Hreflang made simple
-
I have a client with a Shopify site. It is a clone of the 'main' website which is a .co.uk domain.
Client wants to use .com.au for Australia and New Zealand. All are English language.
How should we structure hreflang tags?
Or is there a better way to target the .com.au website at Australia/New Zealand?
-
In fact, what the client really wants is this...
... any user in the UK who:
- clicks on a link from social media (which goes to domainname.com)
- searches google for domainname.com
- types in the URL domainname.com
... ALWAYS be redirected to "domainname.co.uk" so they only see what the client sells direct from the UK. This sounds to me way beyond just hreflang. This sounds like it might need some kind of redirection based on IP?
-
OK, thanks Gianluca.
So how would you specify hreflang so that...?
- domain.co.uk is visible in UK SERPs
- domain.com is visible in all other SERPs
-
Believe none blindly :-), however, trust more people who do International SEO since ages like me or Aleyda or David Sottimano.
-
Thank you Gianluca. I will certainly checkout that deck.
But (groan)... classic SEO experience here. One expert says 'black' then next says 'what'. Who are we to believe?
-
That post on SEOChat, albeit correct in the basics, is frankly old (it still suggests to use Dmoz, which doesn't exist since at least 1 year).
I suggest you view this slide deck by Aleyda Solís: https://es.slideshare.net/aleydasolis/speaking-in-tongues-establishing-a-successful-international-web-presence-smxeast.
-
Ehmm... sorry to say that you're totally wrong... having 3 sites using the same language and using the same exact content, even if you geo-target them, they still are the best example of exact match duplicate content... and only implementing the hreflang you can avoid to see them filtered or 1 appearing in the wrong SERPs.
-
Very nice, I've found Moz's International SEO guide to be helpful as well. How did you decide to proceed here? (if you don't mind me prying a bit)
-
Thanks Joe.
Found this link - by far the best I have read on geo-targeting:
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/google-optimization-help/geo-targeting-techniques-in-google-for-seo/
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 on non 1:1 websites
Hi. I have a client with international websites targeting several different countries. Currently, the US (.com) website outranks the country-specific domain when conducting a search within that country (i.e. US outranks the UK website in the UK). This sounds like a classic case for hrelang. However, the websites are largely not 1:1. They offer different content with a different design and a different URL structure. Each country is on a country-specific domain (.com, .co.uk, .com.au, etc.). As well, the country-specific domains have lower domain authority than the US/.com website - fewer links, lower quality content, poorer UX, etc. Would hreflang still help in this scenario if we were to map it the closest possible matching page? Do the websites not sharing content 1:1 add any risks? The client is worried the US/.com website will lose ranking in the country but the country-specific domain won't gain that ranking. Thanks for any help or examples you can offer!
International SEO | | Matthew_Edgar0 -
When should hreflang be deployed in this situation; now or later ?
HiI have a question in regard to point 1 in Gianluca Fiorelli first comment on Aleyda Solis old but great international targeting article in regard to hreflang: https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-toolit would obvs be amazing if either Gianlucca or Aleyda can answer but if anyone else feels they can do so confidently then that would be great too :)I'm advising someone in similar situation as that (their main brand is USA based on a .com showing up in UK searches too) and they have launched .co.uk sites (without any seo) to target UK brand searches, so obviously the .com is still dominating UK serps for brand, and the .co.uk is ranking on page 4 on average for a brand search.**BUT **before I tell them to roll out hreflang shouldn't they build up some authority etc first for their new country specific (.co.uk) site ? since they are very new and have no authority or even basic SEO and don't rank higher than page 4 for brand searches (the .com is in no1 in both usa and uk).I know hreflang needs to be used correctly here but im not sure when it should be, now or later (after authority has built up for the new uk focused sites) ?In other words I take it deploying the hreflang correctly wont simply cause these home pages to swap positions for brand search in uk (or will it) ? Im worried deploying it immediately could actually destroy the brands current page 1 serps for brand term (since will remove the .com page from the uk serp).Hence i take it its best to build up the new .co.uk sites seo/authority etc first and at least get that sites brand ranking moving up the listings before deploying hreflang on the .com, to then hopefully remove the .com listing in place of the .co.uk for brand ?OR is Gianlucca saying in his comment that correct hreflang usage on both sites should swap the high authority .com no1 position with the low authority .co.uk for a brand search ?Many ThanksDan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
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!
