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Looks like moz isn't taking the canonical into effect, as long as it's there, you're fine. But I'd warn you not to use relative canonical links ( /directory/page/ vs http://www.domain.com/directory/page/), link to the whole thing. I've seen this go wrong in the past. It's not causing issues now but could in the future.

I do not know of major differences, but it might be worth taking the time to research what is ranking in Bing/Yahoo over your client and compare. Back in the day (2 years ago) I heard rumor that some of the old things still applied: H1, H2, H3 tags, keyword density, etc. That and there was a bigger focus on just number of links. But none of this should change what you are doing. There should be a focus on good site structure, on page tagging, and page/domain authority through links.

The only other thing is to remember that Bing has a relationship with Facebook and can use Facebook social data directly. Not to say that it's the major factor here, but it is something Google does not have.

Just a thought.

Yep, given your resource constraints, I'd focus on translations for now. If you ever get to a point that there is something bigger than price differentiating your content, then you can think about geo-targeting. You will need the resources to differentiate the content though.

Right now, my recommendation is to drop the country specific content and just offer English for now. Your content can rank for any English speaking search, regardless of country. However, if the terms people use in the US, UK and Canada differ that much, you can "translate" the content (en-us, en-gb, en-au) and use the HREFLANG tag.

For price changes, that's tricker, but do you offer the price in search results via schema? Does it show up? If not, then you can use cookies to set the prices dependent on the country the person chooses (try not to use IP address, and if you do, make people confirm the setting).

For now, focus your time and efforts getting the flow right for the user. Only worry about HREFLANG if your English content needs to be differentiated for term usage. Then focus your efforts on getting those upcoming translations right. When that is ready, then really use HREFLANG.

Hope that helps!

If the image does change, your alt attribute text should change the "content" of the page. However, I would question if it helps to have these pages indexed. I assume it's your gallery page you want indexed.

If that is true and your site structure allows it, I would disallow all of those individual pages from being crawled using robots.txt. But that depends on the structure of the site. You can also just add a noindex tag on the image pages.

David also has a good point. (Below)

**1. If we start using "" to make Google (and others) aware of alternative language versions of a given site/URL, how big a problem will "duplicate titles" then be across our domains/site versions? **

If you have translations, that is content that is exactly the same, just translated, HREFLANG is highly recommended for Google. Bing uses another tag though. However, your titles should be different give that they are in different languages. Check out my presentation here: http://www.slideshare.net/DistilledSEO/searchlove-boston-2013kate-morrisinternational-seo

**2. Is it a problem that we in our sitemap include (many) URL's to pages that are marked with noindex? **

I wouldn't put pages in the sitemap that have a noindex. It won't hurt you by any means, just seems a waste of time.

**3. Are there any problems with having a sitemap that includes pages that includes canonical URL's to other pages? **

It's not recommended but it's also not a problem. The only issue comes in having pages that redirect or break all together.

Check the ones you want to delete to see if there are any backlinks to any of them. If there are, don't delete them yet.

For those with no external links, first check the traffic for the last year. None? Then make sure there are no references (links) to them on your site. Once there are no links to the post, then delete.

If there are external links to the post, either update it and republish (301 redirect to the new URL from the old one), just keep it, or contact the site linking and ask them to change the link to an updated post. Don't waste that link equity!

Hope that helps!

Start in Google Webmaster Tools or in the Moz Crawl. Identify those pages with the same title tag and work through that list. The title tag is usually a good indication of duplicate content.

If the content is duplicate for sure, determine if it's a useful duplicate. If so, use a canonical from the duplicate to the original. If it's just duplicated with no real reason, find out how to get rid of the duplicate. This can be anything from unnecessary parameters, to tag pages, and so many more.

You'll start to see trends in the data, try to fix the bigger problems as you see them.

The images are the same on each page? What platform are you on?

The best answer is going to depend on the above. It's not a matter of a canonical vs noindex. If they are really duplicate, image and all, there has to be some way to stop that from happening. But if the image does change, then we can figure it out from there.

There are a few tools: SEMRush, SearchMetrics, and SpyFu.

I have always preferred in the sitemap because it keeps potential lines of code off your page. Everything helps when it comes to page speed.

However, if it's easier for you to put the tags on page, that's is completely valid. Do whatever is easiest to maintain and update.

Hi!

This is a tough one because I can't tell if you mean to be geo-targeting or translate. It's not a one or the other thing, but it usually is when you are just targeting english speaking countries. Can you do me a favor and go to http://www.katemorris.com/issg/ and go through the questions there? Let me know what the "answer" is for your situation and I'll help you get to the right solution.

