How to avoid getting penalized for having same website in 2 languages
-
Hi,
I have a price comparison website in English with .com domain. Now as we are expanding, we want to localize our website and target different markets in their local languages. The first market we are targetting is France. For that purpose we have
-
a different domain name in French
-
.fr domain
The website however, will have the exact same content & mostly translated in French. My question is what is the best way to avoid getting penalized by Google for having duplicate content?
Thanks,
-
-
If you are targeting the .com at English speaking countries, then why start targeting other sites at specific countries rather than languages? If you targeted the French language (in which you should not use .fr), you'd target more people than targeting France.
Based on your situation, I would have one site with translated content, rather than country-specific content. This would allow you to use the strength of one domain while giving your users the right content in their language.
Using hreflang tags between translated content is how you alert the search engines that the content is the same, just translated.
-
Ok I don't think anyone mentioned dynamic Google Cloud API Translator? It's definitely not going to be perfect, however if it isn't something that you paid a lawyer to make exact, Then I suppose if you used Max Mind Geo-Ip to deturmine the location of visitors, you could still do the subdomain based on that and an output language.
It would totally make the entire process quite a bit more simple, and still cater to your potential leads. No matter what you end up doing, I suggest using more icons as they are the universal language
-
Hi Kate,
Thanks for your answer. I think there is no one answer for this question. Yes, we are targetting countries, but as long as the language of any country is English we would not start a new website. Then, we are a price comparison website so our website content is majorly the products. Any website that we might start we will always have 90% of the content same. We could change a bit of written content maybe, but not more than that.
Does that give you more clarification?
Thanks,
Priyam
-
Hi!
First, it sounds like you are targeting countries, not languages. Can you confirm that? Meaning, someday you might want to target Canada, which will need French language content that is in the Canadian dialect of French.
If you are targeting countries, this is the right setup. The key is to treat each site like it's own site. Don't just make a copy and translate to general French. If you want to go about targeting languages, not countries, then I suggest using one domain and having a subfolder per language. In that case, you would use hreflang tags to show the SEs that the content is the same just translated.
It all depends on what you want to do in the future. It sounds more like you want to do language translation, not geo-targeting. But again, I'll need you to confirm that to give the right answer.
-
Hi there,
What you are needing is to implement Hreflang tags and, just to make sure Google comprehends it, set the geo targetting in each of the Search Console properties.
Remember always to have both tags in both sites (as you are only woking woth 2 sites). Hreflang tags MUST be self referential and point to the other versions of the web.Here some useful resources, specially the ones from Aleyda Solis:
Hreflang generator - Aleyda Solis International SEO - Moz Learning Center The Guide to International Website Expansion: Hreflang, ccTLDs, & More! - Moz Blog The International SEO Checklist - Moz Blog Using the correct hreglang tag - Moz Blog Tool for checking hreflang anotations - Moz Blog
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR
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
-
Redirecting M Dot Mobile Website to Responsive Design Website Questions
Hi amazing Moz community 🙂 Couldn't find this question anywhere, and knew this was the place to ask! We are helping a client redirect an M Dot website to a Responsive Design website. We want to retain our mobile rankings for keywords. Three questions - We should use 301 redirects from the M Dot website to the new website correct? (not 302s?) How long does it take for Google to understand that we have launched a responsive website? Can we remove the 301 redirects after a few days (if the M Dot website interferes/breaks the new Responsive website)? We have verified an account on Google Search Console for the M Dot website, along with a mobile sitemap that has been submitted and verified. What should we do with this M Dot GSC account? Just delete it? Or keep it and upload the NEW XML Sitemap with the new WWW links (because the website is responsive). THANK YOU!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
After Server Migration - Crawling Gets slow and Dynamic Pages wherein Content changes are not getting Updated
Hello, I have just performed doing server migration 2 days back All's well with traffic moved to new servers But somehow - it seems that w.r.t previous host that on submitting a new article - it was getting indexed in minutes. Now even after submitting page for indexing - its taking bit of time in coming to Search Engines and some pages wherein content is daily updated - despite submitting for indexing - changes are not getting reflected Site name is - http://www.mycarhelpline.com Have checked in robots, meta tags, url structure - all remains well intact. No unknown errors reports through Google webmaster Could someone advise - is it normal - due to name server and ip address change and expect to correct it automatically or am i missing something Kindly advise in . Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
A new website issue
Hello everybody,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtmaster
I have started a new website 22 days ago at the beginning of this month and i have long articles. I think this should make the site appear in search results for long tail keywords even if they are not very relevant but as you can see in the attached image from my webmaster tools the impression count has suddenly increased to 100 then significantly decreased again. Even when i cancel "filter" option. Is this normal for a 3 weeks old website? or there is something i have to check? thanks. cLMa04l.jpg0 -
Website Structured data in Google
Can anyone help me to show website structure data in Google when someone search my website in Google. I already added my website in Google and Google webmaster tool. Thanks in adv.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | talkinnetventure0 -
4 websites with same content?
I have 4 websites (1 Main, 3 duplicate) with same content. Now I want to change the content for duplicate websites and main website will remain the same content. Is there any problem with my thinking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marknorman0 -
SEO Best Practice for a multi-language and multi-country website
Hello Moz Community, I hope someone could help me identify the best action to take on an on-page optimization confusion I am currently having. The website I am currently trying to optimize is http://www.riafinancial.com/locations/us/home.aspx. There is an option to view a country specific version of the page, or language version (there are 2 drop down menus on the top, for country or for language). When viewing a country specific version of the page, the URL changes depending on country selected. Some country versions also updates the content to the language of that country, but some remain English. Example, when viewing the France version of the page (http://www.riafinancial.com/locations/FR/home.aspx), the content is updated to french version, but when viewing the China version (http://www.riafinancial.com/locations/CN/home.aspx), the content is in English. This is because we have not yet translated for all countries (this will eventually be all translated). Now, when viewing by language, the URL does NOT change. Example, in http://www.riafinancial.com/locations/us/home.aspx, you can choose French, German, Italian, Polish, etc. The content of the page will change based on language chosen, but the URL (including page titles, meta-descriptions) will not change. My question is, how should I approach this for on-page optimization? Canonical? Hreflang? Any input, feedback, recommendation, suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Sharon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RiaMT0 -
Tips for Getting into Bing News?
For anyone that has gone through the process of getting accepted into Bing news---do you have any suggestions for what we can do? Any resources you'd recommend reading?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Website Crawl problems
I have a feeling that Google doesn't crawl my website. E.g. this blogpost - I copy a sentence from it and paste it to Google. The page that shows up in search results is www.silvamethodlife.com/page/9/ - which is just a blog page with all the articles listed, not the link to the article itself! Did anyone ever have this problem? It's definitely some technical issue. Any advice will be deeply appreciated Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alexey_mindvalley0