Multinational website - best practice
-
Hello,
I am researching a lot on this subject and have read several articles here on Moz and elsewhere about the best practices for multinational websites. But I'm not yet convinced on what would be the best solution in my case.
Today we have the following websites (examples):
website.com which function as a global website.
website.dk which is for the danish market
website.no which is for the norwegian marketSome of the content on these websites are the same (but different languages; english, danish and norwegian). We want to expand the business to more countries and work with ccTLDs. Both to countries which speaks languages that we don't have content for yet (an example could be Poland), but also more countries that speaks english, like Great Britain (with a .co.uk domain) and Australia (with a .com.au domain). We expect to expand in many countries (as many as it makes sense to do).
I have read a lot about the alternative hreflang tag which would look like and that seems like a good solution, but I have a couple of questions that I hope you guys can answer:
- Should the alternate hreflang tags show every existing language versions including the one you're on or only show the alternative versions?
- Do we risk penalty by having identical or almost identical content for same language websites (could be UK and the global .com one) if we use the alternate hreflang tags? I'm aware that we should use the native spellings and sentences in each country.
- Would the sitemap solution be better in our case?
- We have the same link structure for all websites, but the sub-directories can differ due to their language (like /articles/ is /artikler/ in danish) - is that an issue?
- Will hreflang="en" function as global english? (so searching users that we don't have a local website for will see that).
-
I have an additional question, that I haven't been able to find an answer for elsewhere.
How does Google determine which version is the right one to show for each user? Is it by IP? I mean, in my example we could have an american user that is on vacation in UK. Would he see the .com or .uk result?
It could also be a norwegian user on vacation in Denmark, would he see the .no or .dk results? (danish and norwegian is fairly similar and has a lot of common spellings). -
Thank you for this in depth answer. It's a great help (yours too, Marie).
-
Marie... you're answers are not totally correct.
Please, see my answer below.
-
Here my answers, that partly correct what others answered already (not that they were wrong, but not totally exact).
- Should the alternate hreflang tags show every existing language versions including the one you're on or only show the alternative versions?
Not really. Let me explain.
-
In the case of websites/subfolders/subdomains, which share the same language (eg: USA, UK, AU or ES, MX, AR), using hreflang for every language-country is a must.
-
In the case you have also single websites/subfolders/subdomains that use a unique language (eg.: Italian, which is practically used only in Italy), than you can avoid to add its related hreflang annotation in internal URLs. You should still use it for the home page and every page that may target a not-Italian keyword: I say this so to not see the local site outranked by the most powerful version (usually the English-USA one).
-
In every case you must always implement the hreflang the self-referral annotation (the one you're on, as you defined it).
- Do we risk penalty by having identical or almost identical content for same language websites (could be UK and the global .com one) if we use the alternate hreflang tags? I'm aware that we should use the native spellings and sentences in each country.
No! The hreflang annotation is substantially telling Google that the versions are different and target different users/countries. Even though the differences are very tiny, they are very important (eg.: currencies)
- Would the sitemap solution be better in our case?
It depends. Both the sitemaps and code solutions are valid. The problem of the sitemaps solutions is that it may be harder to update the sitemaps.
- We have the same link structure for all websites, but the sub-directories can differ due to their language (like /articles/ is /artikler/ in danish) - is that an issue?
No! On the contrary, that's the correct thing to do. In fact, also the URLs must be localized.
- Will hreflang="en" function as global english? (so searching users that we don't have a local website for will see that).
Yes, but not with the consequences you are thinking. The "en" only hreflang annotation is telling Google to show that URL to all the English speaking users all over the world (this suggestion is override if exists, for instance, another en-US hreflang annotation).
For having also Spanish users seeing the generic English version of the website, then you should use the hreflang x-default annotation (see here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.es/2013/04/x-default-hreflang-for-international-pages.html)
-
- Should the alternate hreflang tags show every existing language versions including the one you're on or only show the alternative versions?
Yes, show all versions including the one that the user is on
2. Do we risk penalty by having identical or almost identical content for same language websites (could be UK and the global .com one) if we use the alternate hreflang tags? I'm aware that we should use the native spellings and sentences in each country.
Google wouldn't penalize this as duplicate content as there really isn't a duplicate content penalty. But, they'll try to pick the best version to rank. They won't rank all of them for all searches.
3. Would the sitemap solution be better in our case?
I'd still use hreflang. Your case sounds like exactly why hreflang was created.
4. We have the same link structure for all websites, but the sub-directories can differ due to their language (like /articles/ is /artikler/ in danish) - is that an issue?
I don't think so, but it's hard to say without digging in. Again, I'd use hreflang wherever appropriate.
