Will hreflang indication help single language site?
-
I have read a few articles that say indicating a language per webpage with hreflang really only helps sites that use multiple languages.
Although my site is only in English, I see that it is ranking for a few foreign language keywords in Google Search Console (not sure exact traffic but roughly 15% of visitors from Search are non English preferred).
My thought is that indicating language will help my single-language site because it will weed out the non-english speakers who are probably bouncing from the site. Overall I am thinking it might improve the quality of my search traffic.
Do you think my logic is sound, or is adding hreflang not beneficial to my site?
All feedback welcomed. Thanks!
-
Are there any major cons to include the hreflang attribute if there isn't a translated version? My site has some pages that are translated, which we include proper hreflang tags, but some pages that do not currently have a translated page. It sounds like it would take more work to remove the tags on those pages without a translated version than to keep it. Will this cause major issues with Google?
-
Thanks for the response, Gianluca. When you point out that rel=alternate is used, that does make it clearer that this is a tag used for a pair of URLs. That makes sense that this feature probably wasn't built to use for my scenario.
So I am guessing, in my situation I can't really inform Google to only target people who speak a certain language. I kind of just have to leave it up to Google to decipher. Even if I set the target country in Search Console to the US, this would exclude other English-speaking countries who are still in my target audience, which includes global English speakers (i.e. Singapore).
Is there anything we haven't brought up that you would recommend for my situation?
-
Ups, then im sorry.
I've never intended to give false information. I had incorrect information.Thanks for correcting me.
GR -
Here the answers:
-
the hreflang tag doesn't slow down websites performance. it makes have an incidence only in the case you have hundreds of hreflang markups in the html code, so that in t case it is better to use the sitemap.xml implementation.
-
you site is only in English, hence you can't use the hreflang, because it is an "alternate", therefore it always needs a pair (eg: "e-US". using it only in self-referential way (as sometimes we do with rel "canonical" is wrong and Google will present it as a mistake and not consider it
-
if you really want to target only the US public, then you must geotarget the domain in Search Console, going to its "International" section and selecting United States as the country targeted by the site.
-
-
You are is wrong and misleadin, sorry.
The he is never redundant and an English site could also be targeting another country than the USA.
You're correct saying it's not useful in this case, but not for the reason you give
-
Thanks for the response Gaston!
I am aware this will not help my page rankings. My thought is that it will improve the quality of my site's search traffic as explained in my original post.
Hmm.. do you really think adding "" to my html will slow down load speed? If that is the case, you are saying adding one link to your page will slow down the load time. I just don't think adding this small piece of code will have a significant effect on page speed.
If I check the International Targeting tab in Search Console, it says no hreflang tags being used, so I'm not sure how redundant this would be. I know Google can pick up languages, but I think of adding hreflang tags as insurance that the right audience will be reached.
I like your example about my mom (haha) and I would like to expand on it. If you were looking for "a woman" and came across my mother, you would be able to read the sign and be satisfied your search came to an end. However, if a non-english speaker was searching for "a woman" and came across my mother, although she has the features of a woman, s/he may be confused by the sign with foreign characters and leave immediately (this is bounce rate IRL).
God (AKA Google) would then take note that 50% of the people searching for a woman, that visited my mother, left confused. So s/he would stop leading people in search of "a woman" to my mother.
Does this depiction change your opinion on my thoughts at all?
-
Hi Jonathan,
Technically speaking, adding the hreflang sentence will not help your SERPs. Because it's redundant.
Also, I'd advise you to not add it. The reason is simple, the more lines of code, the slower the page is. And there is a common sense that google does not like redundant code.
Think it by yourself, in which way will it help you, that knowing that an english site, having a signal expressing that their language is english? Its like your mom would have a sign with ''I am a woman''
Hope it helps.
GR
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
-
We've a client that wants to repurpose some of the content on there site but not lose rankings. However its changing the content to an alternative to ....
