Is it good practice to use hreflang on pages that have canonicals?
-
I have a page in English that has both English & Spanish translations on it. It is pulled in from a page generated on another site and I am not able to adjust the CSS to display only one language.
Until I can fix this, I have made the English page the canonical for both. Do I still want to use hreflang for English & Spanish pages?
What if I do not have a Spanish page at all. I assume (from what I've read) I should not have an hreflang on the English page. Is this correct?
Thank you in advance.
-
For a proper hreflang implementation, the canonical of each page has to point to itself in addition to referencing the other pages that have the same content in a different language. Otherwise, the implementation would be wrong
-
Just to confirm: I need to remove hreflang on site pages that have a canonical to another page (and/or other website)? Thanks for taking time to answer.
-
For hreflang to be implemented properly, both English and Spanish pages have to reference each other AND each page's canonical has to point to itself.
Having one of the pages point its canonical somewhere else will break the implementation.
-
Only for the pages (English & Spanish) on my site.
-
So if I understand this properly, you have a page on your site and has its canonical pointing to a page on another site and you want to create hreflang for both pages? Or only for the page on your website?
-
I understand. I was asking about the situation where the canonical points to a page not on my website.
-
To answer your last question, yes - you don't need to implement hreflang if you only have an English page.
However, if you have an English and a Spanish page for the same content, then you'll need to implement hreflang on both and have the canonical of each page point to itself. This is an important element of the hreflang implementation and where we see a lot of implementation errors. Having the canonical for both pages point to the English version is wrong.
You can read more about hreflang in MOZ's documentation here.
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
-
Over 40+ pages have been removed from the indexed and this page has been selected as the google preferred canonical.
Over 40+ pages have been removed from the indexed and this page has been selected as the google preferred canonical. https://studyplaces.com/about-us/ The pages affected by this include: https://studyplaces.com/50-best-college-party-songs-of-all-time-and-why-we-love-them/ https://studyplaces.com/15-best-minors-for-business-majors/ As you can see the content on these pages is totally unrelated to the content on the about-us page. Any ideas why this is happening and how to resolve.
Technical SEO | | pnoddy0 -
Using # in parameters?
I am trying to understand why a website would use # instead of a ? for its parameters? I have put an example of the URL below: http://www.warehousestationery.co.nz/office-supplies/adhesives-tapes-and-fastenings#prefn1=brand&prefn2=colour&prefv1=Command&prefv2=Clear Any help would be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CaitlinDW1 -
Do you get penalized in search results when you use a heading tag, but it's not technically a heading (used for emphasis)?
Do you get penalized in search results when you use a heading tag, but it's not technically a heading? My clients are using heading tags for text they want to emphasize and make stand out. Does this affect search rankings for SEO?
Technical SEO | | jthompson05130 -
Should I use Event Schema for a page that reports on an event?
I have a question about using Schema data. Specifically: Should I use Event Schema for a page that reports on an event? I provide high-quality coverage (reporting) about new products being introduced at an industry trade show. For the event, I create a single page using the event name, and provide a great deal of information on how to attend the show, the best places to stay and other insider tips to help new attendees. Then during the show, I list the new products being introduced along with photos and videos. Should I use event schema data for this page, or does Google only want the event organizer to use that data? Any benefits or drawbacks to using event schema? Thanks! Richard
Technical SEO | | RichardInFlorida0 -
Container Page/Content Page Duplicate Content
My client has a container page on their website, they are using SiteFinity, so it is called a "group page", in which individual pages appear and can be scrolled through. When link are followed, they first lead to the group page URL, in which the first content page is shown. However, when navigating through the content pages, the URL changes. When navigating BACK to the first content page, the URL is that for the content page, but it appears to indexers as a duplicate of the group page, that is, the URL that appeared when first linking to the group page. The client updates this on the regular, so I need to find a solution that will allow them to add more pages, the new one always becoming the top page, without requiring extra coding. For instance, I had considered integrating REL=NEXT and REL=PREV, but they aren't going to keep that up to date.
Technical SEO | | SpokeHQ1 -
Is it a good idea to use the rel canonical tag to refer to the original source?
Sometimes we place our blog post also on a external site. In this case this post is duplicated. Via the post we link to the original source but is it also possible to use the rel canonical tag on the external site? For example: The original blogpost is published on http://www.original.com/post The same blogpost is published on http:///www.duplicate.com/post. In this case is it wise to put a rel canonical on http://www.duplicate.com/post like this: ? What do you think? Thanks for help! Robert
Technical SEO | | Searchresult0 -
Using a canonical tag to eliminate ID variables?
My research on seomoz has resulted in conflicting ideas regarding the canonical tag. One article says avoid it, the other says embrace it. We have fixed a majority of our architecture problems using redirects for duplicate content, however, when we send out newsletters we still have these pesky tracking ids. I figured out how to remove them from analytics, but am unsure of how this affects our SEO. An example of one of our links is: https://www.quicklearn.com/transcript/?utm_source=news101011&utm_medium=e&utm_campaign=newclass&nlid=news101011&UID=2287 The original url being www.quicklearn.com/transcript/ the custom (non-Google) variables being nlid and uid. Is this a problem? Do I need rel cononical tags on each and every page?
Technical SEO | | QuickLearnTraining0 -
What's the difference between a category page and a content page
Hello, Little confused on this matter. From a website architectural and content stand point, what is the difference between a category page and a content page? So lets say I was going to build a website around tea. My home page would be about tea. My category pages would be: White Tea, Black Tea, Oolong Team and British Tea correct? ( I Would write content for each of these topics on their respective category pages correct?) Then suppose I wrote articles on organic white tea, white tea recipes, how to brew white team etc...( Are these content pages?) Do I think link FROM my category page ( White Tea) to my ( Content pages ie; Organic White Tea, white tea receipes etc) or do I link from my content page to my category page? I hope this makes sense. Thanks, Bill
Technical SEO | | wparlaman0