Geo-Targeted Sub-Domains & Duplicate Content/Canonical

[SteveHoney]

For background the sub domain structure here is inherited and commited to due to tech restrictions with some of our platforms.

The brand I work with is splitting out their global site into regional sub sites (not too relevant but this is in order to display seasonal product in different hemispheres and to link to stores specific to the region). All sub-domains except EU will be geo-targeted to their relevant country.

Regions and sub domains for reference:

• AU - Australia
• CA - Canada
• CH - Switzeraland
• EU - All Euro zone countries
• NZ - New Zealand
• US - United States

This will be done with Wordpress multisite. The set up allows to publish content on one 'master' sub site and then decide which other sub sites to 'broadcast' to. Some content is specific to a sub-domain/region so no issue with duplicate and can set the sub-site version as canonical.

However some content will appear on all sub-domains.

• au.example.com/awesome-content/
• nz.example.com/awesome-content/

Now first question is since these domains are geo-targeted should I just have them all canonical to the version on that sub-domain? eg

Or should I still signal the duplicate content with one canonical version?

Essentially the top level example.com exists as a site only for publishing purposes - if a user lands on the top level example.com/awesome-content/ they are given a pop up to select region and redirected to the relevant sub-domain version. So I'm also unsure whether I want that content indexed at all??

I could make the top level example.com versions of all content be the canonical that all others point to eg. and rely on geo-targeting to have the right links show in the right search locations.

I hope that's kind of clear?? Obviously I find it confusing and therefore hard to relay!

Any feedback at all gratefully received.

Cheers,

Steve

[BlueCorona]

Great question!

Based on the situation you've described, your best bet is to direct all of the geotargeted pages to canonical to the version on that sub-domain. So, for the example you provided, .

I would not rely on geo-targeting to have the right links show in the right search locations!