How to manage canonical URLs for multiple domains with identical content to...

salon_sue

I am managing a website that has several country-specific domains (e.g., .com, .be, .nl, .fr), but all of these domains load the exact same content . The primary version of the website is the .com domain, while the others are used to cater to different regions. Currently, each domain has its own canonical URL pointing to itself , which has resulted in duplicate content issues and links being flagged as toxic by SEO tools. I want to avoid this...

Originally asked by user3086053 on Stack Exchange (webmasters) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

You should be looking at rel="alternate" . Canonical tells Google that you only want one version indexed, whereas this tag says which version should be shown in which region. Google say you should use this when: If your content has small regional variations with similar content, in a single language. or If your site content is fully translated into multiple languages. I assume one of these applies to you.

Full answer by RichardB: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/a/145841 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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