Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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:
Can I use hreflang in that case like:Many thanks in advance
-
Sure, I did this: http://bfy.tw/2hTu
-
Hi Dmitrii,
can you perhaps tell me the source, where you found the supported annotations above. Many Thanks
-
My answer is the correct. See what I replied above to Dmitrii
-
Lol! You're right. I was indeed thinking about Belgium and not Netherlands
-
It's a cultural thing. I'm that province of Italy people talk or Italian or German, so if you want to target both with your multilingual site you must tell it to Google with hreflang, even if it is not listed in the ISO chart.
you do the same for targeting Spanish speaking people in the usa, for instance.
-
Gianluca - I guess this time it's my turn: As far as I know they only have one official language in the Netherlands (Dutch) - I guess you refer to Belgium (3 official languages Dutch/French/German).
It's a common error to make this mistake - but the difference is easy to spot: Belgium is qualified for Euro '16 - unlike the Netherlands
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thank you for your reply. In fact I'm refering to that exact region. The difference to your CH examples are though, that in Switzerland, the 3 language regions are not the exact same "location".
In my case they are though so I got a bit confused.
So basically Im not saying, a specific region in Switzerland speaks French, another German and another Italian, but I say the exact same location/region speaks German and Italian.
-
Well, I do see the ones you mentioned on that list, but not it-it or de-it.
-
Yes, it exists (it is Alto Agide/South Tirol), and it's the same case of Netherlands (fr-NL and de-NL) or Switzerland (it-CH, fr-CH and de-CH)
-
Yes, you can.
-
Interesting. Google search doesn't return anything on this locale.
-
yes, sure about that
-
Are you sure that locale exists?
-
Hi Dmitrii,
many thanks for your reply. Great list, unfortunately I can't find my case. Though I think this list is not complete. E.x. I miss the the french speaking part in Italy for example,...
Helpful anyway though.
-
Hi there.
I found this list of all available locales, if locales you're trying to do are in this list, then go ahead, otherwise it won't work.
P.S. List might be old and updated by now, but i don't think so.
- af-ZA
- am-ET
- ar-AE
- ar-BH
- ar-DZ
- ar-EG
- ar-IQ
- ar-JO
- ar-KW
- ar-LB
- ar-LY
- ar-MA
- arn-CL
- ar-OM
- ar-QA
- ar-SA
- ar-SY
- ar-TN
- ar-YE
- as-IN
- az-Cyrl-AZ
- az-Latn-AZ
- ba-RU
- be-BY
- bg-BG
- bn-BD
- bn-IN
- bo-CN
- br-FR
- bs-Cyrl-BA
- bs-Latn-BA
- ca-ES
- co-FR
- cs-CZ
- cy-GB
- da-DK
- de-AT
- de-CH
- de-DE
- de-LI
- de-LU
- dsb-DE
- dv-MV
- el-GR
- en-029
- en-AU
- en-BZ
- en-CA
- en-GB
- en-IE
- en-IN
- en-JM
- en-MY
- en-NZ
- en-PH
- en-SG
- en-TT
- en-US
- en-ZA
- en-ZW
- es-AR
- es-BO
- es-CL
- es-CO
- es-CR
- es-DO
- es-EC
- es-ES
- es-GT
- es-HN
- es-MX
- es-NI
- es-PA
- es-PE
- es-PR
- es-PY
- es-SV
- es-US
- es-UY
- es-VE
- et-EE
- eu-ES
- fa-IR
- fi-FI
- fil-PH
- fo-FO
- fr-BE
- fr-CA
- fr-CH
- fr-FR
- fr-LU
- fr-MC
- fy-NL
- ga-IE
- gd-GB
- gl-ES
- gsw-FR
- gu-IN
- ha-Latn-NG
- he-IL
- hi-IN
- hr-BA
- hr-HR
- hsb-DE
- hu-HU
- hy-AM
- id-ID
- ig-NG
- ii-CN
- is-IS
- it-CH
- it-IT
- iu-Cans-CA
- iu-Latn-CA
- ja-JP
- ka-GE
- kk-KZ
- kl-GL
- km-KH
- kn-IN
- kok-IN
- ko-KR
- ky-KG
- lb-LU
- lo-LA
- lt-LT
- lv-LV
- mi-NZ
- mk-MK
- ml-IN
- mn-MN
- mn-Mong-CN
- moh-CA
- mr-IN
- ms-BN
- ms-MY
- mt-MT
- nb-NO
- ne-NP
- nl-BE
- nl-NL
- nn-NO
- nso-ZA
- oc-FR
- or-IN
- pa-IN
- pl-PL
- prs-AF
- ps-AF
- pt-BR
- pt-PT
- qut-GT
- quz-BO
- quz-EC
- quz-PE
- rm-CH
- ro-RO
- ru-RU
- rw-RW
- sah-RU
- sa-IN
- se-FI
- se-NO
- se-SE
- si-LK
- sk-SK
- sl-SI
- sma-NO
- sma-SE
- smj-NO
- smj-SE
- smn-FI
- sms-FI
- sq-AL
- sr-Cyrl-BA
- sr-Cyrl-CS
- sr-Cyrl-ME
- sr-Cyrl-RS
- sr-Latn-BA
- sr-Latn-CS
