Hreflang tag on links to alternate language site
-
Hey everyone!
In the interest of trying to be brief, here's the situation in my favorite form of communication, bullet points!
- Client has two sites; one is in English and one is in Japanese
- Each site is a separate URL, no sub-domains or sub-pages
- Each main page on the English version of the site has a link to the homepage of the Japanese site
- Site has decent rankings overall, with room for improvement from page 2 to page 1
- No Hreflang tags currently used in links to the Japanese version from the English version
Given that the site isn't really suffering for most rankings, would this be helpful to implement on the English version? Ideally, I'd like each link to be updated to the corresponding subject matter of the Japanese, but in the interim it seems like identifying to Google that the link on the other side is a different language might be helpful to both the user and to maybe help those rankings on page two creep a little higher to page one.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate your time.
-
For the sake of my example let's use 4 URLs, 2 homepages, 2 internal pages (one for each language).
I am suggesting that in the of www.domain.com:
In the of www.domainjp.com:
In the of www.domain.com/page.html:
In the of www.domain.com/pagejp.html:
Using hreflang will just tell the search engines that they are the same pages, only in different languages. If that is true of the pages on each site, then you should implement a structure like the above. You would want a language change option on the sites just in case someone wants to change languages, but it's not necessary.
-
Hi Kate,
Thanks for your reply! Would you mind expanding on this a bit - did you mean the links to from the English version to the Japanese? Or under the sections on each separate URL? Both? My concern is that the glut of links to the Japanese version might be confused with spam since the languages are different. Here's the code snippet I'd likely use, if you have any thoughts about that let me know:
http://nl.example.com/" /> -
I would highly recommend hreflang between the two pages. It needs to be implemented on both sides. Each one referencing itself and the translation. Please let me know if you need code examples!
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
-
Links from a penalised site.
Hey Mozzers, Recently we have had a series of agencies in to pitch for work, one group mentioned that due to our association with a possibly penalised product review website, any links and activity associated with the brand would hinder our SEO. We currently have a good rating, but we are now no longer pushing our customers to the site as we move to a new platform. The current link back from this website is also no-followed. Any thoughts on how this could impact us? And how the agencies determined the site was penalised and causing us problems. Cheers Tim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimHolmes0 -
Penalized domain, starting over. 302 or just add a link that site has moved?
Hello, our .com domain got a fred update and to be honest we need to start over. Now my first idea was to 302 the domain as the penalty should not come with this. Other option is just to have a landing page saying, we have a new address its www.example.es . What would be better?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | advertisingtech1 -
Using on two pages a keyword in alternative language in the title
Hello SEO wizards, The main language on my website is english, and I am wondering if I can add a keyword in russian to couple of pages to the title and image alt tag and maybe header , with the hope that it would rank in google with that russian keyword.. But I am not sure how google would react to that, I tried to search information on that, but could not find a clear answer.... Many thanks for anybody who takes time to respond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bidilover0 -
2 sites or one sites: 2 locations
Hello, I have a dog training client who is offering services in 2 separate locations. We're looking to be first in the non-local search results and also rank well in google places. Would it be better to go for 2 separate sites or one site and try to rank for 2 different locations with one site? There's both local and standard search results when we type in our keywords. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Natural Link Profile, low and high value links, really?
I cant really get my head around this one. I've read a few times when building links make sure you pick up so low value links as well. So here is an example (and lets say each link takes half hour to get): I got 5 hours of link building and this is what I have managed to get with the time. 1. 10 high value links all with PA/DA 50-60+ 2. 5 high value links with PA/DA 50-60+ AND another 5 low value links with PA/DA 10-. Surely #1 beats #2 hands down?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Image Links Vs. Text Links, Questions About PR & Anchor Text Value
I am searching for testing results to find out the value of text links versus image links with alt text. Do any of you have testing results that can answer or discuss these questions? If 2 separate pages on the same domain were to have the same Page Authority, same amount of internal and external links and virtually carry the same strength and the location of the image or text link is in the same spot on both pages, in the middle of the body within paragraphs. Would an image link with alt text pass the same amount of Page Authority and PR as a text link? Would an image link with alt text pass the same amount of textual value as a text link? For example, if the alt text on the image on one page said "nike shoes" and the text link on the other page said "nike shoes" would both pass the same value to drive up the rankings of the page for "nike shoes"? Would a link wrapped around an image and text phrase be better than creating 2 links, one around the image and one around the text pointing to the same page? The following questions have to do with when you have an image and text link on a page right next to each other, like when you link a compelling graphic image to a category page and then list a text link underneath it to pass text link value to the linked-to page. If the image link displays before the text link pointing to a page, would first link priority use the alt text and not even apply the anchor text phrase to the linked page? Would it be best to link the image and text phrase together pointing to the product page to decrease the link count on the page, thus allowing for more page rank and page authority to pass to other pages that are being linked to on the page? And would this also pass anchor text value to the link-to page since the link would include an image and text? I know that the questions sound a bit repetitive, so please let me know if you need any further clarification. I'd like to solve these to further look into ways to improve some user experience aspects while optimizing the link strength on each page at the same time. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | abernhardt
Andrew0 -
Link Request Email on Site`s Link Pages
Hello I have assembled a list of web-sites that have "Links" section that has a list of persons` favorite tools. Those pages have a link to my competitor. I know my tool is just as good if not better and want to request a link. I`m thinking of sending an email asking for a link and offering a small amount of money for it. Questions: A) How much should I offer? Should I offer anything at all B) Is there an email style that someone can suggest that has been tested and proven to work for this type of situtation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hellopotap0 -
Best multi-language site strategy?
When reading about multi-language site structure, general knowledge says that there are 2 right ways of doing it right: Assign one domain per region/ language: www.domain.fr www.domain.de www.domain.co.uk ... If a country has more than one language, such as Switzerland, you can create folders for those languages: www.domain.ch/fr - in french www.domain.ch/de - in german Have a unique domain www.domain.com for the whole site and create folders for language region: www.domina.com/fr www.domain.com/uk ... If a language is spoken in more than one country, you can create subfolders www.domain.com/fr-ch - french in switzerland www.domain.com/de-ch - german in switzerland At first sight, it seems that option 1 is the right one. However, sites such as www.apple.com are using option 2. I am unable to decide... what would you recommend? Any objective criteria?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hockerty0