Empty href lang
-
Our site is a multilingual , and its our structure for different lang :
for en :domain.com/myPost
for Arabic : domain.com/ar/myPost
and most of the page and post in main site , have Arabic version also.
and we want to generate href lang tag for all pages and posts.(for both language)
and its my problem ;
if i have a post or page in main site( English ), but the Arabic version not published yet
and the href lang in English site pointed to the arabic url page (the page that doesn't exist yet)
{arabic version almost will publish after 4-5 days }
is it harmful for our SEO ? that href lang point to the URL that doesnt exist?
-
That is technically an error. If a page or post doesn't exist in a certain language, hreflangs pointing to it (from other pages) shouldn't exist. When the post is published, then the hreflangs should be written. It's probably not going to destroy your sites rankings by itself, but in SEO, the second you start making concessions on one front - people argue that you should make more concessions in other areas. Before you know it, you have a big tangle of loads of different errors. Optimisation, is about making things 'optimum'. It's not optimum to have hreflang errors like that
-
Hi,
If its only a few days until the Arabic pages are published, I would wait until then to push out the hreflang implementation.
Although hreflnag is not a ranking signal, having it implemented with pages that are not published yet would generate internal 404 pages, which can cause a few issues for the site.
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
-
Who is the best SEO expert in the World?
Hey everyone, i am creating a blog post on Top SEO Experts in the World. I need your recommendation who is in the top 10 list? Your suggestions is highly appreciated for me. Thanks!
International SEO | | gxpl090 -
href lang questions - please help
Hi I have a few questions about href lang implementation and I was hoping for some guidance / opinions. An international website is using mostly a folder structure, but for some locations it might have standalone sub-domains. Some folders are there to target locations and languages, with others just targeting languages. See the list below: domain.com/es-mx [Language: Spanish - Location: Mexico]
International SEO | | MarkCanning
domain.com/pt-br [Language: Portuguese - Location: Brazil]
domain.com/ja-jp [Language: Japanese - Location: Japan]
domain.com/en-jp [Language: English - Location: Japan]
domain.com/fr-ca [Language: French - Location: Canada]
domain.com/en-ca [Language: English - Location: Canada]
domain.com/en-ie [Language: English - Location: Ireland]
domain.com/ar [Language: Arabic]
domain.com/ph [Language: Tagalog]
domain.com/it [Language: Italian]
domain.com/tr [Language: Turkish]
domain.com/kr [Language: Korean]
domain.com/fr [Language: French]
domain.com/ru [Language: Russian]
domain.com/vn [Language: Vietnamese] domain.in/en [Language: English - Location Indian]
domain.in/hi [Language: Hindi - Location Indian] My questions are: Is href lang sitemap equally as good as the href lang meta tag in terms of effectiveness. I know that the sitemap is easier to maintain and upkeep but i don't know which one is better as google recommends both. How do you mix your listings when some are targeting language and country and others are just targeting language speakers (not tied to any specific country). So take for example in the list above: there would be a general site for french speakers and then one for french speakers in Canada. Thanks for your advise in advance.0 -
Moving from single domain to multiple CCTLDs
Hi, I have a website targeting 3 markets (and therefor 3 languages). I was currently using a single domain with each market being targeted in the following format: www.website.com/pl
International SEO | | cellydy
www.website.com/de
www.website.com/hu It's clear to me by looking at organic results, that in my industry (Real Estate) Google is putting a large emphasis on local businesses and local domains. Top 10 organic results for all my keywords in all markets have country specific CCTLDs. I decided to migrate from a single domain strategy to a multi domain strategy. I own the domains. The new structure is www.website.com/pl -> www.website.pl
www.website.com/de -> www.website.de
www.website.com/hu -> www.website.hu All the website have been added to google search console and 301 redirects are in place and working correctly. The pages are all interlinked and have rel=alternate to each other. The sitemaps are all done correctly. My question is how do I tell Google about this. The change of address feature only works for changing one domain to one other domain. It's been a week and the old www.website.com domain is still showing up (even considering 301 redirects). Or do I just need to be patient and wait it out? Any tips?0 -
Baidu Webmaster Tools: How to setup in "Site Properties" the field "Affiliate subject"?
Hi ,
International SEO | | lcourse
finally I managed to setup my site in Baidu Webmaster Tools with the help of a freelance staff member in China. Site is verified and sitemap submitted. In section "Site Properties", field "Affiliate subject" I can't figure out after extensive search what I need to setup here for a foreign company without any presence and without company registration in China. Anybody can help? When I click on this field, it indicates "Site association subject is a necessary link for mobile resources to enter search." so my site will not show up in mobile results without it? Grateful for any tips on how to resolve this piece of puzzle of the baidu setup.
Thanks0 -
Why are some regions/countries not indexing correctly?
Hi All, Recently I've added different regions (website.com/se/ etc) to Google search console and pointed them to their relevant countries, but only half are working when I search from a regions IP with a VPN and use the correct Google search ( Google.se etc ). Will this correct over time? or is something else causing them not to be indexed up correctly? Thanks in advance <colgroup><col width="81"><col width="104"></colgroup>
International SEO | | WattbikeSEO
| Country | Appear in SERP 17/12/2018 |
| AU | TRUE |
| CZ | TRUE |
| DK | TRUE |
| HK | TRUE |
| IE | TRUE |
| IT | TRUE |
| KR | TRUE |
| NL | TRUE |
| NZ | TRUE |
| SE | TRUE |
| SG | TRUE |
| US | TRUE |
| ZA | TRUE |
| AE | FALSE |
| AT | FALSE |
| CH | FALSE |
| CN | N/A |
| DE | FALSE |
| EE | FALSE |
| ES | FALSE |
| FI | FALSE |
| FR | FALSE |
| GB | FALSE |
| GR | FALSE |
| JP | FALSE |
| NO | FALSE |
| PL | FALSE |
| RU | FALSE |
| SI | FALSE |
| TR | FALSE |0 -
XML Href Lang Setup
Hi, currently I have created an XML Href Lang site map for the main .com website. Lets call it projectx.com in this XML href lang file I have indicated that there is also a projectx.co.uk version of the site. Question: Would the XML HREF LANG sitemap file be uploaded to the root of the main projectx.com only? or would another version need to be uploaded to the projectx.co.uk root too? Thanks in advance!
International SEO | | Iannaude0 -
Change Lang. IP base, Browser Base or Manually?
Hello I would like to ask a question about multi lang/international Website. Which one is better for SEO? User in Different Countries automatically see The website in their Language? or User see the English version and can change the language manually?
International SEO | | Vahid-af0 -
Proper use of HREF-LANG tag and Geotargeting.
I am working with a global company that has different country sites (these are distinguished via country subdomains - country.site.com). Upon looking at the Google Analytics data, I noticed that even though the different country geotargeting settings aren't set up correctly, we are reaching the right target market for each site. My hunch is because even though there is no geotargeting, the language for each country site is making the content relavant (this in combination with the subdomain). I have read through various resources here on MOZ, and noticed that the primary purpose of the href-lang tag is important if you have similar/identical pages that are targeted towards different countries/languages. If the pages are translations however, how important or impactful is it to set the geotargeting and href-lang tags for the other sites altogether?
International SEO | | marshseo0