Hreflang Implementation
-
Hello All,
I'm currently working on a website with different folders for different country. For now I have defined the href lang implementation as below:
http://www.homepage.com/en/default.html"/>
Language: English - Country: United Kingdomhttp://www.homepage.com/enus/default.html"/>
Language: English - Country: United Stateshttp://www.homepage.com/nl/default.html"/>
Language: Dutch - Country: Netherlandshttp://www.homepage.com/nlbe/default.html"/>
Language: Dutch - Country: Belgiumhttp://www.homepage.com/fr/default.html"/>
Language: French - Country: All french speaking countrieshttp://www.homepage.com/de/default.html"/>
Language: German - Country: All german speaking countrieshttp://www.homepage.com/es/camisa-a-medida.html"/>
Language: Spanish - Country: Spainhttp://www.homepage.com/enen/default.html" />
Language: English - Country: All other countriesDoes this make any sense?
Furthermore, how do I implement this on underlying pages. Do I fill out the URL dynamically according to the URL the tags are found on? Or do I use these tags mentioning the homepage on all underlying pages? If so, how do I avoid duplicate content issues between NL and NL-BE and EN-GB, EN-US and EN? Canonicals?
Besides the whole hreflang implementation I was wondering if it's worthwhile or advisable to implement lang="en" xml:lang="en_"_ in the HTML tag and http-equiv="content-language" content="en_"_ in the META tags?
-
Hi Bulserik
regarding those two questions, if we look just at Google, they are not taken into consideration by Google for International SEO.
On the other:
- because they don't harm a site;
- because they are used by Bing for geolocalization and geotargeting (Bing does not use the hreflang)
then, it is a good idea using them.
Check this old but still valid post on Bing about how to geotarget for them: http://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2011/03/01/how-to-tell-bing-your-websites-country-and-language/
Finally, just to be sure:
remember to create Google Webmaster Tools profile for each subfolder and geotarget them for their corresponding countries.
-
No one able to help me out on this one?
-
Great, thanks. I'm afraid I'm on ISS though so have to see how to get that working. I understand from your answer the correct way of doing this is by implementing a dynamic URL in the hreflang tag and not just the homepage.
Besides the technical implementation you explained above, I'm assuming the way I segmented the site is okay right?
After that I still have this part unsolved: Besides the whole hreflang implementation I was wondering if it's worthwhile or advisable to implement lang="en"xml:lang="en" in the HTML tag and http-equiv="content-language" content="en" in the META tags?
-
Assuming you're on an Apache server, this works for internal pages:
" hreflang="x-default" />
" hreflang="en-au" />
" hreflang="en-ca" />The REQUEST_URI will pull the internal page you're on (so if you're /about, then it will add /about to all 3 hreflang tags. I don't know if (but I think) this won't work on IIS servers. Just a thought if it doesn't seem to work.
Assuming your folder structure stays the same, you should be all set.
And once you're done, test it using Flang.
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
-
Hreflang usage for language & country x only language
Hi guys, I´m dealing with a website of a client where hreflang tags are implemented as follows: As you can see the hreflang tags reference language & countrycode as well as only the languagecode with the same URL (for french: website/fr/ihr-besuch/online-tickets" hreflang="fr-fr" as well as hreflang="fr" href="https://www.website/fr/ihr-besuch/online-tickets"). Is this a problem and should be corrected so that either language & countrycode is referenced or only languagecode? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | Julisn0 -
How to Implement JSON-LD
Hi, I was implementing JSON-LD via Google Tag Manager but have since read that it is better to place directly on the web page. My questions are: Where exactly do you add the JSON-LD - I mean physically? This article by Moz says the head or body. Does it matter where in the head? At the end? If you do not have development access- is there an easy way to insert? Can you view the added JSON-LD directly on the web page after you have added it or is it not visible in the source once you have added it this way ? If you cannot see it, how do you view? Or it it just OK to use the Google Structured Testing tool as evidence that it is being seen by Google? Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al1 -
Several hreflang links pointing to same URL
Hi, Does anyone know whether hreflang links can be used using the following markup? I can't seem to find any info on this particular usage, but it "feels" incorrect to me. (duplicate content issues)
Technical SEO | | dimitrihuyghe
Our development team tells me this is the way the markup should be, since languages are initially set using a cookie and all different languages are using the same URL. Thanks! <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">nl</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">x-default</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">fr</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">de</a>"/>0 -
Hreflang and canonical
Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help me solve this once and for all! I keep getting hreflang errors on our site crawls and I cannot understand why. Does anything here look off to you? Thank you! JGdWcqu
Technical SEO | | eGInnovations1 -
How does link juice flow through hreflang?
