Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. International SEO
    4. Should Hreflang x-default be on every page of every country for an International company?

    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.

    Should Hreflang x-default be on every page of every country for an International company?

    International SEO
    2
    2
    1823
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • gravymatt-se
      gravymatt-se Subscriber last edited by

      UPDATED 4/29/2019 4:33 PM

      • I had made to many copy and pastes. Product pages are corrected

      Upon researching the hreflang x-default tag, I am getting some muddy results for implementation on an international company site  older results say just homepage or the country selector but….

      My Question/Direction going forward for the International Site I am working on:  I believe I can to put x-default all the pages of every country and point it to the default language page for areas that are not covered with our current sites. Is this correct?

      From my internet reading, the x-default on every page is not truly necessary for Google but it will be valid implemented.

      My current site setup example:
      https://www.bluewidgets.com Redirects to https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as US/Global)

      Example Countries w/ code Site:- 4 countries/directories US/Global, France, Spain

      Would the code sample below be correct?

      1. https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ (functions as US/Global)

      2. US/Global Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/

      3. US/Global Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/whizzer-5001/

      4. http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions for France)

      5. France Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/fr/fr/

      6. France Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products- https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001

      7. http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as Spain)

      8. Spain Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/

      9. Spain Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001

      Thanks for the spot check

      • Gravy
      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • seoelevated
        seoelevated Subscriber last edited by

        Yes, your understanding of x-default is correct. The purpose of including it everywhere you have alternate HREFLANG links, is to handle any locales you don't explicitly include (to tell the search engine which is the default version of the page for other non-specified locales). And it should be included on each version of the page, along with the other specified alternate links for each locale. Alternatively, you could collect all of these centrally into the sitemap file, rather than inserting into each page. Both types of implementation are valid (but anecdotally I've had better luck with on-page tags instead of sitemap implementation).

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        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.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • MaxSydenham

          Redirect to 'default' or English (/en) version of site?

          Hi Moz Community! I'm trying to work through a thorny internationalization issue with the 'default' and English versions of our site. We have an international set-up of: www.domain.com (in english) www.domain.com/en www.domain.com/en-gb www.domain.com/fr-fr www.domain.com/de-de and so on... All the canonicals and HREFLANGs are set up, except the English language version is giving me pause. If you visit www.domain.com, all of the internal links on that page (due to the current way our cms works) point to www.domain.com/en/ versions of the pages. Content is identical between the two versions. The canonical on, say,  www.domain.com/en/products points to www.domain.com/products.  Feels like we're pulling in two different directions with our internationalization signals. Links go one way, canonical goes another. Three options I can see: Remove the /en/ version of the site. 301 all the /en versions of pages to /. Update the hreflangs to point the EN language users to the / version. **Redirect the / version of the site to /en. **The reverse of the above. **Keep both the /en and the / versions, update the links on / version. **Make it so that visitors to the / version of the site follow links that don't take them to the /en site. It feels like the /en version of the site is redundant and potentially sending confusing signals to search engines (it's currently a bit of a toss-up as to which version of a page ranks). I'm leaning toward removing the /en version and redirecting to the / version. It would be a big step as currently - due to the internal linking - about 40% of our traffic goes through the /en path. Anything to be aware of? Any recommendations or advice would be much appreciated.

          International SEO | | MaxSydenham
          0
        • ThomasHarvey

          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 | | ThomasHarvey
          0
        • mat-relevance

          Is there any reason to get a massive decrease on indexed pages?

          Hi, I'm helping on SEO for a big e-commerce in LatAm and one thing we've experienced during the last months is that our search traffic had reduced and the indexed pages had decreased in a terrible way. The site had over 2 Million indexed pages (which was way too much, since we believe that around 10k would be more than enough to hold the over 6K SKUs) but now this number has decreased to less than 3K in less than 2 months. I've also noticed that most of the results in which the site is still appearing are .pdf or .doc files but not actual content on the website. I've checked the following: Robots (there is no block, you can see that on the image as well) Webmaster Tools Penalties Duplicated content I don't know where else to look for. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance! cpLwX1X

          International SEO | | mat-relevance
          0
        • ALLee

          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 | | ALLee
          1
        • Sudha_Mathew

          Is .in domain affecting international traffic inflow to my site?