The Current URL Example would be test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/product-1 . This side of the business is being sold however they have products elsewhere in the range that can be used as alternatives to the product range that will be moved, so they want to amend these pages with an " alternative " slant. Example idea would be to change to the following : test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/alternative-to-product-1, trying not to change the URL to much, keeping the majority of the content the same but adding new copy stating the benefits of using the alternative product. So it becomes a comparison between the two. I appreciate I will have to amend the URLs, titles, meta, H1s, add new copy & preform a 301's. Option 2 Simply write a second page which is all brand new content talking about it being an alternative to the products and doing a 301 from the original page but not amending that. Be great to get peoples feedback on this approach and if there is anything else that I could do to minimise the drop in rankings once I complete the changes. Thank you D
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SDOwner0 -
No Redirects In Place After Transfer To New Site With Same Domain :(
Hi Moz Folks, I'm new here and am loving all the information! Can't wait to dig in more. Folks, I have a situation and would love to hear more about your experiences here and what advice you all have to give. I have a client whose SEO I helped out with about 4-5 years ago. It went well and they had historically been ranking on pages 1-2 for the majority of their targeted keywords. Client and I lost touch over the years, but now we are in process of working together again. What I learned today is that my client redesigned the entire old site without placing any redirects and entirely creating new URL structures (I already hear the gasps of air of those reading this). Long story short - you guessed it - rankings/traffic has dropped and the old pages have fallen out of index. Considering that I was hired to re-do and re-audit the SEO of the site and also considering that the domain had a relative decent standing in the rankings in the past, I'm wondering what exactly I should do of the following options (or please do suggest other options): 1. We have the ability to completely revert back to the old site with all the old keywords and and search optimized URLs. The new site was launched just 2 weeks ago and the owner has said that he is willing to revert back to the old site while we audit the new site and get all of the proper optimizations in place. This would be a great option if it will help us because at least we can get a site up that we know ranked well with Google in the past. 2. 302 redirect the old URLs to the somewhat appropriate page on the new site while - in the meantime - I work on the new site structure and keywords/SEO optimizations. I say 302 because a 301 redirect from the old pages to the new pages may only do me so good because I would plan on changing the keywords/URL structures of the new site anyway. Once finished with the optimizations, I'd then 301 redirect to the new appropriate pages 3. 301 redirect everything from the old site to the somewhat appropriate page on the new site right away. Then, once I've completed all the appropriate optimizations, I'd need to re-301-redirect to the new pages I've created. As you can see, I'm in a bit of a jam. But, considering that the new site was launched just about 2 weeks ago, maybe there's some hope here. Thanks fellow Mozzers! Hopefully that all makes sense. Cheers!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | pfarsaii
Nickname: "P-drama"0 -
UX and/or Conversion Help for Ecommerce
Good Morning, We recently revamped and relaunched our ecommerce website and we believe we have built a great site that is easy to navigate, find what you're looking for, get all details, and purchase. We were hoping to get some of the Moz community to take a look at the site and let us know if you have any suggestions on usability or conversion techniques that we could implement to improve user experience and amount of orders placed. You can view our site here Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks in advance
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Prime850 -
Microsites vs. one site
My client has created a product that he wants to market to two, very different, audiences. The goal is to funnel them through the site and get them to purchase. My question is about the best SEO strategy on how to do this effectively. Since they are distinct audiences with little in common we've recommended building two microsites, and optimizing each with unique content and different keyword focus. I realize it will be harder to optimize two sites rather than one, but it seems to make sense from a user perspective. But once the users goes to a "non-audience specific" page, like any page that is about the product or company and not about the audience, should we build yet a third website that houses the "company/product pages" and channel the conversions there in order to avoid having duplicate content on the two other sites? Or should we put the same "company pages" on both the Audience A and Audience B websites, only vary the text so it doesn't look like duplicate content. Or is the microsite strategy flawed all together? Please keep in mind this is a brand new product and it has national scope. There is no local focus. We will be building their rankings entirely from scratch. I REALLY appreciate any insights you may have. We have been going around and around about this. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ptdodge0 -
Is there anything obvious about my site to why it's not converting?
Hi I am reaching out to the community to see if anyone can see why our site is not converting or point out anything that might be hindering conversion. Our site is www.tidy-books.com Any help would really be appreciated. I can provide more details on request Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | tidybooks0 -
Help with ecommerce duplicate pages and SEO advice(magento base site)
Hi, We have a magento build site (www.mokee.eu) and are selling our own branded goods. So far it is a very limited range of products. It's 1 baby crib in 5 variations. We recently started getting more sales from the site, so I started to look a bit more into optimising our site. I rewrote item name, created better descriptions, added meta titles and description etc. and subscribed to the MOZ analytics platform to understand a bit better ways to improve things up. From what I saw we have a big issue of duplicated content because our product pages are the same and only the product colour changes, which is something google apparently doesn't like However it is important for us that each colour get referenced by google so people who search for grey cot can find a picture of our grey cot etc... Also I was thinking to create only on multi variation page with all colour but when you have only 1 product to sell it might look a bit empty on the site. 1- Do you guys have some advise on how to go round this issue? 2- Do you have any other advise for my site in particular to optimise things and actually do you think i should be worried at all with such a small catalogue? Thanks Sam
Conversion Rate Optimization | | mokeestore0 -
Is being listed in the McAfee Directory and displaying a McAfee Secure logo on your site worthwhile?
I am trying to decide whether or not to renew a plan with McAfee Secure. My initial thought was that displaying the logo was not worth the cost, and that I would be able to establish the same consumer confidence with a seal from Authorize.net. Does anyone have an opinion on display the McAfee Secure seal and/or being listed in the McAfee directory.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | djlittman0 -
Why has my bounce rate gone in to orbit since moving the same content to a new site?!
I moved our site to a wordpress theme over the christmas break. All content is pretty much the same word for word, and I think the new site looks much, much better than the old one. Why then, has our overall bounce rate gone from 7-8%, up to 74%? Bounce rates for some KW focused internal pages have gone from 2-3% to similar 70+% in some cases. Just to confuse things further, I have also changed the name and branding for the site to differentiate us from a competitor and stop the confusion we've experienced at times. But, I can't see how the new logo would cause and extra 65% of visitors to leave straight off! I really don't want to go back to the old name and don't think that's the answer anyhow, but I may have to test it out of sheer desperation. There's only a static holding page for the old site now as a reference point for people searching the old name (not many). So I've attached a screenshot of how it looked below. Also at http://imgur.com/aM5o9. The new site is at flatroofs.co.uk. I have just noticed that by placing the previous 'more information' links a secondary menu in the left widget area rather than on the page, they are less noticeable especially if you scroll down to the bottom of a page, where the only links are in the footer? Again though, if 75% of people are put off this easily something else must be at play! Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Danny. aM5o9.png?1
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Biota0