We want to use the hreflang tag on our site (direct users searching for the Spanish version of spanishdict.com to spanishdict.com/traductor). Before doing so, we were wondering how link juice flows through hreflang? Any insight or resources on this would be very helpful. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | CuriosityMedia0 -
Implemented google adwords via tag manager do it still require to paste script at thank you page?
Hi All Experts, I have implemented google adwords with tag manager, so now query is still it is required to place the google adwords scripts at thank you page?
Technical SEO | | varo0 -
Schema.org implementation for physician's office vs physician herself?
Hi, Regarding schema.org microdata, which page(s) should have the microdata? 1) http://schema.org/Physician -- appears to be about the office. Since we have all of the contact/address info in the footer on each page, should we do the same with microdata? I can't seem to find a suggested implementation on schema.org Assuming an office has multiple MDs, how should the docs be listed since the physician schema appears to be for the office, not for the individual doctors? Thanks for any insight!
Technical SEO | | Titan5520 -
My homepage+key pages have dropped 40+ positions after implementing redirects and canonical changes. HELP!
Hi SEOMozers, I work for a web based nonprofit at www.tisbest.org. I had a professional contact recommend that we work on our redirects to our homepage because we were losing valuable rank benefit. This combined with getting sick of seeing our weekly SEOMoz crawl reports show 304 duplicate page and title errors for months. No one could seem to figure out what was happening (we think it had to do with session stuff; we were seeing several versions of each page showing the following: www.tisbest.org/default.aspx/(random character string) My developer and I read a bunch of articles and started making changes 10 days ago: He setup 301 redirects from http://tisbest.org to http://www.tisbest.org. (set the canonical domain). We did a redirect from http://www.tisbest.org/default.aspx to root with "/". I set the canonical setting to www.tisbest.org in our webmaster tools. In our web config (we're running in asp.net), we changed our session detection from auto-detect then saw some session funkiness so we changed it back. Though we do think the character strings we were seeing were session GUID. He forced lower case URL’s to reduce duplicate page content/titles. I got my weekly crawl report 9 days ago and we had dropped from 340 duplicate page title and page content errors went to one. We went nuts and felt like the kings of SEO. Then, yesterday (9/28), the SEO grim reaper came knocking when I received my weekly SEOMoz ranking report. It said we had dropped 40+ spots for all of 9 of our keywords. Sure enough, I searched our keywords and our website was gone. Then I searched our company name, tisbest, and only a few of our pages show but not the homepage. I searched for our URL www.tisbest.org, and I originally got the expanded view (with 8 links to various webpages - can't remember what this view is called) but now, today (Saturday), the expanded view is gone from this search result. Also, when I run the On Page Report card for our homepage, I get the following error message with no results: "We were unable to grade that page. The page did not load. Curl::Err::TooManyRedirectsError: Number of redirects hit maximum amount." When I run the Open Site explorer report, I get this message at the top: Oh Hey! It looks like that URL redirects to www.tisbest.org/?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1. Would you like to see data for <a class="clickable redirects">that URL instead</a>?" If I go to the report for the that report's page, it says that "No information is available for that URL." Just tonight (night of 9/29), our developer added the rel="canonical" href="http://www.tisbest.org" /> to our homepage tonight to see if that would help. We did not do that originally. In our Google Webmaster tools, I am seeing the number of URL Error - Not Followed has sky rocked. I have attached a screen capture to this thread. There are also a large number of URL Errors - Not Found errors as well. I did some research tonight and downloaded and ran Screaming Frog SEO Crawler. I have attached a screen capture below with this report and a couple of questions I sent our developer that may be helpful to you. Also, not sure if this is relevant, we use a master page that all of our pages inherit from so all of our pages get the same meta-data: name="keywords" content="charitable gift card, charitable gift certificate, non profit gift card, charity donation, giftcard, charity gift card, donation gift card, donation gift, charity gift, animal gift card, animal gift, environmental gift card, environmental gift, humanitarian gift card, humanitarian gift, christian gift card, christian gift, catholic gift card, catholic gift, religious gift card, religious gift" />id="ctl00_metaDescription" name="description" content="Award winning Charity Gift Card, for over 250 premier charities. A customized donation gift that makes the world better. TisBest is BBB Accredited." />name="google-site-verification" content="EfJIhN3h2SVSXdSpUbfceBVw2q6zrGX8rRQhdNZ1xY8" /><title></span><span> </span></p> <p>Can anyone help me/us identify the issue that obliterated our rankings? I am happy to give an information needed. Thank you! Chad Edwards</p> <a download="Bqcu1.png" class="imported-anchor-tag" href="http://i.imgur.com/Bqcu1.png" target="_blank">Bqcu1.png</a> <a download="ZXQ8d.png" class="imported-anchor-tag" href="http://i.imgur.com/ZXQ8d.png" target="_blank">ZXQ8d.png</a></title>
Technical SEO | | TisBest0