Hreflang Implementation
-
Hello All,
I'm currently working on a website with different folders for different country. For now I have defined the href lang implementation as below:
http://www.homepage.com/en/default.html"/>
Language: English - Country: United Kingdomhttp://www.homepage.com/enus/default.html"/>
Language: English - Country: United Stateshttp://www.homepage.com/nl/default.html"/>
Language: Dutch - Country: Netherlandshttp://www.homepage.com/nlbe/default.html"/>
Language: Dutch - Country: Belgiumhttp://www.homepage.com/fr/default.html"/>
Language: French - Country: All french speaking countrieshttp://www.homepage.com/de/default.html"/>
Language: German - Country: All german speaking countrieshttp://www.homepage.com/es/camisa-a-medida.html"/>
Language: Spanish - Country: Spainhttp://www.homepage.com/enen/default.html" />
Language: English - Country: All other countriesDoes this make any sense?
Furthermore, how do I implement this on underlying pages. Do I fill out the URL dynamically according to the URL the tags are found on? Or do I use these tags mentioning the homepage on all underlying pages? If so, how do I avoid duplicate content issues between NL and NL-BE and EN-GB, EN-US and EN? Canonicals?
Besides the whole hreflang implementation I was wondering if it's worthwhile or advisable to implement lang="en" xml:lang="en_"_ in the HTML tag and http-equiv="content-language" content="en_"_ in the META tags?
-
Hi Bulserik
regarding those two questions, if we look just at Google, they are not taken into consideration by Google for International SEO.
On the other:
- because they don't harm a site;
- because they are used by Bing for geolocalization and geotargeting (Bing does not use the hreflang)
then, it is a good idea using them.
Check this old but still valid post on Bing about how to geotarget for them: http://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2011/03/01/how-to-tell-bing-your-websites-country-and-language/
Finally, just to be sure:
remember to create Google Webmaster Tools profile for each subfolder and geotarget them for their corresponding countries.
-
No one able to help me out on this one?
-
Great, thanks. I'm afraid I'm on ISS though so have to see how to get that working. I understand from your answer the correct way of doing this is by implementing a dynamic URL in the hreflang tag and not just the homepage.
Besides the technical implementation you explained above, I'm assuming the way I segmented the site is okay right?
After that I still have this part unsolved: Besides the whole hreflang implementation I was wondering if it's worthwhile or advisable to implement lang="en"xml:lang="en" in the HTML tag and http-equiv="content-language" content="en" in the META tags?
-
Assuming you're on an Apache server, this works for internal pages:
" hreflang="x-default" />
" hreflang="en-au" />
" hreflang="en-ca" />The REQUEST_URI will pull the internal page you're on (so if you're /about, then it will add /about to all 3 hreflang tags. I don't know if (but I think) this won't work on IIS servers. Just a thought if it doesn't seem to work.
Assuming your folder structure stays the same, you should be all set.
And once you're done, test it using Flang.
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
-
Several hreflang links pointing to same URL
Hi, Does anyone know whether hreflang links can be used using the following markup? I can't seem to find any info on this particular usage, but it "feels" incorrect to me. (duplicate content issues)
Technical SEO | | dimitrihuyghe
Our development team tells me this is the way the markup should be, since languages are initially set using a cookie and all different languages are using the same URL. Thanks! <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">nl</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">x-default</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">fr</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">de</a>"/>0 -
Robots.txt in subfolders and hreflang issues
A client recently rolled out their UK business to the US. They decided to deploy with 2 WordPress installations: UK site - https://www.clientname.com/uk/ - robots.txt location: UK site - https://www.clientname.com/uk/robots.txt
Technical SEO | | lauralou82
US site - https://www.clientname.com/us/ - robots.txt location: UK site - https://www.clientname.com/us/robots.txt We've had various issues with /us/ pages being indexed in Google UK, and /uk/ pages being indexed in Google US. They have the following hreflang tags across all pages: We changed the x-default page to .com 2 weeks ago (we've tried both /uk/ and /us/ previously). Search Console says there are no hreflang tags at all. Additionally, we have a robots.txt file on each site which has a link to the corresponding sitemap files, but when viewing the robots.txt tester on Search Console, each property shows the robots.txt file for https://www.clientname.com only, even though when you actually navigate to this URL (https://www.clientname.com/robots.txt) you’ll get redirected to either https://www.clientname.com/uk/robots.txt or https://www.clientname.com/us/robots.txt depending on your location. Any suggestions how we can remove UK listings from Google US and vice versa?0 -
What is SEO best practice to implement a site logo as an SVG?
