Duplicated content in moz report due to Magento urls in a multiple language store.

[footd]

Hi guys,

Moz crawl is reporting as duplicated content the following urls in our store:

http://footdistrict.com  and  http://footdistrict.com?___store=footdistrict_es

The chain: ___store=footdistrict_es is added as you switch the language of the site. Both pages have the http://footdistrict.com" /> , but this was introduced some time after going live.

I was wondering the best action to take considering the SEO side effects. For example:

1. Permanent redirect from http://footdistrict.com?___store=footdistrict_es to http://footdistrict.com. -> Problem: If I'm surfing through english version and I switch to spanish, apache will realize that http://footdistrict.com?___store=footdistrict_es is going to be loaded and automatically it will redirect you to http:/footdistrict.com. So you will stay in spanish version for ever.
2. Deleting the URLS with the store code from Google Web Admin tools. Problem: What about the juice?
3. Adding those URL's to robots.txt. Problem: What about the juice?
4. more options?

Basically I'm trying to understand the best option to avoid these pages being indexed. Could you help here?

Thanks a lot.

[LynnPatchett]

Hi Diego,

I feel your pain, this is a common problem with multi language magento sites.

I think the main thing to do is to make sure the language codes are included in the url (so like http://footdistrict.com/en/). This way you will avoid all the problems associated with the url variables ?___store=es and language cookies which is a difficult situation to manage. You can set this up in the magento admin at configuration -> general -> web -> url options. That way there is never any doubt which language any url is displaying in. As it is now, you have a rel canonical to the same page from both languages that the server is serving up in two different languages versions and from what I can see with a site:footdistrict.com search has resulted in your english version is not being indexed (or at least not being indexed well).

Getting it setup right has a number of challenges: you will need to check redirects from old urls are working properly, the language switcher needs coding adjustments to work properly, make sure you test it well in other words! Once setup like this you can use just one redirect from footdistrict.com/es to footdistrict.com and the rest of the product/category urls should take care of themselves.

Hope that makes sense!