Confused over whether i need to use hreflang tag?

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[davebuts]

Hi Yusa,

In this situation you should definitely use hreflang tags.

While Google probably won't penalize you for having duplicate content between the sites, hreflang tags will ensure that your pages are being served to their correct locations (which could make a big difference to your online sales).

I wouldn't worry too much about what your competitors are doing. You have a chance to do things better than them here.

Cheers,

David

[katemorris]

The ccTLDs automatically geo-target, so unless you are changing the language of the content, you don't NEED hreflang tags per se. But they won't hurt either as James mentioned. However, if you do plan on going global at any point, do have a think about your setup. Maintaining a new site for tons of new countries isn't as scalable as Aus to NZ. Just keep that in mind.

For now you should be fine, but if things don't perform as well, think about doing some testing with NZ residents and change up their site slightly for that market. It will perform better the more you customize it to them.

[davebuts]

ccTLD geo-targeting doesn't always work well.

I've worked on a few sites that had AU and NZ versions and always found the AU site was getting a decent chunk of NZ traffic.

Implementing hreflang tags between the sites fixed this and made sure people in NZ were served the NZ version of the site.

Don't assume search engines are going to handle everything the way you think they should do.

Use hreflang and remove any doubt.