How to avoid duplication across multiple country domains

[muzzmoz]

Here's the scenario:

• I have a client currently running one Shopify site (AU)
• They want to launch three more country domains (US, UK and EU)
• They want each to be a standalone site, primarily so the customers can purchase in their local currency, which is not possible from a single Shopify site
• The inventory is all from the same source
• The product desscriptions will all be the same as well

Question: How do we avoid content duplication (ie. how will canonical tags work in this scenario)?

[LoganRay]

Hi,

There's a couple things you'll need to do. First is to set up a Search Console account for each TLD version of your domain. Once you've setup and verified, you'll want to specify the target country for each. To do this, go to Search Traffic on the left nav, then click International Targeting, then head to the Country tab. Set each for its respective domain.

Next, you'll need to implement hreflang tags. They work similar to canonical tags, but instead of telling search engines the preferential version of the content, these tags point them to the other country/language versions. Everything you need to know about this tag can be found here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag.

These two actions will help the country-specific versions of Google serve up the appropriate versions of your content and avoid getting dinged for dupes.

Hope that's helpful!

[muzzmoz]

That's very helpful - many thanks Logan

[LoganRay]

Happy to help!

[muzzmoz]

Hi Logan,

OK, there's a possible gotcha here. All four sites (.com, au, uk and eu) will be in English. So content will be identical. The purpose of the hreflang tags seems to be for multi-language versions of the same site. This is not the case here. The primary reason for country specific TLDs is just to allow customers to transact in their local currency, but also to be indexed in the local version of Google.

Make sense?

[muzzmoz]

Furthermore, it appears that region targetting only works for specific countries ('eu' is not an option).

So it appears that the proposed solution isn't going to achieve the desired outcome after all:

1. because the hreflang tags are intended for different languages and all four of our sites will be in English
2. because 'eu' is not recognised by the tags

Anyone out there got a solution?

[LoganRay]

You can specify English as the language for each one. The tag's main purpose is language, but it has deeper implications than that. The hreflang tags and Search Console specification will still help your .co.uk URLs in google.co.uk, your .com URLs in Google.com, and your .com.au URLs in google.com.au.

Regarding your .eu TLD, you might need to rethink that strategy. The primary language in Aus, UK, and US is English, so the plan you've laid out will be fine for those countries. But when you get into a .eu domain, there is no Google.eu and there's no single primary language spoken throughout. Serving up English content to everyone in Europe is sub-par UX since there's a plethora of languages in the region.

[muzzmoz]

Hey Logan,

Thanks for clarification on the hreflang tags - sounds good.

Re the .eu TLD, the client is keen to go this route just to enable Euro currency in the checkout. But I agree it is sub-optimal. If there is sufficient business case (ie. traffic), then I will suggest .fr, .de, etc. I believe the Langify app in Shopify works well. Otherwise, I might suggest .com in US$ for all countries other than Aus and UK.

Also wondering on your thoughts re domainuk.com, versus domain.co.uk?

[LoganRay]

No problem. Your best bet would be to avoid subdomains and have separate entities via ccTLD as you've mentioned is the plan. You could do a sub-directory structure (.com/au, .com/us, etc..) but honestly that gets pretty messy. I've got a client that has some countries on different ccTLDs and some that share a TLD, and the ones that share the .com are the messy ones.