Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Different meta-description per country?
-
I have this .com domain which is the corporate website. Next to this domain, we also have local domains. We would like to test with a different meta-description per country on this one corporate .com domain. Does anyone knows if this is possible and how we could integrate this?
-
Hi Patrick,
Thank you for your response!
On our local websites, we have specific meta-descriptions in place. Do you know another technical solution to do this on a corporate .com domain (meta-description per country)? This domain is used in the whole world but we want to test multiple meta-descriptions for this .com domain.
-
Hi there
For my vote, you should do this, especially if you're dealing with local markets, products specific to those regions, or deals/sales in those area. This is something you should test, see how they perform, and benchmark.
I would also look into the following:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)Both of the resources above will help you make sure you are targeting properly based on each site variation.
But, again, for my vote, yes, you should have local specific meta descriptions if possible, where necessary.
Hope this helps - good luck!
-
Thank you for taking the time to write me this extensive response. This already helps!
-
Sorry i should have been more clear. This php solution is not a solution, at least in any practical sense.
Basically you would have for example
Descriptions Stored in variables
Meta Description UK
Meta Description USAThe page HTML would be
but the user is already on the website... they have already passed any point the meta-description would have been displayed to them.
The problem with this is that Google displays the meta-description that it has indexed from is most recent crawl. When google crawls your page is loads your page as if it were a user from wherever the bot is located, so wouldn't be able to see the other meta-descriptions for other counties and so couldn't display them if it wanted to.
Even if it crawled your site for various places around the globe, it would just be constantly tyring to update. It can change but each time it does is takes a period of time to be reflected on google. Once its changed the old one isn't stored, its just replaced. Its kinda a 1 description per page rule.
The only solution i could think off is a different landing page for each country (which you have) but there isn't a way to have a dynamic meta description on your main .com (as far as i know) sorry
-
Thank you for your answer - very valuable. We would want one fixed meta-descriptions per country. Wouldn't that change in the Google results after a certain period of time (in the right country) if we do this with a php solution. Any articles or guides you know about?
-
To my knowledge there isn't
Are there are ways with php to dynamically load in a different meta descriptions? Sure.
The problem is that this wouldn't be reflected in google. Google takes days-> weeks or even months to update a meta-description within its index. So even though you could make the HTML code change on the actual page, it wouldn't change on the search listing nullifying the whole point.
I don't believe an option exists around this, but somebody may know something i dont.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Canonical: Same content but different countries
I'm building a website that has content made for specific countries. The url format is: MyWebsite.com/<country name="">/</country> Some of the pages for <specific url="">are the same for different countries, the <specific url="">would be the same as well. The only difference would be the <country name="">.</country></specific></specific> How do I deal with canonical issues to avoid Google thinking I'm presenting the same content?
On-Page Optimization | | newbyguy0 -
Rich Snippets appear differently for Wikipedia, Why?
Hi All, I've been doing a bit of research for a customer and whilst I was looking through the google results pages I came across this interesting rich snippet for a Wikipedia page (see screen shot attached). Its returned some extra information i.e Owner, Water Source, Number of Stills and Capacity. Is this just Google playing around or is this something I've missed and you can markup additional information for your rich snippet? Thanks in advance Jon 4TmGvJh.png
On-Page Optimization | | Jon-S0 -
Should I redirect mobile traffic to a different url? Will it hurt SEO?
I'm working on a site that has lots of great content and ranks well but essentially the money is generated by affiliate links. I don't have a mobile version of the site but the company I'm affiliated with does offer a mobile redirect to their domain. Will redirecting mobile traffic to a different url hurt my SEO? I think the user will get a better experience by landing on a mobile page but I don't know if google will see it like that. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Meta separators
I've been told that pipes are the best separators for title tags. Can anyone tell me the best ones for H1 and H2 tags? Do I go with pipes, commas, hyphens, underscores...?
On-Page Optimization | | Greatmats0 -
Different page for each product colour?
Hi Guys, I've just read an ecommerce article that suggests it's a good idea to have a different page for each colour that the product comes in. However surely this will mean duplicate content? What are your thoughts? Have you put this tactic into motion and how did it go? Thanks, Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Sparkstone0 -
Duplicate meta descriptions
Hi all, I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!) Anyone any ideas on this? Thanks Elaine
On-Page Optimization | | elaineryan0 -
Do I need a Meta description for every page?
HI Guys, We have just developed a new website and I'm looking to add meta descriptions with relevant key words to the pages . As the site has over 80 pages it is quite an undertaking and i was wandering if pages, such as the shopping cart and FAQ's etc, need meta descriptions as well? Thanks in advance : ) Pete
On-Page Optimization | | dawsonski0 -
Is it ok to use encoded special characters in meta titles?
I've read blog posts stating that encoding special characters in title tags is both ok and not ok. Any definitive answer out there? Do the extra characters from adding encoding count towards the total number of characters that Google displays in SERPs? Or do they just count as one character?
On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright0