Hreflang on non 1:1 websites
-
Hi. I have a client with international websites targeting several different countries. Currently, the US (.com) website outranks the country-specific domain when conducting a search within that country (i.e. US outranks the UK website in the UK). This sounds like a classic case for hrelang. However, the websites are largely not 1:1. They offer different content with a different design and a different URL structure. Each country is on a country-specific domain (.com, .co.uk, .com.au, etc.). As well, the country-specific domains have lower domain authority than the US/.com website - fewer links, lower quality content, poorer UX, etc.
Would hreflang still help in this scenario if we were to map it the closest possible matching page? Do the websites not sharing content 1:1 add any risks? The client is worried the US/.com website will lose ranking in the country but the country-specific domain won't gain that ranking.
Thanks for any help or examples you can offer!
-
Thanks for the reply! Yep, it is the same company (though each country's website is managed by a different group). Good idea on just doing the home page for the brand terms. Could maybe extend that logic for top-level pages too - target similar topics even if the content is a bit different per site.
-
Sounds like it's the same company, right? If yes, you could do Homepage to Homepage only. That should atleast solve the issue for the right Homepage ranking, for your brand name searches in the respective countries.
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
-
International website sharing with .com/.au/.uk
I have a small business in the United States and would like to copy our main website for my international partners. My website is a .com. I think that their domains will end in their country codes: .au and .uk. We are open to using different domains. We plan to share blog articles and other content, but do not wish to be penalized for duplication. I have tried to read articles on this topic, but am unfamiliar with a lot of the terms. Is there any way to do this simply? Many thanks, Steph
International SEO | | essential_steph0 -
How To Rank A UK Website On Google.com (US)
Hi, I've done some research on this but couldn't find any definitive answer I can trust! We have a client who resides in the UK. They have '.com' domain, hosted on a UK server, using UK spelling. Their business objective for this year is to expand in the USA, including the opening of a warehouse over there. They are wanting us to rank their website on both Google.co.uk and Google.com (North America); besides changing the geolocation settings in GWT's, and building links from .com websites is there anything else we can do to increase their visibility on Google.com? Many thanks in advance, appreciated!
International SEO | | Webpresence
Lee.0 -
Website Domains, Geographical targeting and Duplicate Content
My colleagues in Holland have 2 websites. I've copied and pasted their question - my comments are at the bottom "www.ancoferwaldram.nl with NL, EN and FR language www.ancoferwaldram.com with only EN language The EN versions Google sees as “duplicate content” so we have to get rid of that. I think we better use 1 website: www.ancoferwaldram.com with NL, EN, FR and maybe other languages and deactivate www.ancoferwaldram.nl Or keep the www.ancoferwaldram.nl with only the NL language? Or keep the www.ancoferwaldram.nl with direct links to www.ancoferwaldram.com and no content?" The focus is to get the site to rank in Non-eu countries for export. So given the .nl has higher DA (though only about 15) would it be better to have seperate .fr, .be, .com sites for specific languages and geo targeting. Or would it be better to keep everything on the same site? If so which domain? i assume that the duplicate content can be resolved by stating which is the canonical version, once the domain strategy is resolved welcome any thoughts here. 🙂
International SEO | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Hreflang hindering performance?
I want to add hreflang on my website but the dev guys think it will hinder performance? Any thoughts/experience with this one way or the other? Thanks!
International SEO | | theLotter0 -
How do I get a UK website to rank in Dubai?
We are trying to get a UK-based children's furniture website to rank in Dubai. We have had a couple of orders from wealthy expats in Dubai and it seems to be the correct target market. Does anyone have any specific knowledge of this area? We are promoting the same website as for the UK market. Also does anyone know any user behaviour stats on expatriates using search engines? Do they carry on using the version of Google they are used to, or do most change to the local version of Google? Thanks in advance
International SEO | | Wagada0 -
Geographical targeting and rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”
Let me paint you a picture, a site attempts geographical targeting by using sub-directories. However, 'targeting' is used loosely in this case. One sub-directory targets the US, the other is for everywhere else. For example: example.com/us/ <-- US example.com/en/ <--- Everywhere else The homepage is a map, they get taken to the US site if they click on US, they get the other site if they click anywhere else. The site is effectively duplicated in both folders, the only difference being one is written in US English, the other in UK English. So, while I am able to set the preferred geo in Google Webmaster tools for the US site, I can't for the everything else site. Recently I came across rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” and thought it may be useful. Does anyone know if I can specify more than one language per URL using this method? For example using multiple instances such as: Is this possible at all? Thanks in advance, and I'm open to any other suggestions! 🙂
International SEO | | David_ODonnell0 -
How well does Google's crawlers understand foreign websites?
I speak 5 languages and therefore have the opportunity to do on-page SEO and content writing for 5 different cultures. This question to me has much to do with the way Google translator works. It doesn't, trust me! Which then makes me wonder how the web crawlers, which are designed with English in mind, can fairly and equally attribute the same ranking points to a foreign website. Since Google seems to use sematic search technology I'm wondering if foreign sites have it easier or not. Any ideas?
International SEO | | MassivePrime0 -
.com or .ca for my Canadian website that is the question...
I have a US based company that is expanding to Canada, would it matter if I have a .com or .ca for my website?
International SEO | | BCA0