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.
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Tags for Multi-Regional Website English Language Only having URL Parameters
-
Dear friends, We have a multi-regional website in English language only having the country selector on the top of each page and it adds countrycode parameters on each url. Website is built in Magento 1.8 and having 1 store with multiple store views. There is no default store set in Magento as I discussed with developer. Content is same for all the countries and only currency is changed. In navigation there are urls without url parameters but when we change store from any page it add parameters in the url for same page hence there are total 7 URLs. 6 URLs for each page (with country parameters) and 1 master url (without parameters) and making content duplicity. We have implemented hreflang tags on each page with url parameters but for canonical we have implemented master page url as per navigation without url parameters Example on this page. I think this is correct for master page but we should use URL parameters in canonical tags for each counry url too and there should be only 1 canonical tag on each country page url. Currently all the country urls are having master page canoncial tag as per the example. Please correct me if I am wrong and **in this case what has to be done for master page? **as google is indexing the pages without parameters too. We are also using GEOIP redirection for each store with country IP detection and for rest of the countries which are not listed on the website we are redirecting to USA store. Earlier it was 301 but we changed it to 302. Hreflang tags are showing errors in SEMRush due to redirection but in GWT it's OK for some pages it's showing no return tags only. Should I use **x-default tags for hreflang and country selector only on home page like this or should I remove the redirection? **However some of the website like this using redirection but header check tool doesn't show the redirection for this and for our website it shows 302 redirection. Sorry for the long post but looking for your support, please.
-
This is a long and detailed query so I think, it will be best to annotate your question with my responses:
"Dear friends, We have a multi-regional website in English language only having the country selector on the top of each page and it adds countrycode parameters on each url. Website is built in Magento 1.8 and having 1 store with multiple store views." - it is probably better to go with a folder-structure based regional deployment as Google doesn't tend to weight parameter URLs very strongly at all, unless there are link / citation signals which prove the child page version (parameter based) is more popular than the parent (in which case, they can shuffle around)
"There is no default store set in Magento as I discussed with developer. Content is same for all the countries and only currency is changed. In navigation there are urls without url parameters but when we change store from any page it add parameters in the url for same page hence there are total 7 URLs." -this sounds incredibly complicated. It sounds like at some point, someone will leave or forget how things work and you will be in a big mess
"6 URLs for each page (with country parameters) and 1 master url (without parameters) and making content duplicity." - yes I can see how that would be a problem. Also you said there was no default URL, but now says there is a master URL. Surely master is default? This may need more explaining for myself or others to help your properly. By the way, something very important here - if you're just planning to use hreflangs on their own and change pricing, very often Google won't consider that a good enough effort to give you an international footprint. Google think, hmm if you really have identified these new audiences across the world, even if they speak the same language - they are different people with a different culture. Should your content really be EXACTLY the same? No. If you do bother to do different content for different audiences (even if they speak the same language) which is tailored to their cultural nuances - you will probably get more international rankings. If you don't and you're just doing the cheapest fastest thing, you have no value proposition for Google and thus don't expect to win big (or even at all)
"We have implemented hreflang tags on each page with url parameters but for canonical we have implemented master page url as per navigation without url parameters Example on this page." - just so you know, a canonical tag acts almost like no-index tags. It says to Google: I am not the main version of this page, so please never index me. Instead index this canonical URL I am linking to instead. As such, with your current implementation, all of your regional URLs will be taken out of Google's index unless popularity signals contradict your canonical tags (in which case they may be overridden). Think about it. With hreflangs you are telling Google: go over here and index my other language version. So Google goes over to another page, but that page says: Google I am not canonical, why are you even here? Go to the canonical master only don't look at me. So you are really confusing Google by telling them to index pages with Hreflangs, then telling them not to with canonical tags
"I think this is correct for master page but we should use URL parameters in canonical tags for each counry url too and there should be only 1 canonical tag on each country page url. Currently all the country urls are having master page canoncial tag as per the example. Please correct me if I am wrong and in this case what has to be done for master page? as google is indexing the pages without parameters too." - with your current implementation, Google should (most of the time, this is not absolute) only be indexing the master pages and not indexing any of the regional pages. The regional pages all tell Google that they are not canonical and not good for indexing, by using the canonical tags you are telling Google to only index the master. I would personally remove all canonical tags from all regionally appended parameter URLs. If you have parameters firing for other reasons (e.g: changing tabbed content, moving a carousel, UTM campaign tracking) then those should be trimmed out of Google's index using canonical tags. That being said; for your regional parameter URLs, it's a different story. You want your regional pages to rank - right? So don't tell Google they are non-canonical, by putting canonical tags on them pointing to the master. In-fact I might even put some of them in a Sitemap.XML and feed them to Google. I would only do this, where the regional modifier is the ONLY parameter in the URL. If there are others, I might still use canonical tags - but for just the regional modifier on its own, they should be stripped of canonical tags (if you want them to rank ever)
"We are also using GEOIP redirection for each store with country IP detection and for rest of the countries which are not listed on the website we are redirecting to USA store. Earlier it was 301 but we changed it to 302. Hreflang tags are showing errors in SEMRush due to redirection but in GWT it's OK for some pages it's showing no return tags only. Should I use x-default tags for hreflang and country selector only on home page like this or should I remove the redirection? However some of the website like this using redirection but header check tool doesn't show the redirection for this and for our website it shows 302 redirection. Sorry for the long post but looking for your support, please." - Support is here! Two main things. Firstly code 303 might be more appropriate than codes 302 or 301. I would not bother with X-Default unless you really know what you are doing, since you are already in one Hell of a mess I would not touch that yet. Fix the basics, wait for the dust to settle! Finally, all you need to do for Google is to exempt Google's user-agent of "googlebot" from your regional redirects. That way they don't get bounced around, but users still do
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
-
Changing the language of the website meta title and description?