- sr-Latn-ME
- sr-Latn-RS
- sv-FI
- sv-SE
- sw-KE
- syr-SY
- ta-IN
- te-IN
- tg-Cyrl-TJ
- th-TH
- tk-TM
- tn-ZA
- tr-TR
- tt-RU
- tzm-Latn-DZ
- ug-CN
- uk-UA
- ur-PK
- uz-Cyrl-UZ
- uz-Latn-UZ
- vi-VN
- wo-SN
- xh-ZA
- yo-NG
- zh-CN
- zh-HK
- zh-MO
- zh-SG
- zh-TW
- zu-ZA
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
-
Using same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags
Hi,I have a question. Is it okay if I use the same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags? For example, for my en-us page: Is this okay with Google? What are your thoughts on this?
International SEO | | Avid_Demand0 -
Should Hreflang x-default be on every page of every country for an International company?
UPDATED 4/29/2019 4:33 PM I had made to many copy and pastes. Product pages are corrected Upon researching the hreflang x-default tag, I am getting some muddy results for implementation on an international company site older results say just homepage or the country selector but…. My Question/Direction going forward for the International Site I am working on: I believe I can to put x-default all the pages of every country and point it to the default language page for areas that are not covered with our current sites. Is this correct? From my internet reading, the x-default on every page is not truly necessary for Google but it will be valid implemented. My current site setup example:
International SEO | | gravymatt-se
https://www.bluewidgets.com Redirects to https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as US/Global) Example Countries w/ code Site:- 4 countries/directories US/Global, France, Spain Would the code sample below be correct? https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ (functions as US/Global) US/Global Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ US/Global Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/whizzer-5001/ http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions for France) France Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/fr/fr/ France Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products- https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as Spain) Spain Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/ Spain Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 Thanks for the spot check Gravy0 -
International SEO Question: Using hreflang tags across two different TLDs.
Hi! My UK based company just recently made the decision to let the US market operate their ecommerce business independently. Initially, both markets were operating off the same domain using sub-directories (i.e: www.brandname.com/en-us/ , www.brandname.com/en-gb/ ) Now that the US team have broken away from the domain - they are now using www.brandnameUSA.com while the UK continues to use www.brandname.com/en-gb/. The content is similar across both domains - however, the new US website has been able to consolidate several product variations onto single product pages where the UK website is using individual product pages for each variation. We have placed a geo-filter on the main domain which is 301 redirecting North American traffic looking for www.brandname.com to www.brandnameUSA.com However, since the domain change has taken place, product pages from the original domain are now indexing alongside the new US websites product pages in US search results. The UK website wants to be the default destination for all international traffic. My question is - how do we correctly setup hrlang tags across two separate TLDs and how do we handle a situation where multiple product pages on the "default" domain have been consolidated into one product page on the new USA domain? This is how we are currently handling it: "en-us" href="https://www.BRANDNAMEUSA.com/All-Variations" /> href="https://www.BRANDNAMEUSA.com/All-Variations" />
International SEO | | alexcbrands0 -
Hreflang tag on every page?
