You will want to listen to Kate. As simple as it may seem it's extremely complicated.
Your example is right below my example is below that
- "URL for the USA: https://company.com/en-US/products/product-name/ just use /US if not targeting Spanish in the United States
- URL for Canada: https://company.com/en-ca/products/product-name/ No French-Canadian? just use/CA
- URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/products/product-name / in Germany I might not be able to read your URL I would speak just Deutsche
- URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/en/products/product-name/." the rest of the world should not need EN as they speak lots of languages. You want to showcase your language offerings to them.
My example is below this line my example is below but say were targeting the United Kingdom with your URLS
- URL for the USA: https://company.com/us/products/product-name/ hreflang=”en-US.”
- URL for Canada: https://company.com/ca/products/product-name/ hreflang=”en-CA”
- URL for Canada FR: https://company.com/ca-fr/produits/nom-du-produit/ hreflang=”fr-CA” />
- URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/produkte/produktname/ hreflang=”de” />
- URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/products/product-name/ hreflang=”x-default
This is the code you should add in a page's tag for the UK version of company.com would be:
-
URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/produkte/produktname/ hreflang=”de”
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Note I used German in the URL instead of English because that is what my target audience will be reading.
-
URL for the USA: https://company.com/us/products/product-name/ hreflang=”en-US.”
-
URL for Canada: https://company.com/ca/products/product-name/ hreflang=”en-CA.”
-
URL for Canada: https://company.com/ca-fr/produits/nom-du-produit / hreflang=”fr-CA” />
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company.com/” hreflang=”x-default” />
Note I used French Canadian in the URL instead of English because that is what my target audience will be reading. ( I do not know French-Canadian so I really just used French) French-Canadian was also modified there are different versions of English as well with Canada and the UK
https://company.com main UK version of the site, a German language German subdirectory, an English-language Canadian subdirectory, and a French Language Canadian subdirectory:
Also, you add to the Hreflang tag is the x default code:
This is an additional line, which tells Google that this version of the site is the one that should be displayed if no other version of the site is suitable. If this link happened added to the example at the top of the page, then if someone from Spain visited the site Google would direct them to https://company.com
All you have to do is list the alternative version of the pages and have the x default at the bottom. For example, this is what you would do for the English Canadian version:
- company.com/” hreflang=”en-GB” />
- company.com/de” hreflang=”de” />
- company.com/ca-fr” hreflang=”fr-CA” />
- company.com/” hreflang=”x-default” />
If you're using any languages that have read right to left this will be an issue with encoding you can no longer get away without making sure, there's no byte order mark in your code, and you must use UTF-8
- http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/
- http://searchengineland.com/auditing-hreflang-annotations-common-issues-avoid-219483
- https://www.branded3.com/blog/overcome-common-errors-implementing-hreflang-tag/
- https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/hreflang-101-how-to-avoid-international-duplication/
- https://www.branded3.com/blog/implementing-hreflang-tag/
Tools
- https://www.deepcrawl.com
- https://screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
- https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/07/troubleshooting-hreflang-annotations-in.html
Especially when you get into all the different languages and encoding correctly or different dialects being a German myself I am keenly aware of the differences and it would affect my search intent as well.
So if you're going, /de/ German make sure you’re Just looking to target those with the ability to speak and read German not a particular region like Germany itself, Austria, Switzerland, etc.
Not to say that/DE will not suffice but you will want to ensure you're targeting The language as well as the country or just the language depending on what your exact goal is.
I hope this helps,
Tom