Multilingual -> ahref lang, canonical and duplicated title content
-
Hi all!
We have our site eurasmus.com where we are implementing the multilingual.
We have already available english and spanish and we use basically href lang to control different areas.First question:
When a page is not translated but still is visible in both langauges under /en and /es is it enough with the hreflang or should we
add a canonical as well? Nowadays we are apply href lang and only canonicals to the one which are duplicated
in the same language.Second question:
When some pages are not translated, like http://eurasmus.com/en/info/find-intern-placement-austria and http://eurasmus.com/es/info/find-intern-placement-austria,
we are setting up the href lang but still moz detects title and meta duplicated (not duplicate page content).
What do you suggest we should do?Let me know and thank you before hand for your help!
-
What I know is that since almost one year Google is able to deal with duplicated content in a multilingual or multicountry environment if the hreflang is well implemented.
Moreover... if you were using the rel="canonical", you were practically quitting to your Spanish home page (in this specific case) any possibility to even being present in the index, because you would be telling Google:
"Don't consider this URL, but just the canonical one".
This is one of the reasons why Google quit all mention of the rel="canonical" in the hreflang help pages.
-
I am not so sure about using canonical, even if this case is multilingual and not multicountry.
Maybe this is due to the well-known inability Google has to communicate correctly, but in this case it is quite clear with its example:
Some example scenarios where rel="alternate" hreflang="x" is recommended:
You keep the main content in a single language and translate only the template, such as the navigation and footer. Pages that feature user-generated content like a forums typically do this.
This scenario is the one described in this Q&A, so I personally would not suggest canonicalization but yes using hreflang, and - obviously - my main priority would be telling to localize all the content of the page, also because without a complete translation the opportunities to rank in Google.es are substantially zero.
-
I confirm that the moz crawler does not detect or consider the hreflang (in fact no tabs or advice in the moz analytics is dedicated to it).
The only tools that consider it by default (and that I know) are deepcrawl and onpage.org
-
They are not great at writing their own explanations for international. What they meant above is if you have geo-targeted correctly, you would not have to use a canonical between two pages that are the same. That they will figure it out on their own.
You aren't geo-targeting, so I still think the canonical would be needed.
-
Hi there Kate!
Thanks for your time. That is what logic tells me.
But "God" google says, confusing me:
Specifying language and location
We've expanded our support of the rel="alternate" hreflang link element to handle content that is translated or provided for multiple geographic regions. The hreflang attribute can specify the language, optionally the country, and URLs of equivalent content. By specifying these alternate URLs, our goal is to be able to consolidate signals for these pages, and to serve the appropriate URL to users in search. Alternative URLs can be on the same site or on another domain.
Annotating pages as substantially similar content
Optionally, for pages that have substantially the same content in the same language and are targeted at multiple countries, you may use the rel="canonical" link element to specify your preferred version. We’ll use that signal to focus on that version in search, while showing the local URLs to users where appropriate. For example, you could use this if you have the same product page in German, but want to target it separately to users searching on the Google properties for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Update: to simplify implementation, we no longer recommend using rel=canonical.So I guess canonical is no longer needed?
-
HREFLANG is all you need to note the change in language between two pages. However, if the page has not been translated and is available under both language subfolders, make sure there isn't an HREFLANG and has a canonical. When the pages are identical and have 2 URLs, us a canonical and NOT HREFLANG.
I am not sure if Moz detects HREFLANG. If you know it's set up correctly, just ignore the warnings in Moz. And if you can, translate the title and description as well. That'll help get rid of the warnings.
-
Geo-tagging is not necessary if the content is just translated.
-
Did you assign the geography in webmastertools? This is advised and should already prevent some of the problems might they arise ( i think it should be OK)
Using a canonical is always a good way of harnessing the link value to one specific version.
You could test if a problem is there by running your englisch keywords against the local version of Google.
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
-
Shopify Duplicate Content in products
Hello Moz Community, New to Moz and looking forward to beginning my journey towards SEO education and improving our clients' sites. Our client's website is a Shopify store. https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/ Our first Moz reports show 686 duplicate content issues. I will show the first 4 as examples. https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/haida-eagle-teardrop-earrings https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/haida-orca-silver-earrings https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/silver-oval-earrings https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/haida-eagle-spirit-silver-earrings As you can see, URL titles are unique. But I know that the content in each of those products have very similar product descriptions but not exactly. But since they have been flagged as a site issue by Moz, I am guessing that the content is 95% duplicate. So can a rel=canonical be the right solution for this type of duplicate content? Or should I be considering adding new content to each of 686 products to drop below the 95% threshold? Or another solution that I may not be aware of. Thanks in advance for your assistance and expertise! Sean
Technical SEO | | TheUpdateCompany1 -
Subdomain Severe Duplicate Content Issue
Hi A subdomain for our admin site has been indexed and it has caused over 2000 instances of duplicate content. To fix this issue, is a 301 redirect or canoncial tag the best option? http://www.example.com/services http://admin.example.com/services Really appreciate your advice J
Technical SEO | | Metricly-Marketing0 -
Duplicate Titles Aren't Actually Duplicate
I am seeing duplicate title errors, but when I go to fix the problem, the titles are not actually identical. Any advice? Becky
Technical SEO | | Becky_Converge0 -
Newbie Duplicate Title Question
We recently update our website with DNN 6. Once the upgrade was done, I kept recieving log in links on my duplicate title and duplicate content error reports. Is anyone familiar with how to stop these links from showing up? Example of link: http://www.faisongroup.com/Login/tabid/750/Default.aspx?returnurl=%2F Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Technical SEO | | VeronicaCFowler0 -
Why do I get duplicate page title errors.
I keep getting duplicate page title errors on www.etraxc.com/ and www.etraxc.com/default.asp, which are both pointing to the same page. How do i resolve this and how bad is it hurting my SEO.
Technical SEO | | bobbabuoy0 -
Pages with different content and meta description marked as duplicate content
I am running into an issue where I have pages with completely different body and meta description but they are still being marked as having the same content (Duplicate Page Content error). What am I missing here? Examples: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/what-to-expect-in-the-summer-internship
Technical SEO | | WallStreetOasis.com
and
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/something-ventured http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/im-in-the-long-run
and
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/image/jhjpeg0 -
Duplicate Content Issue
Hi Everyone, I ran into a problem I didn't know I had (Thanks to the seomoz tool) regarding duplicate content. my site is oxford ms homes.net and when I built the site, the web developer used php to build it. After he was done I saw that the URL's looking like this "/blake_listings.php?page=0" and I wanted them like this "/blakes-listings" He changed them with no problem and he did the same with all 300 pages or so that I have on the site. I just found using the crawl diagnostics tool that I have like 3,000 duplicate content issues. Is there an easy fix to this at all or does he have to go in and 301 Redirect EVERY SINGLE URL? Thanks for any help you can give.
Technical SEO | | blake-766240 -
Strange duplicate content issue
Hi there, SEOmoz crawler has identified a set of duplicate content that we are struggling to resolve. For example, the crawler picked up that this page www. creative - choices.co.uk/industry-insight/article/Advice-for-a-freelance-career is a duplicate of this page www. creative - choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/Advice-for-a-freelance-career. The latter page's content is the original and can be found in the CMS admin area whilst the former page is the duplicate and has no entry in the CMS. So we don't know where to begin if the "duplicate" page doesn't exist in the CMS. The crawler states that this page www. creative-choices.co.uk/industry-insight/inside/creative-writing is the referrer page. Looking at it, only the original page's link is showing on the referrer page, so how did the crawler get to the duplicate page?
Technical SEO | | CreativeChoices0