SEO issues Shopify Markets with multi domains

[Hansdieter]

Hello everyone,

we are using shopify markets and just started using different domains for different markets. For example:

www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu For Germany / German language

www.EXAMPLESHOP.fr For France / French language

We are using Transcy language plugin to translate everything.

HREFLANG look like the following: 

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="cs-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/cs">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="da-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/da">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/el">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/en">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/es">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="hr-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/hr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="nl-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/nl">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="pl-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/pl">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/pt">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="sv-DE" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/sv">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-NL" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/de-nl">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ES" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/de-es">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es-ES" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/es-es">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-IT" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.eu/de-it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.EXAMPLESHOP.fr/">

We are experiencing duplicate content problems now. We see that german keywords get indexed for the french domain and do not know why this happens. Any suggestions? Should we use another language plugin? We also tried to use WeGlot in the past. 

[oscprofessional]

Hi @Hansdieter ,

Can you share the store URL ...

[Hansdieter]

www.wisefood.eu and www.wisefood.fr

[SEOProStaff]

Hi @Hansdieter ,

The issue of duplicate content across different language domains is often due to improper implementation of HREFLANG tags, which are crucial for multilingual SEO. They help search engines understand which version of a page to show based on the user's language preference. Your HREFLANG tags appear to be set up for multiple languages under the .eu domain, but ensure each market's domain correctly references its language versions too. It's vital to specify the correct country and language codes, for instance, "de-DE" for German in Germany and "fr-FR" for French in France, ensuring these tags are mirrored across all domain versions.

SEOPro can be particularly helpful in this context by assisting in optimizing your SEO settings for each specific market. While SEOPro focuses on optimizing meta titles, descriptions, and improving overall SEO health, understanding and correcting your HREFLANG implementation is a crucial step that should not be overlooked. For more detailed SEO analysis and recommendations specific to Shopify, considering the use of SEO tools like SEOPro can be beneficial. These tools can help you ensure that your content is properly indexed and presented to the right audience, thus minimizing duplicate content issues.

Full disclosure: We are the developer of this app.

[Niko8]

Hello to Everyone,

We have started using Shopify Markets.

We have 5 Languages (IT-DE-FR-EN-EL) 

Primary Market is Greece (as we are based there)

International is set to include all the other countries.

After launch we have notice a drop on SEO performance , due to , duplicate content , not indexed , and generally speaking not SEO friendly Matrix for Multi language stores.

Google is struggling to understand what to index etc.

The structure as per below , is self explanatory and is showing a kind of ''Duplication''

How can we overcome this complex situation?

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.example.com/">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-GR" href="https://www.example.com/fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-GR" href="https://www.example.com/de">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-GR" href="https://www.example.com/it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-GR" href="https://www.example.com/el">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-DE" href="https://www/example.com/de-de">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-DE" href="https://www.example.com/fr-de">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-DE" href="https://www.example.com/el-de">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-DE" href="https://www.example.com/it-de">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-DE" href="https://www.example.com/en-de">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.example.com/fr-fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-FR" href="https://www.example.com/de-fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-FR" href="https://www.example.com/el-fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-FR" href="https://www.example.com/it-fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-FR" href="https://www.example.com/en-fr">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-IT" href="https://www.example.com/it-it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-IT" href="https://www.example.com/fr-it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-IT" href="https://www.example.com/de-it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-IT" href="https://www.example.com/el-it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-IT" href="https://www.example.com/en-it">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://www.example.com/en-us">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-US" href="https://www.example.com/fr-us">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-US" href="https://www.example.com/de-us">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-US" href="https://www.example.com/el-us">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-US" href="https://www.example.com/it-us">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="https://www.example.com/en-uk">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-GB" href="https://www.example.com/fr-uk">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-GB" href="https://www.example.com/de-uk">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="el-GB" href="https://www.example.com/el-uk">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it-GB" href="https://www.example.com/it-uk">

Thank you