> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.get-ryze.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Shopify Markets and international SEO

> How to run international SEO on Shopify Markets: URL structures, hreflang annotations, currency and language handling, and the duplicate content risks.

Shopify Markets handles selling into multiple countries — currencies, pricing, and domains. The SEO work is making sure each market's pages are discoverable and correctly attributed to their audience.

## URL structures

Shopify Markets supports:

| structure       | example              | notes                                                      |
| --------------- | -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| Subfolders      | `example.com/en-de/` | Default; simplest; inherits domain authority               |
| Country domains | `example.de`         | Strongest local signal; authority must be built separately |
| Subdomains      | `de.example.com`     | Supported; authority partially separate                    |

**Subfolders are the right default for most stores.** They keep all authority on one domain, which matters more than the marginal local signal of a ccTLD — unless you have a genuine local business presence per country.

## hreflang

`hreflang` tells search engines which version to serve to which audience. Shopify generates these annotations automatically for Markets.

Rules that are broken often:

* **Annotations must be reciprocal.** If A points to B, B must point to A. One-directional annotations are ignored.
* **Include a self-referencing annotation** on every page.
* **Use `x-default`** for the fallback version when no other matches.
* **Use correct codes** — language (`en`), or language-region (`en-GB`). `en-UK` is not valid; the country code is `GB`.

Verify in Search Console → International Targeting, which reports missing return tags.

## Language versus currency

These are different problems and are frequently conflated.

* **Different currency, same language** — for example UK and Australian English at different prices. These pages are near-duplicates. `hreflang` handles attribution; without it, they compete.
* **Different language** — genuinely distinct content, far less duplication risk.

A store selling in twelve currencies but one language has twelve near-identical page sets. Correct `hreflang` is what prevents that becoming a duplicate content problem.

## Translation quality

Machine-translated content published without review is thin content in another language. It also damages trust with the buyers you are trying to reach.

If a market matters, translate properly. If it does not yet justify that, consider serving it in the primary language with local pricing rather than publishing poor translations.

## Common failures

* Market pages not indexed because they are unreachable — no internal links, missing from the sitemap
* Automatic redirection by IP, which prevents crawlers from seeing other versions — offer a selector instead
* `hreflang` pointing to redirecting or 404 URLs
* Local prices in structured data not matching the market's displayed currency

## Related

* [Fixing duplicate content and canonicals](/shopify/duplicate-content)
* [Technical SEO](/concepts/technical-seo)