Rel Alternate tag and canonical tag implementation question
-
Hello, I have a question about the correct way to implement the canoncial and alternate tags for a site supporting multiple languages and markets.
Here's our setup. We have 3 sites, each serving a specific region, and each available in 3 languages.
- www.example.com : serves the US, default language is English
- www.example.ca : serves Canada, default language is English
- www.example.com.mx : serves Mexico, default language is Spanish
In addition, each sites can be viewed in English, French or Spanish, by adding a language specific sub-directory prefix ( /fr , /en, /es).
The implementation of the alternate tag is fairly straightforward.
For the homepage, on www.example.com, it would be:
-
MX” href=“http://www.example.com.mx/index.html” /> -MX” href=”http://www.example.com.mx/fr/index.html“ />
-MX” href=”http://www.example.com.mx/en/index.html“ />
-US” href=”http://www.example.com/fr/index.html” />
-US” href=”http://www.example.com/es/index.html“ />
-CA” href=”http://www.example.ca/fr/index.html” />
-CA” href=”http://www.example.ca/index.html” />
-CA” href=”http://www.example.ca/es/index.html” />My question is about the implementation of the canonical tag.
Currently, each domain has its own canonical tag, as follows:
rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/index.html"> <link rel="canonical" href="http: www.example.ca="" index.html"=""></link rel="canonical" href="http:>
<link rel="canonical" href="http: www.example.com.mx="" index.html"=""></link rel="canonical" href="http:>I am now wondering is I should set the canonical tag for all my domains to:
<link rel="canonical" href="http: www.example.com="" index.html"=""></link rel="canonical" href="http:>
This is what seems to be suggested on this example from the Google help center.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
What do you think?
-
Thank you for your responses. I did get a weird feeling about canonicalizing my .co.uk and .ca sites into my .com site. I leave the canonical tag on each country specific TLD, referencing the canonical URL of the page within each TLD site.
-
I agree with Alan on this.
Canonical is meant to link identical pieces of content. If the content is in a different language it's not identical and you would want it to appear in the index separately.
-
i think that page is misleading, this page is clearer
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html
Dont use a canonical, if the have different tlds, only if they are in the same tld.
This video sums it up, you should at least localize your site,
if you have a US a UK and AU site, all in english, this is ok, but you should have currency and date formats to match.
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
-
H Tags in Menu
Hi I am checking the H2 tags on this page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/dollies-load-movers-door-skates I have noticed my dev team have implemented H2's on the categories in the menu. Will this completely confuse Google as to what that page is about? In my opinion those links shouldn't be heading tags at all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
In our reports we get alt tag errors for our banner images. We are unable to add alt tags to the banner images as they live inside CSS. We can add a title tag on the div title for the banner. Does that help with SEO and accessibility?
We are unable to add alt tags to the banner images as they live inside CSS. We can add a title tag on the div title for the banner. Does that help with SEO and accessibility?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shirley.Fenlason0 -
Best use of Canonical Tag with Mini-Websites
Hello, I was wondering what the best way would be to implement Canonical Tags in kind of a unusual situation. The company I work for creates single property websites for real estate agents. We register a URL such as 123MainSt.com - however through DNS we redirect that to a path. For example: http://www.944milmadadr.com would redirect to: https://www.qwikvid.com/realestate/go/v1/home/?idx=wDg1Gdwt7wnQiR3LMeCx28qPnWTKM0JV If we wanted to rank high in the search engines for our clients: "944 Milmada Dr" - Would it be the best practice to Canonical: http://www.944milmadadr.com ? Thanks in advance for any feedback on this!! Jason
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Qwikvid0 -
Should I nofollow my Wordpress tags?
I have a website that have a strong root domain (ranking on many terms) but the subpages (articles) doesn't rank well. My feeling is that the linkjuice is not flowing to them (not enough anyway). When I run site:http://mydomain.com I have my root as the first result and the next many results are tagpages on my sites. I have arund 180 index pages, and I need to go to down to result #50 give or take before I see any subpage using the site command. My website theme have the tags on every page possible. The tags are useful for my viewers, but not SEO useful, but I fear that they are dilluting my linkjuice. Should I nofollow and noindex them? Noindex makes sense (the tags are just duplicate content featuring snippets of text from the articles). But Nofollow would make sense too since I wouldn't send any linkjuice through the tags. What would you guys do? Bests regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | claus101 -
Should I use a rel=canonical to the home page
Hi guys, I have a site where the homepage is ranking for the term 'industrial flooring' around position 30 and the actual level 2 industrial flooring page is ranking well below at around position 60. I'm happy for the homepage to rank for this term and would like to see it improve, so here are my questions: 1: Is the existence of the level 2 page preventing the homepage from ranking higher due to keyword cannibalization etc.? 2: Would the use of the rel=canonical tag pointing from the level 2 page to the home page have a positive or negative impact on the homepage's rankings for 'industrial flooring'? 3: Is there anything else I'm missing? Greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blaze-Communication0 -
Canonical Meta Tag Best Practices
I've noticed that some website owners use canonical tags even when there may be no duplicate issues.For examplewww.examplesite.com has a canonical tag.......rel="canonical" href="http://www.examplesite.com/" />www.examplesite.com/bluewidget has a canonical tag.......rel="canonical" href="http://www.examplesite.com/bluewidget/" />Is this recommended or helpful to do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webestate0 -
Should I be using rel canonical here?
I am reorganizing the data on my informational site in a drilldown menu. So, here's an example. One the home page are several different items. Let's say you clicked on "Back Problems". Then, you would get a menu that says: Disc problems, Pain relief, paralysis issues, see all back articles. Each of those pages will have a list of articles that suit. Some articles will appear on more than one page. Should I be worried about these pages being partially duplicates of each other? Should I use rel-canonical to make the root page for each section the one that is indexed. I'm thinking no, because I think it would be good to have all of these pages indexed. But then, that's why I'm asking!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes0 -
Rel=Canonical URLs?
If I had two pages: PageA about Cats PageB about Dogs If PageA had a link rel=canonical to PageB, but the content is different, how would Google resolve this and what would users see if they searched "Cats" or "Dogs?" If PageA 301 redirected to PageB, (no content in PageA since it's 301 redirected), how would Google resolve this and what would users see if they searched "Cats" or "Dogs?"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | visionnexus0