Google WT shows that I have duplicate meta descriptions for some pages on my site and says this may be hurting my performance in the search engine. Here's an example: /el/2008/04/07/thats-one-large-step-for-canada/ /ko/2008/04/07/thats-one-large-step-for-canada/ /nl/2008/04/07/thats-one-large-step-for-canada/ /pt/2008/04/07/thats-one-large-step-for-canada/ /ru/2008/04/07/thats-one-large-step-for-canada/ The first directory level (el,ko,nl.pt,ru) are translations into other languages. Any way of letting Google know that these pages aren't actually duplicate content but translated from English?
It has similar title though its in different languages but its still in canada. Try to change the title of each pages.
I'm not sure if short, or duplicate meta descriptions actually hurts anything? Some of my best performing links WT said had short descriptions.
Using the same <meta> description on multiple pages - especially on pages with low PageRank scores - will likely get them put into the Supplemental Index. While Google has improved the way that they incorporate pages from the Supplemental Index in the search results, its still a major handicap on the rankings of those pages. The key is to keep the ratio of unique content to template content very high, and use care with spreading PageRank through your site.
I had "duplicate meta descriptions", 6 of them to be exact, and Google was very nice in telling me about them. Although they didn't really specify what the penalty would be if I didn't fix them.......but I got them changed right away. Changes were made 3 days ago but they haven't shown the most recent crawl at GWT....
Yeah - that's just it. I have a plugin that basically translates pages when someone clicks on a flag. Google has followed these links and indexed the translated pages accordingly, which is bringing me more traffic from Google SERPs. There aren't separate posts, per se, in my blog that contain the translated pages. They're done on the fly.
I'd change the title to: The message - language version and for meta description I'd use the first sentence of each translated post. Anyway, I have some duplicate meta desc, but so far I did not notice any penalization on those pages. It's a common problem with forums: same thread, many posts title and desc. remain the same.
I think it will not hurt, you because you may have the same description in all these different different languages. So no problem mate for the same, Even you may have same content for the any pages on other page using different different languages.
LOL.. wow, Man I've spent hours translating pages on my website, in fact I have spent most of today doing it, I haven't uploaded the ones I was doing today because I still haven't finished And then I read this post and find out there is a that and Man I got to get with the times and get me one of those blog things. I guess the only advantage about doing it by hand is that I can translate the title, description, and keywords also. No doubt someone will chime in here and tell us of a "plugin" that will do that too. Cheers James
Not really. Automatic translations are good for some languages, they are completely useless for others. For example, google's translation form english to italian gives you hysterical results. making pages a complete nonsense. On my company website, we have chosen to hire a professional, and we have no regrets. Comparing the international pages with those from plugins you can spot huge difference.