Is it compulsory to use hreflang attribute for Multilingual site? What if I do not use such tag?
-
Hello Everybody,
My main site - abcd.co.uk and other sites are like this se.abcd.co.uk, fr.abcd.co.uk, es.abcd.co.uk etc Now if I donot use hreflang for Multilingual site then google will consider it as subdomain or duplicate site? But content of the sites are in different language.
Thanks!
-
Want to check you are doing everything right? Check this tool out
-Andy
-
I wouldn't be worried about duplicate content at all, it's in a different language so they would make it as unique as possible. If you would have a Canadian site and a US one then for sure it wouldn't be a good thing but this isn't a case of duplicate content.
HREF Lang mostly takes care of ranking the right language for the right keyword in the right country. What I've seen before in these cases is that some sites rank with another domain which has a higher domain authority/ page authority then the page you would like to rank.
-
Hi there,
From an SEO perspective, I think it is definitely worth implementing hreflang. If it were one of our clients, I would tell them that it was vital that they implement these.
We have had issues with clients where their web agency didn't correctly implement hreflang and the wrong international website was ranking. These tags are a strong signal to search engines, such as Google, of which country your websites are targeting. Some SEOs would even argue that the tags will help your ranking for those countries.
I would also be worried about duplicate content in this case, but I would strongly advise that the tags are added if possible.
Just make sure that they are properly implemented! Here are a couple of resources for further reading:
https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag
https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool
Best regards,
James
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
-
Ecom: Hreflang start working - anything I can do about SERP currencies?
Hello everyone, Finally, after moving our hreflang tags from our sitemap to our header HTML, Google seems to start displaying the correct URLs in the SERPs. From what I can see - Google folds URLs, so instead of indexing all pages, it only selects an English version of our site but displays a different URL based on our hreflang tags (not sure if that's good or bad or if I should work towards a full indexation). However - I am now facing the issue that the wrong currency will often be displayed in my SERPs. E.g. in Australia I may have Euros or in Canada we see British Pounds (i.e. /en-ca/* URL shows in SERPs but the /en-gb/* URL is actually indexed). Is there any way around this? I was searching for a solution and found some but seems like most don't exist anymore (https://moz.com/community/q/topic/53216/international-seo-ecommerce-rich-snippets/3) at least if I try and dig deeper into the source. What's the current recommendation?
International SEO | | sriffs0 -
International Site Merge
Hello, I've never had to deal with an international site before, let alone a site merge. These are two large sites, we've got a few smaller old sites that are currently redirecting to the main site (UK). We are looking at moving all the sites to the .com domain. We are also currently not using SSL (on the main pages, we are on the checkout). We also have a m.domain.com site. Are there any good guides on what needs to be done? My current strategy would be: Convert site to SSL. Mobile site and desktop site must be on the same domain. Start link building to the .com domain now (weaker link profile currently) What's the best way of handling the domains and languages? We're currently using a .tv site for the UK and .com for the US. I was thinking, and please correct me if i'm wrong, that we move the US site from domain.com to domain.com/us/ and the domain.tv to domain.com/en/ Would I then reference these by the following: What would we then do with the canonicals? Would they just reference their "local" version? Any advice or articles to read would really be appreciated.
International SEO | | ThomasHarvey0 -
Web Site Migration - Time to Google indexing
Soon we will do a website migration .com.br to .com/pt-br. Wi will do this migration when we have with lower traffic. Trying to follow Google Guidelines, applying the 301 redirect, sitemap etc... I would like to know, how long time the Google generally will use to transfering the relevance of .com.br to .com/pt-br/ using redirect 301?
International SEO | | mobic0 -
International site
Hi everybody,one of my clients has a domain (www.sea-aeroportimilano.it) well ranked on Google.it.
International SEO | | vanGoGh-creative
He has a redirect 302 from www.sea-aeroportimilano.it to www1.seamilano.eu/landing/index_it.html. The site has also an english version (www1.seamilano.eu/landing/index_en.html).Do you think it's the right setting? What about a 301 from www.sea-aeroportimilano.it to www1.seamilano.eu/landing and after that an authomatic redirect 302 for the language (to www1.seamilano.eu/landing/index_it.html or www1.seamilano.eu/landing/index_en.html)?Thanks a lot.Massimiliano0 -
Will website with tag hreflang pass link juice to other country/language version of website?
For example, I have a website XXX.com and I made hreflang tags to other country/language versions of website: ru.XXX.com (for Russia/Russian) XXX.com.ua (for Ukraine/Russian) ua.XXX.com (for Ukraine/Ukraine) Then I will acquire links to XXX.com. The question is: will XXX.com pass link juice to websites ru.XXX.com, XXX.com.ua and ua.XXX.com. Will these websites rank in their countries if I will acquire links ONLY to XXX.com? I looked at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en, but haven't found what google think about that. Thank you in advance. I will appreciate your help.
International SEO | | Kabanchik0 -
Sub-domains or sub-directories for country-specific versions of the site?
What approach do you think would be better from an SEO perspective when creating country-targeted versions for an eCommerce site (all in the same language with slight regional changes) - sub-domains or sub-directories? Is any of the approaches more cost effective, web development-wise? I know this topic's been under much debate and I would really like to hear your opinion. Many thanks!
International SEO | | ramarketing0 -
Changing server location for a global targetted site
Hi, I am just in the process of purchasing a site from someone. The site has a global target audience (well global English speaking anyway). The site is on a .info domain and is currently hosted in Germany. Checking on SemRush it looks like 70% of traffic comes from English speaking countries (US, Australia, Canada, UK). Now I need to move the hosting to one of my own when I change ownership of the site. Now does it overly matter where I choose my hosting as currently it is hosted in Germany (around 4% of visitors from Germany) but I want to do my best not to knock any rankings but I was thinking of moving it to a UK or US based host but still want to keep a general worldwide userbase. As the US accounts for the largest part of traffic (39%) would I be best choosing hosting based over in the US or does it not overly matter too much (I am in the UK so most hosting I use is UK based). I have read a number of posts on server location but most seem to be for site which have a country specific target audience. Thanks for your help! 🙂
International SEO | | Wardy0 -
Multinational Sites - The main SEO issues
I currently work for the UK arm of a Company with headquarters in Germany - The have outlets in half-a-dozen European countries, and up until now each country has had it's own website. The group has decided that from next year they will close all the individual country sites and then run new sites each from a central .location, I guess with a shared database of products. I see the sense in having central stock control etc, but I'm worried about the SEO impact. I have searched Q&A and the blog but could not find much to help me. What I would like to do is to provide some advice and pointers at to what they should be aiming for, both in terms website structure and on-going SEO for each country. Any advice welcome, thanks in advance.
International SEO | | cottamg0