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.
International URL paths
-
Wanted to ask everyone a questions: So our company is going to be doing a website that is going to be full of videos. The url path will be country.domain.com/language/slug/content-id. We redirect the user when they go to the different country. So if you're in spain on a train to france your URL will change from es.domain.com/es/slug/content-id to fr.domain.com/es/slug/content-id. Each country can listen to each video in all languages.
My question is with hreflang tags and canonicals. Aside from targeting users in a certain country via Google Search Console, how do I eliminate duplication and tell Google which I'd like to show up via which country. In spain I would like es.domain.com/es/slug/content-id to show in Google and would have hreflang tags on each of the es.domain pages but what about fr.domain.com/es/slug/content-id since it would show the same content? I can't canonical to one of them since I need them to show in their respective country. How do I show the difference in language and country without showing duplication?
-
Before answering, it is me having a question for you:
why the hell do you need to put spanish content under a french subdomain if you already have it in the spanish version of the website? Is this nothing but complicating everything :-)?
Said that, as Steve said, the hreflang itself solves any potential duplicate issue, so you don't need to cross canonicalized any url. Simply remember to use the correct combo of hreflang ISO codes.
In the case of the spanish version of the french subdomain, the hreflang should reference the fr.sudomain.com/es/... and have as pair these: "es-FR", so to target only the spanish speaking people in France.
This way you are not going to messed up with the same kind of URL in targeting spanish speaking users in Spain ("es-ES") or in Great Britain ("es-GB") and so on.
However, it would have been more logical to have only one spanish URL for the videos, and have their hreflang set up as "es" only, so to target all users speaking spanish in every country.
-
You don't want to canonicalize to another country version. Keep that rule in mind and generate all the hreflang tags you have for language/locations.
Use this to guide you:
http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/Another great doc outlining using the same language in different regions:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en -
So my questions is if I have two countries and four languages:
fr.example.com/fr/video and fr.example.com/en/video
uk.example.com/en/video/ and uk.example.com/fr/video/
Then won't uk.example.com/en/video and fr.example.com/en/video have the same content? Should they both canonical themselves or should there be one canonical?
-
Hey Matt,
The canonical tags should not be used across different language or country versions.
http://example.com/fr/sample-post -> canonical: http://example.com/fr/sample-post
http://example.com/sample-post -> canonical: http://example.com/sample-post
Each page would have the alternate version hreflang tags setup.
Hope this helps!
Per FAQ: https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-internationalisation#q20
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
-
Setting up international site subdirectories in GSC as separate properties for better geotargeting?
My client has an international website with a subdirectory structure for each country and language version - eg. /en-US. At present, there is a single property set up for the domain in Google Search Console but there are currently various geotargeting issues I’m trying to correct with hreflang tags. My question is, is it still recommended practise and helpful to add each international subdirectory to Google Search Console as an individual property to help with correct language and region tagging? I know there used to be properly sets for this but haven’t found any up to date guidance on whether setting up all the different versions as their own properties might help with targeting. Many thanks in advance!
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
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.
International SEO | | spjain810 -
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 -
What are the best practices for translation of city/state names for international SEO? (ie. New York in English vs. Nueva York in Spanish)
I'm working on international SEO / translation of a global travel site. While we have a global keyword research and translation strategy in process for each market they serve, I've run into a unique question. Overall, we are translating (and localizing) content for each market but aren't sure what to do with location names. Each country/state has cities and locations that have their own dedicated pages. I see three options for these location names (when titling a page and writing content): keep them in English, translate the names in the market languages, or use a combination of the two. The challenge with altering the location names to the market languages is that they are truly not known by those names. Though there are some instances where it may make sense…for instance **New York **in Spanish would be "Nueva York" with **‘**Nueva' being the Spanish translation of ‘new’. There are other instances, where no translation exists. If you’ve had a similar experience I'd love to hear your approach/recommendation.
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
Thai Characters in URL's
Does anyone have experience with non-Latin characters in URL's? We've launched a website in Thailand and picked Thai characters for URL's. However, when you copy it, it turns into something like this: http://www.imoneythailand.com/บัตรเครดิต Can it impact our website's crawlability? Also, is keyword in URL a ranking factor for non-Latin languages? Thanks in advance for help!
International SEO | | imoney0 -
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 -
What language to use for URL's for Russian language?
Hi, Our site is in English, Spanish, Danish and Russian - the URL's are individual to the language they are in, but of course, Russian contains some strange characters so I decided not to use them in the URL's Any advice on how to create the URL's for russian language pages? thanks
International SEO | | bjs20100 -
French Canadian Website and French Language URLs
Hello, One of my clients has a question on a new Quebec, Canada version of their website. The website content and copy is in the French Canadian language, but the IT Director has asked if, for the purpose of SEO, should the URLs be in French as well? So, this questions has two parts... For SEO, should the URL's be in French or left in English, to avoid crawl errors? For visitor UX, is there any reason to have them in French versus English?
International SEO | | Aviatech0
