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I have a client that's setting up a section of his site in a different language, and we're planning to geo-target those pages to that country. I have suggested a sub-folder solution as it's the most cost effective solution, and it will allow domain authority to flow into those pages.

His developer is indicating that they can only set this up as a sub-domain, for technical reasons, but they're suggesting they can rewrite the url's to appear as sub folder pages.

I'm wondering how this will work in terms of geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I geo-target the sub domain or the sub folder i.e. does Google only see urls or does it physically see those pages on the sub-domain?

It seems like it might be a messy solution. Would it be a better idea just to forget about the rewrites and live with the site being a sub domain?

Thanks,

I've a follow on question to this: I have a client that's setting up a section of his site in a different language, and we're planning to geo-target those pages to that country. I have suggested a sub-folder solution as it's the most cost effective solution, and it will allow domain authority to flow into those pages.

His developer is indicating that they can only set this up as a sub-domain, for technical reasons, but they're suggesting they can rewrite the url's to appear as sub folder pages.

I'm wondering how this will work in terms of geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I geo-target the sub domain or the sub folder i.e. does Google only see urls or does it physically see those pages on the sub-domain?

It seems like it might be a messy solution. Would it be a better idea just to forget about the rewrites and live with the site being a sub domain?

Thanks,

Thanks Ricko. That's is what we're thinking. Put it up and see what happens before blocking pages or anything like that.

There is an existing site there already. We're doing a redesign, using a new eCommerce platform. The site currently has a domain authority of 27, and all the category pages urls we'll be able to maintain, and they have page authority, which is good. So, it shouldn't take long for us to see what will happen with the new pages.

Thanks.

Thanks for comprehensive reply, Ricko.

First, just to address what you mentioned about getting 2 listings: my concern was more about 2 of my pages competing for keywords, when actually 1 page with more page rank (rather than page rank being split over 2) would have a better chance of ranking. Do you know what I mean?

The form optimization solution sounds interesting, and this is stuff that we're planing to do, but manually. My concern is though: will this make the pages unique enough? It seems from what you said that it might just be?

On the last thing you mentioned about customer reviews: this is something that I've considered. The problem is the high number of products, and the relatively low level of sales volume (initially at least) making this a more long term solution.

Thanks,

Leigh

Thanks EGOL.

I agree. The problem is that each metal type needs to be a separate product in order for the filter system to work correctly. And the filtering is very important so that we can provide the best user experience possible.

I'm working with someone who's setting up an online jewelry store. The jewelry is available in many metal types, so we're creating filters to provide a good user experience in trying to narrow down their choice.

Let's take an example of a wedding ring that's available these options:

10kt yellow gold
10kt white gold
18kt yellow gold
18kt white gold
Palladium
Platinum

These are all entered as separate products, so that they can be used in the filtering system. However, apart from some minor changes to the title and description most of the content will be identical, across these 6 product pages.

Also, many wedding ring styles are going to be very similar, so we're going to have very similar descriptions for a lot of the rings.

We're concerned about problems this might cause with the search engines in terms of duplicate content. There's 2 issues that I an see (there may be more!):

1. They will not index many of the pages and we'll leak link juice to those pages that will never get indexed
2. They do index all the variations, but the content is so similar, that we have different pages competing for essentially the same keywords

Also, these products are likely to come and go, so investing heavily on creating really unique content for them isn't really sustainable, affordable.

Any advise?

Thanks,

In my crawl diagnostics, I notice some 4xx client errors. They are appearing for pages that no longer exist, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Shouldn't they just be dealt as 404's?

Anyway, on closer inspection I noticed that my 404 error page contains a canonical tag which points to the missing page. Could this be the issue? Is it a good idea to remove the canonical tag from this error page?

Thanks.

Thanks for you input, Derek.

Hi Derek,

Yes, I agree; building links to my internal page won't harm me. My concern is more do to with stopping building links to the homepage for that keyword. If Google is counting the links for the homepage but showing the category page, then wouldn't it make sense to keep building links to the page that's bringing that ranking?

Thanks Derek. The homepage has 259 words and the category page has 969.

I already have a text link with the keyword going to my category page. It's in my main nav so appears on all pages. I suspect that this has a lot to do with it, too.

In theory I agree that I should focus on the page that Google is choosing for me, but what are your thoughts on the second concern outlined below?

Thanks,