Hello, Moz community! I'm planning to change the language of my website title and description from English to rank better for queries on the local language. Do you think this would increase the local language ranking? And in case I need to switch back to English, let's say in 2021, would it be difficult to regain the current rankings? Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. Thank you!
International SEO | | vhubert2 -
International SEO setup issues canonical URL
My site is www.grocare.com for one region and in.grocare.com for another region. Both of them have the same content except the currency for particular regions. Someone told me that google will take the content as duplicate and not rank either. I have setup hreflang and targeted different regions for both in the search console. I read many article which say canonical urls need to be setup for international seo sites. But Im not sure how to setup canonical urls and whether they are the right way to go . i just don't want my content deranked. Now i have setup hreflang properly after asking the moz community itself. So im hoping to get some help with this query too. TIA
International SEO | | grocare0 -
GeoIP Redirects & hreflang
Hello, We believe we've had some issues with hreflang tags not remaining validated due to the implementation of geoIP redirects. Previously, if a user clicked a landing page on Google search that was not targeted for their territory, they would instantly be redirected to a sub path that targets their territory using geoIP redirects. We're planning to remove the initial geoIP redirects and have messaging that prompts the user to either stay on the page they've landed on, or be redirected to page that is right for their territory. However, if a user has selected to be redirected to a sub path that is targeted for their territory, they will have a cookie preference set for the IP location they've selected, and will continue to be redirected to their chosen sub path. My question is, will a crawler follow and trigger the geo preference cookie, which could potentially cause complexities in validating hreflang tags and ranking of content for the right market. Thanks.
International SEO | | SEONOW1230 -
Which Google does a .ie website get shown in?
Hi all, I am working on a .ie website and I was under the understanding that if you have a regional domain, like .ie you will limited to being shown in a search engine like google.ie When I go to International Targeting in Google SEarch Console it says the site is associated with: Ireland Am I limiting my ability to rank well in worldwide Google searches with this domain and if so, how can I counter this? Many thanks.
International SEO | | Bee1590 -
How to interlink 16 different language versions of site?
I remember that Matt Cutts recommended against interlinking many language versions of a site.
International SEO | | lcourse
Considering that google now also crawls javascript links, what is best way to implement interlinking? I still see otherwhise extremely well optimized large sites interlinking to more than 10 different language versions e.g. zalando.de, but also booking.com (even though here on same domain). Currently we have an expandable css dropdown in the footer interlinking 16 different language versions with different TLD. Would you be concerned? What would you suggest how to interlink domains (for user link would be useful)?0 -
Showing different content according to different geo-locations on same URL
We would like our website to show different content according to different Geo-locations (but in the same language). For example, if www.mywebsite.com is accessed from the US, it would show text (in English) appealing to North Americans, but, if accessed from Japan, it would show text (also in English) that appeals more to Japanese people. In the Middle East, we would like the website to show different images than those shown in the US and Asia. Our main concern is that we would like to keep the same URL. How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives? Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL? What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan? Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for? Kindest Regards L.B.
International SEO | | seoec0 -
International hreflang - will this handle duplicate content?
The title says it all - if i have duplicate content on my US and UK website, will adding the hreflang tag help google figure out that they are duplicate for a reason and avoid any penalties?
International SEO | | ALLee1 -
Should product-pages with different currencies have different URLs?
Here is a question that should be of interest for small online merchants selling internationally in multiple currencies. When, based on geolocation, a product-page is served with different currencies, should a product-page have a different URL for each currency? Thanks.
International SEO | | AdrienOLeary0