Hello Moz Community, I'm working with a client who has translated their top 50 landing pages into Spanish. It's a large website and we don't have the resources to properly translate all pages at once, so we started with the top 50. We've already translated the content, title tags, URLs, etc. and the content will live in it's own /es-us/ directory. The client's website is set up in a way that all content follows a URL structure such as: https://www.example.com/en-us/. For Page A, it will live in English at: https://www.example.com/en-us/page-a For Page A, it will live in Spanish at https://www.example.com/es-us/page-a ("page-a" may vary since that part of the URL is translated) From my research in the Moz forums and Webmaster Support Console, I've written the following hreflang tags: /> For Page B, it will follow the same structure as Page A, and I wrote the corresponding hreflang tags the same way. My question is, do both of these tags need to be on both the Spanish and English version of the page? Or, would I put the "en-us" hreflang tag on the Spanish page and the "es-us" hreflang tag on the English page? I'm thinking that both hreflang tags should be on both the Spanish and English pages, but would love some clarification/confirmation from someone that has implemented this successfully before.
International SEO | | DigitalThirdCoast0 -
Upper case or/and lower case in rel="alternate" hreflang
Hi Mozzers, I have a question about the rel="alternate" hreflang tag, with an example. When I use two subfolders for two different countries/languages, for instance www.domain.com/nl-nl/ and www.domain.com/nl-en/ (for the English version) and I want to use the rel="alternate" hreflang tag, do I need to follow the ISO standards concerning Uppercase country code and Lowercase language code (en-NL)? Or is it okay to use the Lowercase country and language code (en-nl), since we also use this in the URL of the Subfolder. What does Google prefer? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | MartijnHoving820 -
Which hreflang tag to use for .eu domain
Hi there, We're trying to solve a problem with one of our domains, we have a .eu CCTLD and we're trying to implement hreflang tags. On our US and UK sites, we use "en-us" and "en-gb", but it's not clear how to approach this european problem, as there is not a "en-eu" tag. The site is in English, but serves several European countries speaking different languages. What's the best hreflang code to use in this situation? Any help much appreciated, Thanks!
International SEO | | dennis.globalsign0 -
SEO for .com vs. .com.au websites
I have a new client from Australia who has a website on a .com.au domain. He has the same domain name registered for .com. Example: exampledomain.com.au, and exampledomain.com He started with the .com.au site for a product he offers in Australia. He's bringing the same product to the U.S. (it's a medical device product) and wants us to build a site for it and point to the .com. Right now, he has what appears is the same site showing on the .com as on the .com.au. So both domains are pointing to the same host, but there are separate sections or directories within the hosting account for each website - and the content is exactly the same. Would this be viewed as duplicate content by Google? What's the best way to structure or build the new site on the .com to get the best SEO in the USA, maintain the .au version and not have the websites compete or be viewed as having duplicate content? Thanks, Greg
International SEO | | gregelwell0 -
Website Target in Europe
Hi, I am planning a site to target in Europe and I expect to translate my site into ten different languages namely English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish. I am doing some study of this case in targeting different countries for SEO, most of the advise are the following: a. Build 10 different websites and target different geographical location in Google Webmaster b. Get 10 different country specific domains for 10 different websites I would like to hear any suggestion if there is anything better than this ? I had all the materials and translation ready but building 10 different websites or getting 10 different domains are very time consuming and costly. I would be appreciated if any one had any advise for me to make the website more management friendly. Thank you. Tom
International SEO | | Stevejobs20110