International URL Puzzle

[digitalops]

Hello,

I have 4 different URL's going to 4 different countries that all contain the same content and Google is seeing them as duplicate pages. For ecommerce reasons I have to have these 4 pages separated. Here is a example of the pages below so you can see the URL structure:

www.example/com/canada

www.example.com/australia

www.example.com/usa

www.example.com/UK

How do I fix this duplicate content problem?

Thanks!

[MattAntonino]

You need to use the HREFLANG markup.

If you Google my site on Google.com, it displays and takes you to highonseo.com, if you search Google.com.au, it takes you to HighonSEO.com.au  Make sense?

Add these tags to your pages in the head area.  This should take about a week to "kick in" and far less time if you update regularly and Google comes and crawls you sooner.

---

<link rel="alternate" <span class="il">hreflang="en-Us" href="http://www.example.com/US" /></link rel="alternate" <span>

<link rel="alternate" <span class="il">hreflang</link rel="alternate" <span>="en-UK" href="http://www.example.com/UK" />

<link rel="alternate" <span class="il">hreflang</link rel="alternate" <span>="en-AU" href="http://www.example.com/australia" />

<link rel="alternate" <span class="il">hreflang</link rel="alternate" <span>="en-CA" href="http://www.example.com/canada" />

---

More on HREFLANG:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_a_hreflang.asp

[MarcLevy]

It definitely sounds like you should consider using HREFLANG as Matt already suggested. This can done via a sitemap and there is a nice tool from The Media Flow to help you with it:

http://www.themediaflow.com/resources/tools/href-lang-tool/

Based on your example above (using sub-folders for different countries) you should also consider the following if you are not doing it already:

1. Setting Geo-Location correctly in Google Web Master Tools for each country specific sub-folder.
   http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.il/2008/04/where-in-world-is-your-site.html

2. Try and make your content unique and relevant for the different locations and those users. I understand you may have the same products available for these different markets, but if possible make sure country related elements are unique £ / $ etc. Shipping information might be different for example.

   Wherever possible try and make it unique whilst trying to deliver the best experience for users from that country.

Good luck!