What is SEO best practice to implement a site logo as an SVG?
Technical SEO | | twisme
Since it is possible to implement a description for SVGs it seems that it would be possible to use that for the site name. <desc>sitename</desc>
{{ STUFF }} There is also a title tag for SVGs. I’ve read in a thread from 2015 that sometimes it gets confused with the title tag in the header (at least by Moz crawler) which might cause trouble. What is state of the art here? Any experiences and/or case studies with using either method? <title>sitename</title>
{{ STUFF }} However, to me it seems either way that best practice in terms of search engines being able to crawl is to load the SVG and implement a proper alt tag: What is your opinion about this? Thanks in advance.1 -
Despite proper hreflang and lang attribute implementation using xml sitemaps, I'm seeing sitelinks from different countries. Any help please?
When someone searches for our brand in US, instead of only US links, users are served with canadian or iranian sitelinks. Despite we have properly implemented xml sitemaps with hreflangs, even we have implemented lang attribute in the head section of source code for every country. I'd be thankful for any advice.
Technical SEO | | eset0 -
Hreflang for over 200 countries
Hi all, Working on implementing hreflangs on a site, but the client has presence in over 200 countries. Does it mean we have to implement over 200 Hrelfangs? Thanks, Asad
Technical SEO | | TTLO0 -
Use hreflang language or hreflang language & country code
Hi, our website has 7 languages, but only one English version (site.com/en). When I add a hreflang tag below, is it enough to just target English search queries no matter where they come from by using only the language code, or should I specify all countries (UK, USA, Ireland, Australia, NZ, ...) by using separate hreflangs? Same for Portuguese, Dutch & French... Should I just add the language tags or specify all countries? Like I said, we don't have localized versions for those countries, with specific content targeting those countries.
Technical SEO | | jorisbrabants0 -
Hreflang tag implentation
Hi, We've had hreflang tags implemented on our site for a few weeks now, and while we are seeing some improvements for the regional subfolders I wanted to double check I had the tags implemented correctly (a couple of examples are below). However while the regional subfolder sites are now ranking instead of the US site for some keywords, some key search terms are still returning the US site. Could this be due to incorrect implementation for that specific page? Due to complications with using Magento we're implementing the tags in the site maps. Also magento appears to be inserting a rel canonical tag automatically for each page and self referencing e.g. On www.example.com/uk/security-cameras (one of the pages we're having issues with) the canonical tag is http://www.example.com/uk/security-cameras" />. Is this an issue? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks. <url><loc>http://www.example.com/uk/dvrs-kits</loc>
Technical SEO | | ahyde
<lastmod>2014-07-23</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority></url>
<url><loc>http://www.example.com/uk/dvrs-kits/1080p</loc>
<lastmod>2014-07-23</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority></url>0 -
Is this tabbed implementation of SEO copy correct (i.e. good for getting indexed and in an ok spot in the html as viewed by search bots?
We are trying to switch to a tabbed version of our team/product pages at SeatGeek.com, but where all tabs (only 2 right now) are viewed as one document by the search engines. I am pretty sure we have this working for the most part, but would love some quick feedback from you all as I have never worked with this approach before and these pages are some of our most important. Resources: http://www.ericpender.com/blog/tabs-and-seo http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=03fdefb488a16343&hl=en http://searchengineland.com/is-hiding-content-with-display-none-legitimate-seo-13643 Sample in use: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors **Old Version: ** http://screencast.com/t/BWn0OgZsXt http://seatgeek.com/boston-celtics-tickets/ New Version with tabs: http://screencast.com/t/VW6QzDaGt http://screencast.com/t/RPvYv8sT2 http://seatgeek.com/miami-heat-tickets/ Notes: Content not displayed stacked on browser when Javascript turned off, but it is in the source code. Content shows up in Google cache of new page in the text version. In our implementation the JS is currently forcing the event to end before the default behavior of adding #about in this case to the url string - this can be changed, should it be? Related to this, the developer made it so that typing http://seatgeek.com/miami-heat-tickets/#about directly into the browser does not go to the tab with copy, which I imagine could be considered spammy from a human review perspective (this wasn't intentional). This portion of the code is below the truncated view of the fetch as Googlebot, so we didn't have that resource. Are there any issues with hidden text / is this too far down in the html? Any/all feedback appreciated. I know our copy is old, we are in the process of updating it for this season.
Technical SEO | | chadburgess0