Competitor has same site with multiple languages

[HashtagHustler]

Hey Moz,

I am working with a dating review website and we have noticed one of our competitors is basically making duplicated of their site with .com, .de, .co.uk, etc.

My first thought is this is basically a way to game the system but I could be wrong.

They are tapping into googles geo results by including major cities in each state, i.e. "dating in texas" "dating in atlanta" however the content itself doesn't really change. I can't figure out exactly why they are ranking so much higher. For example using some other SEO tools they have a traffic estimate of $500,000 monthly, where as we are sitting around $2000. So, either the traffic estimates are grossly misrepresenting traffic volume, OR they really are crushing it.

TLDR: Is geo locating/translating sites a valid way to create backlinks? It's seems a lot like a PBN.

[katemorris]

This is a tough one because there are reasons on both sides of the street to give reasons why this duplicate content should and should not be allowed. Think about an ERP SAAS company that needs to change their content just a bit between countries. They might build what looks to be duplicate but doesn't have some pages in one country vs another.

In your example, it seems to be not a great experience, but as a logged in user, they might be getting different content depending on their location.

To my second point: Those outside tools are shit. Total shit. Don't trust those numbers. Do your numbers line up to theirs?

Final point: Do not build and maintain duplicate content in hopes of getting links. It won't work over time. Anything can work for a short period of time, but in the end, they will figure it out. Trust me.

[HashtagHustler]

Thank you!

1. We have decided that localizing is not worth it, it appears spammy and we cannot offer curated content on that level.

2. I am still a little confused about HrefLang. For example lets say we have a .com and a .de website. Both are nearly identical with the exception of hreflang and a handful or product/pricing descriptions (for example the US website might not list german specific dating sites, where as the german site will most likely include most major dating sites simply because they have the reach). Does google see this as duplicate content? Or does the hreflang indicate to google that this should be treated as two different websites.

3. To sum this up, we are trying to determine just how our competition has such a large keyword footprint when as far as the numbers are concerned (page count, wordcount etc) we are basically on the same level.

[katemorris]

1. Good!

2. You are confused for good reason. There has not been clear direction for here for some time. If you used HREFLANG between the two, it seems for the last number of years the content would not be seen as duplicative. You are telling Google that the content is the same but in different languages inherently.

3. There is so much that goes into this, but I can tell you with years of experience under my belt that the numbers don't ever tell the whole story.