few spots. On page elements aside (if anything we had more geo identifiers on the ranking page in question) I wanted to move hosts anyway and got hosting in Australia. The next week our search traffic jumped by 25%. But it was almost all US traffic. Australian traffic was unchanged. Any idea how this could happen? It's an .AU domain, hosted in Australia, with on page clearly identifying Australia. I checked webmaster tools and our geo is properly set to Australia. I checked the keywords that the traffic increased for and they are not geo specific at all. Besides that I don't know how else to pin this down. Thanks.
International SEO | | Digital3600 -
Best URL for international domain
Hello SEomozers We have a site with this structure: -www.xyz.com US customers, limited content in12 languages, -global.xyz.com for International customers, full content in 12 languages. The global site is the hub for the rest of the world. We are creating a new site from scratch and want to consolidate the two domains in one by using subfolders, such as: www.xyz.com for USA, www.wyz.com/jp for US customers reading in japanese and www.xyz.com/int-jp for customers from Japan (international - will set geo location with webmastertool) What do you think would be the best naming convention for the international?
International SEO | | FXDD
www.xyz.com/int-jp or
www.xyz.com/eu-jp or
www.xyz.com/eu/jp or
www.xyz.com/ ...any other suggestions?0
