Should We Add the W3.org Language Tag To Every Page Or Just The Home Page?
-
Greetings,
We have five international sites around the world, two of which are in difference languages. Currently we have the following line of html code on the home page of each of the sites:
Clearly, we need to change the "en" portion for the sites that aren't in English, but, should we include that meta tag in each of the site's pages, or will the home page suffice. Thanks!
-
Google doesn't care the W3.org language tag (Bing does it, instead).
Said that using it on every page is a good practice for W3.org, hence do that.
For Google, if the site is using a Country Code Top Level Name (i.e.: .it, .fr, .de...), then the site will be automatically target the country related to the domain termination (i.e.: .de > Germany and just Germany, not Austria or any other German speaking country).
If the site is under a generic domain name (i.e.: .com), then you have to specify in the Google Webmaster Tools setting of the site what country (hence regional Google) you want the site itself to target.
NOTE: if you are targeting language and not countries, don't use ccTld domain names, because, as I said before, those domain names targets only the country the domain termination is paired to.
Then... use the hreflang="x" markup so to suggest to Google what URL must be shown to the user depending on the language they use (check this official Google page).
Finally, do a great localization of the content and try to obtain authoritative quality signals like links from local sites and social shares from local users.
-
Thanks, Yiannis
I definitely see higher rankings and traffic for the sites that have the specific language tag.
Does anyone else have other input to provide?
-
Hello,
Index page will be more than enough. Also the fact that the language is non English is now sufficient enough for google to understand and list the web site to the relevant country directories.
Best of luck!
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
-
Putting rel=canonical tags on blogpost pointing to product pages
I came across an article mentioning this as a strategy for getting product pages (which are tough to get links for) some link equity. See #21: content flipping: https://www.matthewbarby.com/customer-acquisition-strategies Has anyone done this? Seems like this isn't what the tag is meant for, and Google may see this as deceptive? Any thoughts? Jim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jim_shook0 -
How does Googlebot evaluate performance/page speed on Isomorphic/Single Page Applications?
I'm curious how Google evaluates pagespeed for SPAs. Initial payloads are inherently large (resulting in 5+ second load times), but subsequent requests are lightning fast, as these requests are handled by JS fetching data from the backend. Does Google evaluate pages on a URL-by-URL basis, looking at the initial payload (and "slow"-ish load time) for each? Or do they load the initial JS+HTML and then continue to crawl from there? Another way of putting it: is Googlebot essentially "refreshing" for each page and therefore associating each URL with a higher load time? Or will pages that are crawled after the initial payload benefit from the speedier load time? Any insight (or speculation) would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mothner1 -
Tags and Categories Ranking
Hello A few times I have come across tags and categories ranking for some relevant search terms. This seems strange as all category and tag pages would have 0 external links back to them - whereas pretty much every other page on the site would have external links. In most cases thy seem to rank along with the page, for example: for the search term "voiceover recording xxxxx" The voice over recording page will rank, followed by a similar tag page... If I make the tag links 'nofollow' would that help stop this? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
Will Using Attributes For Landing Pages In Magento Dilute Page Rank?
Hello Mozzers! We have an ecommerce site built on Magento. We would like to use attribute filters in our layered navigation for landing page purposes. Each page will have a unique URL, Meta Title and Meta Description. For example: URL: domain.com/art/abstract (category is Art, attribute is Abstract) Title: Abstract Art For Sale Meta: Blah Blah Blah Currently these attribute pages are not being indexed by google as they are set in google parameters. We would like to edit google parameters to start indexing some of the attribute filters that users search for, so they can be used as landing pages. Does anyone have experience with this? Is this a good idea? What are the consequences? Will this dilute Page Rank? Could this destroy the world? Cheers! MozAddict
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozAddict0 -
Home page sudden drop in rank, but not others.
Over the weekend, I noticed "www.thematstore.com" drop out of the search results for "chair mats", where previously it was between 10-12 ranked. The other pages on the domain have remained the same in regards to rankings for their intended keywords. The only thing I changed (on Nov 29th) is the title tag from "Chair Mats - Commercial Quality Chair Mats, Custom Made", to "Chair Mats - Best Custom Chair Mats, Commercial Quality". I know there is a lot that needs to be done on the site, and the site architecture is a bit of a mess (I recommended building a new site)... but I was hoping to gradually fix these issues without gambling with a rank drop. Not sure why the home page all of the sudden dropped out, any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Page Rank
Hi guys I have an ecommerce in prestashop (unfortunatelly I can not change it at this moment). I made all main activities both off and on the page. And actually it is working pretty well since I am up on the SERP for all the target keywords. BUT, the page rank still be 0. The site is about 2 years old. My main competitor has the same domain authority than mine, but he has a page rank > 0 Moreover I have more quality links then it has, but it is older Any suggestions? Many thanks Ciao Diego
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrelax0 -
List of Off page techniques
Hello Everyone, Please share the list of off page techniques to improve ranking and which techniques completely avoided?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alick3000 -
Canonical tag for similar page with different theme.
Our commerce system allows products to be shared across multiple categories/sections of our site. E.G. /boxes/blue-box.html /circles/blue-box.html This enables the product to show up in different areas of the site, but does not link to an evergreen URL. We are considering using the canonical tag to resolve this issue, but our question relates to the similarity of the pages. Each section folder (e.g. /boxes/ and /circles/) has a different header, left navigation and footer. They are similar in layout and some content is the same, but a good portion is different in the header and nav. Each category nav basically deals with deeper links in it's own category. The product title, image, description, etc. is all the same and makes up the bulk of the page. Is this a good candidate for the canonical tag or should we attempt to accommodate an evergreen URL?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | josh-att0