External URLs in hreflang sitemap questions
-
I'm currently putting together an international sitemap for a website that has an set up like the following:
example.com/us
example.com/au
example.com/ca
example.co.uk
example.seI'm planning on including the hreflang tags within sitemaps for each domain, to make sure google serves up the right version. However, I'm a bit sceptical about including the non .com domains within the .com sitemap - and the other way round for .co.uk and .se sitemaps.
The way I've been doing it follows the following example:
<url><loc>http://www.example.com/us/</loc></url>
Putting in the .co.uk and .se domains within the .com sitemap just doesn't feel right - is this actually the right way to do it?
Thanks in advance
-
It is the right way to do it
According to this, looks like you should include the <loc>url as well, so add:</loc>
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
-
Hreflang tags
I know these are intended for specifying different language/regional versions of one site, but can they be used to specify just ONE country (eg. "en-au")? Or does it only work to specify an ALTERNATIVE to another language/region variation?
International SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Hreflang Alternate & Pagination
Hi everybody, So I'm setting up hreflang tags on an ecommerce site. The sites are in the USA and Canada. The Canadian site will have fewer products than the American site, meaning that there won't be as many pages in each category as there are on the American site. What is the correct way to handle hreflang tags on these extra category pages? To put this another way, the American site may have a category with 3 pages of products, while the Canadian equivalent only has 2 pages of products. What happens to this extra American category page (example.com/widget-category/page-3) ? Does it get an hreflang tag linking to the first page of the equivalent Canadian category (example.ca/widget-category/)? Does it not get any hreflang tags because it has no true Canadian counterpart? Does it matter at all if it has a canonical tag pointing to the first page in the series anyway (example**.com**/widget-category/)? Thanks, Andrew B.
International SEO | | ABullis0 -
Search Console Hreflang-Tag Error "missing return tag": No explanation
Hey there, we have recently implemented hreflang on the sitemap level for our global website. The website has 57 sitemaps that are all referenced in a sitemap index file (www.buschvacuum.com/sitemap.xml). Google is showing several errors in search console ("Sitemap provided URLs and alternate URLs in 'en-AU' that do not have return tags."). However when I try to verify this I do find the return tags. Can this be caused by the fact that my hreflang tags span several sitemap files? To pick one random example (see screenshot for search console error message):
International SEO | | Online-Marketing-Guy
The Originating URL-hreflang-Tag is in www.buschvacuum.com/sitemap_3.xml, the return tag is in www.buschvacuum.com/sitemap_4.xml. It would be great if someone with experience regarding those errors could help me explaining that behavior. Thanks a lot. Jochen WXYQoUH.png0 -
Google Webmaster showing error for [hreflang='x-default']
Hi There! Using [hreflang='x-default'] tag to target language specific countries on our site but Google Webmaster showing errors even implementation made as per Google guideline but one thing is not clear and we are not sure, this is the reason behind it. Error is showing up only on those pages where 'Google Parameters' are used. For example : https://www.sitegeek.com/a2hosting?grank=open 'grank=' is defined as a 'Google Parameters' and on the above page 'hreflang' tags are : Also, on page https://www.sitegeek.com/a2hosting [without Google Parameters] same above 'hreflang' tags are taken. But, There is no error on second page URL where no 'Google Parameters' in URL. Therefore, error showing on first URL where 'Google Parameters' are taken. Is this the issue or not? suggest how to remove? -- Rajiv S9vhl3T
International SEO | | gamesecure0 -
Alternate Hreflang Problem
We have two travel websites.
International SEO | | Izzet
One in English language for people living in the UK.
One in Turkish language for people living in Turkey. The major difference is:
English (UK) website shows 4+ nights accomodation prices because UK travellers never come for less than 4 nights.
Turkish website shows 1-night, 2-night, 3-night prices because Turkish travellers never stay for more than 3 nights. We are using rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tags properly on our two websites. Today, I am disappointed to see Google display the wrong result. When a user in Turkey searches a Turkish keyword on Google.com.tr;
Google is showing the English language website. When I click on Search Settings > Language;
I see that English is selected under this question:
"Which language should Google products use?" This is a big problem for us.
Many rich users in Turkey, who are more willing to buy our services, speak English fluently and they may choose to use Gmail in English. But we are losing business because these Turkish customers don't convert at all on the Enlish (UK) website because of the reason I explained above. 1) What can we do?
2) If we remove the rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tags now, will it hurt any of the websites?
We have seen an increase in Google rankings for the Turkish language website after using rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tags. Izzet0 -
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 -
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 -
Geographical targeting and rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”
Let me paint you a picture, a site attempts geographical targeting by using sub-directories. However, 'targeting' is used loosely in this case. One sub-directory targets the US, the other is for everywhere else. For example: example.com/us/ <-- US example.com/en/ <--- Everywhere else The homepage is a map, they get taken to the US site if they click on US, they get the other site if they click anywhere else. The site is effectively duplicated in both folders, the only difference being one is written in US English, the other in UK English. So, while I am able to set the preferred geo in Google Webmaster tools for the US site, I can't for the everything else site. Recently I came across rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” and thought it may be useful. Does anyone know if I can specify more than one language per URL using this method? For example using multiple instances such as: Is this possible at all? Thanks in advance, and I'm open to any other suggestions! 🙂
International SEO | | David_ODonnell0