But in short, yes, the duplicate content is a real issue with or without the lang parameter.

Let me know!

GA should naturally track any sub-directories on the same domain without added code. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

I've heard it both ways, that a sitemap is a way around the digits in the URL. But I can confirm, for sure, that if you are approved by Google News (must submit for approval), that the digits in the URL will work for sure.

Hi!

Your friendly international SEO here. (PS thanks for the call out there Tom)

You cannot point two HREFLANG tags at the same URL because it's impossible to have both languages on the same page. Well, not impossible, just not recommended. I am not sure if you have translations or not, so both possible answers are below.

Translations (FR and EN) Available
If you have a Canadian subsite and it has two translations, you need to use both geo-targeting and HREFLANG. In your case, the /ca would be geotargeted, but then you need to distinguish the two translations somehow. If /ca is how you are geo-targeting, I recommend parameter for translation. So the French translation of the Canadian homepage content would be http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=fr -- for English of the same Canadian homepage content, it would be http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=en.

The canonical set up in that instance is:

Page: http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=fr

Page: http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=en

Note that the HREFLANG tags are the same because you have to reference the current page and all translations of that page.

Translations NOT Available
Now, this answer assumes that you just have the Canadian content in English, or just in French. If that is true, you don't need the HREFLANG. You just need to geo-target the subsite for Canada.

Now I do recommend that you offer translated content for the Canadian audience, but please don't auto-translate content. Just offer it in one language until you can get the resources to have it translated by a real person.

Hope that helps!

This is an interesting problem to have! I think the issue they are running into is that your auth file for http is redirecting to https. They want you to remove the http site from your account and then add the https site. Once you have done that, you can use the Site Move tool.

Is that a little more clear? I would love to hear if that works for you. it would be a great YouMoz post!

This feels like looking for permission to take a short cut and I personally cannot justify that. I would highly recommend to take the time to make the pages correctly and not even worry about duplicate content or Panda. None of use can tell you if it will "work" or if it'll be seen as duplicate content or when it'll be hit by panda, but if it's auto-generated, I can promise it'll be hit at some point.

However, the worst you can do is test it. Take the top 10% of make/model deal pages and create them how you want. Do it like you're talking and see how they perform. I'm not talking a few weeks, I mean a few months. All the while, be developing the content for some of those pages.

This way, if it works and people like the pages, they are relevant produced the way you want to do it now, the short way, then you can produce the other pages that way. At that point however, your top make/model pages will have unique content that you can put up. So a few months later, you'll have 10% of your deals pages with unique content and the rest automated. Then start working on the next top 10%. Keep going until they are all done.

There are a number of things that go into the decision to use ccTLDs or not.

1. Will your content change at all across the different country sites? So if you had .dk and .co.uk, would those two sites have different content at all?
2. What countries do you sell to or are you world wide?
3. Do you users in different countries need to see different content? Meaning are there any substantial differences in buying behavior or needs?

Answer those questions and we can go from there.

Exactly! The mobile content should match the main site.

What are the pros and cons for referencing all page versions in sitemap and for include just general (English/Desktop) version in sitemap?

Let me clarify, you want to know the pros and cons of putting all page versions in sitemaps, or just doing the english/desktop and letting Google figure it out.

List All Content in Sitemaps

• Pros

• If the sitemaps are set up in a logical fashion, this makes for an easy way to see indexation issues.

• You can use hreflang in the sitemaps rather than on the page. This reduces page code and ups page speed, albeit slightly.

• You are guaranteed that search engine will find all of the content.

• Cons

• Lots of sitemaps to make and maintain.

Sitemap just main content (desktop/english)

• Pros

• Easier to maintain.

• Search engines are much better today at finding most versions of content.

• Cons

• Run the risk of content not being indexed correctly.

• Some content might not be found and indexed.

• You could not easily verify indexation.

• If any onsite code was removed that told Google where to go, then the possibility of indexation issues increase.

Hope that helps answer your question!

Did your company explore doing a responsive site rather than an m.domain.com mobile specific site? That would take care of any issues.

For the mobile site you have now, you should have all content on the main site optimized for mobile. That means all pages should have a corresponding mobile page and a rel=canonical from the mobile page to the desktop page.

You also need to fix the redirects and ensure the mobile experience is always top notch.

This is a good resource for you: http://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/how-to-follow-googles-mobile-rules-for-awesome-seo