International SEO | | wright3350 -
Hreflang tag on every page?
Hello Moz Community, I'm working with a client who has translated their top 50 landing pages into Spanish. It's a large website and we don't have the resources to properly translate all pages at once, so we started with the top 50. We've already translated the content, title tags, URLs, etc. and the content will live in it's own /es-us/ directory. The client's website is set up in a way that all content follows a URL structure such as: https://www.example.com/en-us/. For Page A, it will live in English at: https://www.example.com/en-us/page-a For Page A, it will live in Spanish at https://www.example.com/es-us/page-a ("page-a" may vary since that part of the URL is translated) From my research in the Moz forums and Webmaster Support Console, I've written the following hreflang tags: /> For Page B, it will follow the same structure as Page A, and I wrote the corresponding hreflang tags the same way. My question is, do both of these tags need to be on both the Spanish and English version of the page? Or, would I put the "en-us" hreflang tag on the Spanish page and the "es-us" hreflang tag on the English page? I'm thinking that both hreflang tags should be on both the Spanish and English pages, but would love some clarification/confirmation from someone that has implemented this successfully before.
International SEO | | DigitalThirdCoast0 -
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 -
Are my hreflang and canonical link tags set correctly?
Currently we have a website in english but over time we will roll out parts of the whole site in different languages for different countries which will also result in country specific English versions of the website. The goal is that Google shows the country specific version of a page in a native language or English if available or falls back to the default English version of the same page otherwise. I listed below how we plan to use hreflang and canonical link tags to achieve this and was hoping to get some feedback from the Moz community if this will work as expected. (1) A page (www.mysite.com/page1) exists only in English as default. Users should be able to find it in every country unless there is an English version specifically for this country. We would use the following tags: (2) A page exists in English (www.mysite.com/id/en/page2) and Bahasa (www.mysite.com/id/id/page2) for a specific country (Indonesia in this case). Users in Indonesia searching in English should find the country specific English page. Indonesians searching in Bahasa should find the Bahasa version of that page. We would use the following tags on the English version: and therefor the following tags on the Bahasa version: In this case there wouldn't be a default English version available for the page. (3) If a page exists in English global, English for Indonesians and Bahasa for Indonesians we would use: on www.mysite.com/id/en/page3 on www.mysite.com/id/id/page3 on www.mysite.com/page3 If www.mysite.com/id/en/page3 and www.mysite.com/page3 are very similar we would risk google picking the page they want to rank for an english keyword searched in Indonesia, correct? (4) If a page in (1) and (2) can be reached with a different URL, we would only use a canonical and don't specify any hreflang tags e.g.: www.mysite.com/en/other-url-to-page1 or
International SEO | | ddspg
www.mysite.com/id/en/other-url-to-page2-english-indonesia (5) If a page that exists as global English page becomes available in English for a specific country as e.g. www.mysite.com/uk/en/page1 we would use the following tags: and also add one more hreflang to www.mysite.com/page1: The assumption here is that Google would rank the localized page instead of the global page after crawling our site again. But since this will be a new page, are we going to lose traffic because www.mysite.com/uk/en/page1 won't rank as well in the beginning (e.g. no offsite optimization)?0 -
Can multiple hreflang tags point to one URL? International SEO question
Moz, Hi Moz, Can multiple hreflang tags point to a single URL? For example, if I have a Canadian site (www.example.com/ca) that targets French and English speakers can I have the following: or would I use: Any insight would be very helpful and greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
International SEO | | DA20131 -
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