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.
Hreflang : mixing with/without country code for same language
-
Hello,
I would like to display 3 different english versions of my website : 1 for UK, 1 for CA and 1 for other english users.
It would look like this for a page:
. (english content with £ prices)
<link rel="alternate" href="https: xxx.com="" en-ca" hreflang="en-CA">(english content with $CA prices)</link rel="alternate" href="https:>
<link rel="alternate" href="https: xxx.com="" en="" " hreflang="en">(english content without currency)</link rel="alternate" href="https:>
I wonder if I can mix this hreflang without country code with hreflangs with country code for the 2 other specific versions... or if the hreflang without country code version will appear whatever the country, even if i specified it .
In other terms, is hreflang="en" > hreflang="en-CA" + hreflang="en-GB" if tagged together on a same page?
Thank you
-
I think you are taking that rather too literally.
For example, as I said the .com could be the one targeted with an hreflang="x-default. A person in the UK would, by definition be served with the .com/uk version.
You wouldn't put a hreflang="x-default on the /uk homepage.
Regards
Nigel
-
The x-default is just what the link you provided says it is:
From Google: The reserved value hreflang="x-default" is used when no other language/region matches the user's browser setting. This value is optional, but recommended, as a way for you to control the page when no languages match. A good use is to target your site's homepage where there is a clickable map that enables the user to select their country.
If you use it for just one language, the issue comes when you have more than one language. The setup for x-default is for when there is no language detected, not that a general, non-regional language is detected.
-
Surely the x-default is, as the tag suggests, a default where no country or language is targeted? So if someone resided in an untargeted country and the site happened to rank it would be that one that came up.
Someone in the UK (which contained a UK target tag) would not go to default first, as you suggest, and then select their own country & language. That's misleading.
I agree that the subfolders would be used to target each country but you would still need both country and language. With Canada you may wish to target en and fr as both are relevant and each would reside in a different sub-folder.
The language is essential imho.
Regards Nigel
-
Actually, the x-default is meant to be for a page that allows users to select a country/language combination.
Alexis, in theory, what you are proposing should work. However, it is not always perfect. There is so much that goes into how Google serves content to each user. You might not see it working perfectly every time, but you can use the non-country with two country-specific hreflang tags together.
In fact, the country coded hreflang tags were meant to be dialect-specific. So a site could have US English content and UK English content, but also more general English content for the rest of the English speaking people.
In fact, it sounds like if the only thing changing is the currency, you might try geo-targeting subfolders. You can do hreflang in addition to that, but geotargeting is what is meant to be used here.
- Content for CA: https://www.domain.com/ca/content
- Content for GB: https://www.domain.com/gb/content
- General Content: https://www.domain.com/content
Claim the subfolders in Google Search Console as different properties and then target each one to those countries in the International Targeting area.
Then add hreflang the way you mentioned with those URLs. However, this setup won't work if you are doing things with another language mixed in. If you are planning on that, let me know.
-
Hi Alexis
If the third one is the default then you need a default hreflang tag.
https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag
So the last one would have this tag pointing to it:
More on Google here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
It will then become the default site for all people not in England or Canada. Google will not see any of them as duplicate content.
Regards
Nigel
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
-
Few pages without SSL
Hi, A website is not fully secured with a SSL certificate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdenaSEO
Approx 97% of the pages on the website are secured. A few pages are unfortunately not secured with a SSL certificate, because otherwise some functions on those pages do not work. It's a website where you can play online games. These games do not work with an SSL connection. Is there anything we have to consider or optimize?
Because, for example when we click on the secure lock icon in the browser, the following notice.
Your connection to this site is not fully secured Can this harm the Google ranking? Regards,
Tom1 -
Meta-description issue in SERPs for different countries
I'm working with a US client on the SEO for their large ecommerce website, I'm working on it from the UK. We've now optimised several of the pages including updating the meta-descriptions etc. The problem is when I search on the keyword iin the UK I see the new updated version of the meta-description in SERPs results. BUT when my client searches on the same keyword in the US they're see the old version of the meta-description. Does any one have any idea why this is happening and how we can resolve it? Thanks Tanya
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TanyaKorteling0 -
Hreflang in header...should I do a Sitemap?
A client implemented hreflang tags in the site header. MOZ says you aren't supposed to do an hreflang Sitemap as well. My question is how should I do a Sitemap now (or should I do one at all)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | navdm0 -
Do I need to add the actual language for meta tags and description for different languages? cited for duplicate content for different language
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and this community so pardon my questions. We recently launched on our drupal site mandarin language version for the entire site. And when i do the crawl site, i get duplicate content for the pages that are in mandarin. Is this a problem or can i ignore this? Should i make different page titles for the different languages? Also, for the metatag and descriptions, would it better in the native language for google to search for? thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lynetteboss0 -
Sites in multiple countries using same content question
Hey Moz, I am looking to target international audiences. But I may have duplicate content. For example, I have article 123 on each domain listed below. Will each content rank separately (in US and UK and Canada) because of the domain? The idea is to rank well in several different countries. But should I never have an article duplicated? Should we start from ground up creating articles per country? Some articles may apply to both! I guess this whole duplicate content thing is quite confusing to me. I understand that I can submit to GWT and do geographic location and add rel=alternate tag but will that allow all of them to rank separately? www.example.com www.example.co.uk www.example.ca Please help and thanks so much! Cole
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColeLusby0 -
Duplicate content on sites from different countries
Hi, we have a client who currently has a lot of duplicate content with their UK and US website. Both websites are geographically targeted (via google webmaster tools) to their specific location and have the appropriate local domain extension. Is having duplicate content a major issue, since they are in two different countries and geographic regions of the world? Any statement from Google about this? Regards, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney0 -
GeoIP - Redirect all but target country
My client would like to redirect all non UK traffic from their UK site to their main group site. I am intending to use a .htaccess redirect, like this: RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} !^GB$
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cottamg
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.group.com$1 [R,L] I have tested the redirect at it works fine. My question is if I put this in place would it have any negative SEO impact on the UK site?0 -
Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc
I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
/aclk - No cd value
/search - No cd value
/url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!0