Thanks again really is a big help

Ive read that correct charsets are important, i take it that plugin handles that correctly ?

Do you know if plugin should work fine in WP Multisite environment with network childs domain mapped with their cctlds ?

Re: "using x-default and removing the canonical is nonsense" The dev just meant if going down route of NOT using canonicals AND using x-default in the hreflang then would need to suppress Yoast in those instances.

Re:  "In my example, I used two very similar (if not the same langs), however there are things that change, but those are minimal (take as an example a car "hood", in England a "bonnet"). As those are such minimal changes, I don't think a specific version for GB is needed if you are already serving a US version (that's up to you)."    Would you say the same if phrases containing these regional variations (hood vs bonnet) were on your target kw list ? Since i find that whilst Google is getting better at semantic relationships between words i think that they do need to be specifically targeted/appear in content & meta data in order to rank for them, or at least increase chances of ranking for them.

Also re your final paragraph 'car repair centers' would be a logical target kw for such a page so i would have thought it would be beneficial to create 2 versions of this page, 1 for US targeting US spelling & 1 for UK targeting UK spelling (centers vs centres), rather than 1x English to serve both UK & US audiences

Also I would have thought it would be useless showing a list of US car repair centers to UK visitors ?

Sorry for more questions, think that should be it now & thanks again

All Best

Dan

Hi Apog

Thanks so much for all that great info !

First of all, the main default site is for general/global targeting so have instructed dev to put on network.domain.com/en (but mapped to tld domain.com) to signify english but not be country specific - global kw research has determined USA spelling to be used predominently with just one or two UK spelt target kw).

The next stage is a Turkish geotargeted site that will be in Turkish language on our WP MS network network.domain.com/tr but mapped with a tld such as www.domain.tr which will be geotargeted in GWT. Given these other geo signals such as gwt, native language in body copy etc is hreflang even needed for such a scenario or due to  hreflang is overkill/not needed ?

Re your example (US/GB): You are saying use x-default but my dev says (copied in my question) that if we want to use x-default then would have to suppress Yoast re the canonical, so any ideas how to resolve that ? Does the plugin you linked to handle hreflang without requiring Yoast to be suppressed re having x-default or not applicable since only refers to scenario where not having canonicals.

Also you say your example set up is if the contents not exactly the same, do you mean if they have substantially different content ? And your second point (below the example set up) says if they have the same content - so here do you mean if the only difference is US/vsGB versions of english language/spelling but otherwise identical ? And if our target kw include the USvsGB spelling variations then i take it the en-gb version isnt expendable after all ?

Thanks for all your help and sorry for more questions but i really need to get to the bottom of this asap

Many Thanks

Dan

thanks Kristina !

Hi

My clients dev has added custom fields for adding hreflang tags to head of pages such as:

"Rel Type", "The URL", and "Language Code"

Am i right in thinking that until a different language/country version of the site is created these can remain empty or should they still be populated once added say with some sort of global reference or best left blank since will leave the head content global by default ?

Also how important is it to add charset to the language code ? since seems optional ?

Also this set up is on WP multi-site with Yoast and devs asked me the below:

_One thing to note is that Yoast generates its own "canonical" tags - so if _
_you are going to use hreflang tags and canonical tags then you don't need to _
_add a canonical using the custom fields I have set up - Yoast has that _
sorted.

_But if you are going down the route of NOT having any canonical tags - and _
_using a x-defult for the hreflang tags, I will need to try and suppress the _
_Yoast canonical tag so you can do this. Much depends on your approach and _
what you think is best.

So how do i know if using canonicals or x-default, i take it best simplest to leverage Yoast and hence not add canonicals to custom fields ? Isnt x-default just for indicating language selectors/redirector not specific to 1 region? So long as havnt got those then good to proceed with Yoasts generated canonicals ?

Cheers

dan

This is all they are saying thus far, make any sense ?

We've set it up as network.domain.com so that every language site - including the UK version - can be subfoldered from one master place. So in actuality the UK site is www.domain.com/uk but it is domain mapped to the central URL www.domain.com

HI Andy

ive got another client going over to international targeting via browser location too, although that involves IP sniffing which can be a nightmare and cause all sorts of probs not helping anxiety levels

Good luck !

All Best

Dan

i will do

Thanks for your comment Vizergy !

i think so but asking them for clarification

if so though, i would have thought best to just fwd/redirect the tld to the subfolder (rather than the other way round)

i will find out what they mean and come back though

cheers

dan

Hi

Ive got a clients dev saying they are setting up with country/language specific subfolders (as i recommended) BUT now they are saying they want to set up on network.domain.com (for example) and then each language will have its own sub-folder BUT will be domain mapped to the TLD as and when they get them.

I have asked them to clarify since sounds a bit strange since thought best to have domain.com then /uk and /us etc etc and sure ok to forward country specific TLD's to these subfolders. Its this new subdomain (network.) thats concerning me and mapping rather than forwarding (or is it the same thing) but anyone know off hand if above sounds ok or also thinks a bit strange or know issues with such a set up ?

many thanks

dan

No I want to 301 a page that became a 404 after devs missed redirecting during site migration where urls changed. Moz saying a few of these 404 urls still have authority. I know should 301.anyway even if they don't but are they likely to still have authority according to G ? In other words how long aftr an old page/url with authority that becomes.a 404 retains it ?

thanks Dr Pete !

What i meant was how long aprox do you have to set up a 301 for an old page resolving in a 404 before it loses its page authority ?

If you leave it a month say will it have lost the PA or will it retain it so will still transfer the PA once you 301 it say 4 weeks or more since its became a 404 page?

Or is it more likely that Moz Analytics hasnt updated yet and still attributing the url with an authority score when in fact Google is likely to have dropped its authority since been a 404 for 4 weeks ?

cheers

dan

And how long does it take for the PA on an old page to 'expire' if hasnt been transferred ?

Say if devs have missed some pages in the migration (4 weeks ago) which are now resolving in a 404, which Moz Dashboard is still reporting as having PA.

Will that authority still transfer if set up a 301 4x weeks later ?

I know we should 301 anyway, to reduce 404's, but just interested in knowing if the pages old authority expires at any point (which i'm sure it must do eventually).

Thanks

Dan

great thanks Dr Pete !