          My holiday website http://seekandhide.in/ was completed and went live in Feb 2012. Last month I got 83% traffic from India and 3-5% each from USA and UK. The rest is a mixed bag from other countries. This is largely the trend since the last 3-4 months. I want to attract more organic traffic  from UK and rest of Europe. My SEO consultant says that with a .in domain that will be difficult. My website currently features unique holiday properties in India that typically attract European tourists so I don't think it is a product issue. But both website visits and sales enquiries remain primarily Indian even though total number of visitors have increased gradually over the last 6 months.. My queries are 1. Is it only the .in domain that's affecting inflow of international traffic? 2. Is there anything that I can do to offset it? 3. I own seekandhide.co.uk  too. Is there something I can do with that site without building a whole different website there? If I shift completely to .co.uk, I will have the same issue of being geographically limited and end up losing Indian traffic. 4. Is there something else that is not ok on the site that I am missing? 5. Advice that I get from a lot of consultants is to buy seekandhideindia.com but I plan to add international properties in a couple of years so that name would limit my appeal. Thanks in advance! Sudha

          International SEO | | Sudha_Mathew
          0
        • KaneJamison

          Correct Hreflang & Canonical Implementation for Multilingual Site

          OK, 2 primary questions for a multilingual site. This specific site has 2 language so I'll use that for the examples. 1 - Self-Referencing Hreflang Tag Necessary? The first is regarding the correct implementation of hreflang, and whether or not I should have a self-referencing hreflang tag. In other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), I am uncertain whether the source code should contain the second line below: Obviously the Spanish version should reference the English version, but does it need to reference itself? I have seen both versions implemented, with seemingly good results, but I want to know the best practice if it exists. 2 - Canonical of Current Language or Default Language? The second questions is regarding which canonical to use on the secondary language pages. I am aware of the update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines recently that state not to use canonical, but they say not to do it because everyone was messing it up, not because it shouldn't be done. So, in other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), which of the two following canonicals is correct? OR For this question, you can assume that (A) the English version of the site is our default and (B) the content is identical. Thanks guys, feel free to ask any qualifiers you think are relevant.

          International SEO | | KaneJamison
          1
        • lcourse

          Country name displayed after domain name in google SERP

          our online shop targets clients in the US and worldwide (same URL - no subdirectories - currency changes based on IP). when searching in google.ie or google.no for our site google displays in the SERPS "US" or "United States" after the URL for our site, but for most other US competitors it does not show the country in the SERPS. I deleted our google places listing 2 weeks ago, since I suspected it may be related, but no change so far. In google webmaster tools we have targeted the shop domain to United States, which may be another factor. Unfortunately we can not undo this setting since without it our google US ranking for the most relevant competitive keyword drops from position 8 to position 100+. Server location is in Germany which despite lots of US links and US contact info and USD currency appparently makes google think that the site is not targeting the US. Does anybody know what triggers the country name in the SERPS (google places or webmaster tools or other) and  can give advice if there is any way to get rid of it.

          International SEO | | lcourse
          0
        • jorgediaz

          Pop-up to select country. Any negative SEO effect?

          Hi there! We have similar websites in different countries (it's an ecommerce site). Some times, those websites share the same language and, for example, people from Mexico end up in a page from our website in Argentina. Therefore they see our products in their language buy in a foreign currency. We would like to show them a pop-up (like a shadowbox) depending on their IP to allow them to go to their local website. There wouldn't be any redirect. Would that affect our rankings in any way? Would Googlebots see that as well? Thanks!

          International SEO | | jorgediaz
          0

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.