5. Will hreflang="en" function as global english? (so searching users that we don't have a local website for will see that).
Here's from the official documentation from Google:
"
It's a good idea to provide a generic URL for geographically unspecified users if you have several alternate URLs targeted at users with the same language, but in different locales. For example, you may have specific URLs for English speakers in Ireland (en-ie), Canada (en-ca), and Australia (en-au), but want all other English speakers to see your generic English (en) page, and everyone else to see the homepage. In this case you should specify the generic English-language (en) page for searchers in, say, the UK. You can annotate this cluster of pages using a Sitemap file or using HTML link tags like this:
"
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
-
My Website Not Showing In Google English Search Results
My website is not visible on Google English. Selecting the language of Google in Hindi, Spanish, etc., my pages are visible in search results.
International SEO | | Jude_Wix0 -
Hreflang for bilingual website in the same region/location
Hi everyone, got a quick question concerning the hreflang tag. I have a website with 2 different language versions targeting to the same region(Reason: The area is bilingual however not everyone speaks the other language fluently) Question:
International SEO | | ennovators
Can I use hreflang in that case like: Many thanks in advance0 -
Internationalise all or just part of website?
Hi We are a UK company looking to expand our sales into the US market. We will be setting up a US office. Our (.com) site has a number of main sections relating to different products and services - but only two of these sections will be selling products to the US. /service1 - UK only
International SEO | | AbsolutelyN
/products1 - UK and US - different product names/descriptions for different markets
/service3 - UK and US - not much difference for uk/us pages So the query is do we fully internationalise the site with sub folders /us & /gb and make all content on the site have a different language version. Or do we only give an alternate language version for the two areas that need it? Perhaps /products1/us & /products1/uk We also have top rankings and are concerned about changing the urls. Is one option to keep the existing urls as the 'default' language? The default perhaps being US as it is a .com domain. If not then how do you redirect a url that going forward splits into US or GB sub directories? Another option is to have the current .com become US only and create a .co.uk site. We are in a position to easily do this but research suggests subdirectories is the better way forwards due to aggregated link authority. Many thanks for any thoughts,
Tristan0 -
Google is still indexing with https,i removed ssl for my website
My website is claydip.com. I removed ssl for my website, but when i type claydip in google search it is still displaying with https and saying no description available..i lost visitors from search..kindly help me. I moved from bluehost to deamhost. I had a ssl at bluehost, when i move to dreamhost i am not using it.
International SEO | | knextweb8190 -
Are Subdomains better or SubDirectories better for an international website ?
Can anyone explain why the structure of your website: yourbrand.com/es/category is better than es.yourbrand.com for multi language and multi country website.
International SEO | | Tushar_P0 -
Best URL structure for Multinational/Multilingual websites
Hi I am wondering what the best URL format to use is when a website targets several countries, in several languages. (without owning the local domains, only a .com, and ideally to use sub-folders rather than sub-domains.) As an example, to target a hotel in Sweden (Google.se) are there any MUST-HAVE indicators in the URL to target the relevant countries? Such as hotelsite.com**/se/**hotel-name. Would this represent the language? Or is it the location of the product? To clarify a bit, I would like to target around 10 countries, with the product pages each having 2 languages (the local language + english). I'm considering using the following format: hotelsite.com/en/hotel-name (for english) and hotelsite.com/se/hotel-name (for swedish content of that same product) and then using rel=”alternate” hreflang=”se-SV” markup to target the /se/ page for Sweden (Google.se) and rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” for UK? And to also geotarget those in Webmaster tools using those /se/ folders etc. Would this be sufficient? Or does there need to be an indicator of both the location, AND the language in the URLs? I mean would the URL's need to be hotelsite.com/se/hotel-name/se-SV (for swedish) or can it just be hotelsite.com/se/hotel-name? Any thoughts on best practice would be greatly appreciated.
International SEO | | pikka0 -
Multinational Sites - The main SEO issues
I currently work for the UK arm of a Company with headquarters in Germany - The have outlets in half-a-dozen European countries, and up until now each country has had it's own website. The group has decided that from next year they will close all the individual country sites and then run new sites each from a central .location, I guess with a shared database of products. I see the sense in having central stock control etc, but I'm worried about the SEO impact. I have searched Q&A and the blog but could not find much to help me. What I would like to do is to provide some advice and pointers at to what they should be aiming for, both in terms website structure and on-going SEO for each country. Any advice welcome, thanks in advance.
International SEO | | cottamg0 -
.com or .ca for my Canadian website that is the question...
I have a US based company that is expanding to Canada, would it matter if I have a .com or .ca for my website?
International SEO | | BCA0