How to Target Other Countries Using TLDs?
-
I would like to know if it is possible (and beneficial) to target other countries using country-based TLDs?
When visiting a company website for instance, you often get redirected to your country's site. For instance, when you visit cafepress.com from Canada, you get redirected to cafepress.ca.
Since both websites (cafepress.com and cafepress.ca) have the same content, how they get away with it with no duplicate content issues?
-
Hi Stephane,
For just one or two pages, targeting different countries, on-page content might prove to be sufficient. That is, a page about companies in X field in the UK, listing UK companies with their addresses and telephone numbers, will give Google a range of signals to indicate that that content is most relevant to people from the UK.
That said, the page itself should not contain href lang information to indicate that it is for a Canadian market. If href lang information is included, it should specify the UK.
If the content is sitting on a .ca domain, it will be harder to show that the UK review page is for the UK - it would be better to place this sort of information on a generic TLD website.
The question of duplicate content between .com, .ca, .co.uk etc. sites is answered by geo-targeting, both using the ccTLDs and href lang tags. Google "ignores" duplicate content when the websites' tags tell it that although the content is the same, this version is for Canadians, this version is or Americans and this one over here is for Brits.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Jane
-
For different geos suggest the following -
- Use CCTLD
- Host the websites on geo specific servers (US website on a US server)
- Implement href language tags on the geo specific pages to avoid duplicate content issues
- Implement href language tags in the XML sitemap as well
- As a safety measure, implement self canonical tags
- Sajeet
-
Hi Stephane
I would take a look at hreflang and learn that.
To help you speed it up a little:
http://www.stateofdigital.com/hreflang-canonical-test/
Look for other posts by Aleyda as well.
-
-
Every cafepress domains have the exact same content for the most part.
-
Part of my website is a blog and I don't see the use of using a country-based TLD except if I'm going to host it in another country to increase performance.
That said, there's also a directory of companies accompanied by user reviews and various data. I would like to target other countries with this directory by listing only companies from these countries.
How would you suggest to handle this?
-
Some domains are generic, .com .net .org and others are geo targeted. So by geo targeting by TLD is only half the battle. Google states "we'll rely on several signals, including IP address, location information on the page, links to the page, and any relevant information from Google Places". Having an exact replica doesn't make sense but tweaking it to suit the country does.
So in the example provided above I think that they have all those "signals" Google is talking about there so it's two different sites targeting different SERPs. You'll notice that their home page titles are different just for starters, I'm sure they don't have exactly the same sites placed on two different domains.
Read more about this here:
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
-
Why GSC is showing external links as millions for GEO target website?
Main website xyz.com have only 10K external links while geo target sites xyz.com/ca (which is for Canada) have 100K external links in Google Search Console. Mostly links which are showing as external links for xyz.com/ca are from xyz.com
Technical SEO | | Rajesh.Prajapati
Ex.-
External links for xyz.com/ca -
xyz.com/contact-us
xyz.com/product
xyz.com/category Is it possible? or missed any technique to implement in geo target sites.0 -
Is there an percentage of duplicate content required before you should use a canonical tag?
Is there a percentage (approximate or exact) of duplicate content you should have before you use a canonical tag? Similarly how does Google handle canonical tags if the pages aren’t 100% duplicate? I've added some background and an example below; Nike Trainer model 1 – has an overview page that also links to a sub-page about cushioning, one about Gore-Tex and one about breathability. Nike Trainer model 2,3,4,5 – have an overview page that also links to sub-pages page about cushioning , Gore-Tex and breathability. In each of the sub-pages the URL is a child of the parent so a distinct page from each other e.g. /nike-trainer/model-1/gore-tex /nike-trainer/model-2/gore-tex. There is some differences in material composition, some different images and of course the product name is referred multiple times. This makes the page in the region of 80% unique.
Technical SEO | | punchseo0 -
Changing permalinks in new wordpress website using regex in 301s?
Hi there I am working on a website and we would like to change the permalinks from product-category (replacing with Shop) and product to buy. Currently there are nearly 400 products and multiple categories. Although the website has just been indexed wondering if we need to do 301's? if we did would like to use regex to manage so redirect would be as example: mydomain.com/sub-domain/product-category/ redirecting to to mydomain.com/sub-domain/shop/ (I know you do not need to put in the domain but as an example) - could anyone give me the regex for this? Same for products: mydomain.com/sub-domain/product/sample-product redirect to mydomain.com/sub-domain/buy/sample-product thanks in anticipation
Technical SEO | | musthavemarketing0 -
When you change your domain, How much time do I have to wait for google to return the traffic used to have?
Hello. 20 days ago, I changed my domain from uclasificados.net to uclasificados.com doing redirect 301 to all urls, and I started to loose rankings since that moment. I was wondering if changing it back could be the solutions, but some experts recommend me not to do that, because it could be worse. Right now I receave almost 50% of traffic I used to receave before, and I have done a lot of linkbuilding strategies to recover but nothing have worked until now. Even though I notified google of this change and I send again my new sitemap, I don't see that have improve my situation in any aspects, and I still see in webmastertools search stats from my last website (the website who used to be uclasificados.com before the change). What should I do to recover faster?
Technical SEO | | capmartin850 -
Guys & Gals anyone know if urllist.txt is still used?
I'm using a tool which generates urllist.txt and looking on the SEO Forums it seems that Yahoo used to use this. What I'd like to know is is it still used anywhere and should we have it on the site?
Technical SEO | | danwebman0 -
Using the word "FREE" in domain name
Hi, This may seem like a simple question but a new client of mine wishes to use a domain name with the word "free" in it. The website will offer free activity vouchers. I couldn't see this being a problem as there a lot of websites that do this although he was told it may present a problem with the search engines thinking the site was spammy. It won't be and will be offering information and vouchers on local sporting activities. I was wondering if anybody could clarify this please so I can give him a more definitive answer to his question. Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | malinkymedia0 -
Am I using 301 correctly?
Hello, I have a 'Free download' type site for free graphics for designers. To prevent hot linking we authenticate the downloads and use a 301 redirect. So for example: The download URL looks like this if someone is clicking on the download button: http://www.website.com**/resources/243-name-of-the-file/download/dc37** and then we 301 that URL back to: http://www.website.com**/category-name/243-name-of-the-file** Is a 301 the correct way to do that?
Technical SEO | | shawn810 -
Why does everyone use bitly?
Why do people use bitly? I thought it was just a way to share a link on twitter if the link was too long in url. I see SeoMoz shares all their content with a bitly link. Even when they share it on Google+. Why?
Technical SEO | | JML11790