Href lang tag - do I need it?

[eLab_London]

Hey Guys!

I have a multi-lingual site in Switzerland serving french and german content.

URL structure looks like this:

homepage (main) http://www.exmaple.ch/

German http://www.exmaple.ch/de/

French http://www.exmaple.ch/fr/

You can choose a drop down on every page to convert the page into french or german. So there are basically two seperate sites, URL's do not cross over i.e. I have no french pages linking to german pages, it is all pretty good. The default language is german.

I have checked in Google.ch/ in both languages french and german for which pages are being served up and they seem all relevant, i.e. on french browser settings when I go to google.ch I see french pages being served and vice versa.

My question....Do I need href lang tags?

Cheers all!

[Ryan_Henry]

Hi Gianluca,

Is that only if your site utilizes sub-domains or would it be the same if you utilize a sub-folder structure?

[Ryan_Henry]

Kayleigh,

I would love to.  I have 2 languages that are spoken in numerous countries around the world, on the same domain so I will definitely let you know what I am able to find out.

I will also take @Gianluca's advise and implement on the home page for the brand.

[arielbortz]

Hi!

I don't have any posts on it, it's just from my experience working on international SEO, as Gianluca says.

[gfiorelli1]

Hi,

I don't have a specific document to show you, but that statement is consequence of mine and many others international SEO experience.

Moreover, Google quit every mention of the contemporary use of the hreflang and the canonical tag from the helps pages about hreflang.

[eLab_London]

Thanks Guys, that's helpful!

@Brooke when you have implemented the tags across the sites can you share if anything has noticeably changed? Would be interesting to know.

@Ariel why would Google present non-matching sitelinks? I don't understand why it would do that? There are posts on it that I could read?

@Gianluca regarding your recommendation '...use the hreflang only on URLs that are canonical and not in canonicalized one. Contemporary usage of hreflang and rel="canonical" is not recommended.' Do you have a publication about this that I could read so I can understand the principal of it a little better? Would really help me understand how Google 'thinks'.

Thanks all for your input! Much appreciated.

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Keyleigh,

in a case like your, when you are targeting audiences using different languages, to use the hreflang is not an obligation, because you are giving Google enough language targeting signals already.

However, as Ariel wrote in his answer, I suggest to use at least for the home page and for those pages that usually are shown in the SERPs for brand name queries (the home page, for instance, but it could be also the about us page).

In fact, apart the potential sitelink issue, for the brand name search, Google could decide to show the "home page" with the highest authority, and not necessarily the one in the language corresponding to the users.

Said that, Google suggests using the hreflang practically always, hence - if it is not a complication - I would implement it.

One recommendation, though, use the hreflang only on URLs that are canonical and not in canonicalized one. Contemporary usage of hreflang and rel="canonical" is not recommended.

[gfiorelli1]

Thanks Brooke for sharing my post here on Moz.

90% of what I wrote is still valid, but the hreflang part, because in that moment Google was suggesting to use cross-domain canonical in case two or more pages were serving the same content in the same language in combination with the hreflang annotation, and to do so in order to avoid duplicated content issues.

After 3 years that suggestion is not valid anymore, mostly because of Google itself, which recognized it said a very stupid thing.

So, right now, if you have two or more websites serving the same content in the same language, but targeting users in different countries (eg.: domain.com for USA, domain.co.uk for UK and domain.ie for Ireland), then you should only use the hreflang annotations, because they are enough for alerting Google to not consider those pages as traditional duplicated content.

(note to myself: I need to ask to update that post)

[arielbortz]

Hi!

I managed several sites that were multilingual and aimed at people from different countries. At first, I didn't put hreflang and people used to see the correct website according to their language and country.

BUT (there's always a but), for example, when people googled the brand name + something, the websites appeared in SERPs with sitelinks, and the sitelinks didn't match the correct language/location.

So, if it isn't much trouble, I would suggest putting hreflang tags, to be sure (kind of) that you won't get into problems like the one I had.

Best wishes Ariel

[Ryan_Henry]

Howdy,

I have not implemented the href tags and I am having similar results, however I have started to see that change a little in traffic so I am going to start the implementation of the tags across the sites.

My situation might be a little different though because I have 30 sites in different countries but there is this article from Gianluca that I have found extremely helpful: https://moz.com/blog/international-seo-dropping-the-information-dust

It is an older post but I still find it very helpful as to the best practices and things to consider when running international websites.

Hope this helps. - Brooke