Hreflang and canonicalization
-
When using hreflang in order to deliver the relevant version in SERs, should we also make use of a reference to a canonical version to avoid duplication?
Currently, we provide different regional versions of our content where the content is largely the same aside from minor changes due to spelling, units of measurement although occasionally larger amends are required.
We have implemented hreflang referencing all the alternative country Urls, e.g en-us, en-gb, en-aus etc but also specificied the canonical as the en-gb version since we are a UK based website and the majority of the content originated from the UK version of our site.
Recently, our rankings across all countries have been falling markedly and I'm wondering whether the canonical element may be at fault. We have not been engaging in any black hat activities that might have been responsible for any sort of fall.
When we implemented the hreflang and canonical in July 2012 our traffic has actually been increasing significantly until literally 21 Nov when the search traffic is plummeting considerably across all countries. It would be useful to know if you need to specify a canonical version when using hreflang or could there be another reason for our ranking falls.
Many thanks in advance of your assistance.
-
you can test it out and remove the canonical for the not fully equivalent pages ... and unfortunately there is no other solution than a canonical to fix the pages that have a fully equivalent content.
just test it out and keep a close eye on it and please do update this thread
thank u
-
Thanks Wissam. I posted the same question in a Google forum and was told that I should remove the canonical reference (but retain the hrelang elements) as some of the content was not entirely identical and had regional differences.
I've asked whether I should do the same (i.e not specify a canonical) when the content is entirely identical but equally relevant to different countries. Would the hreflang be enough to prevent them being considered duplicate?
-
Hi Simon
I think the implementation you did on the site is confusing and wrong.
you consolidated ur au to the .com domain without specifying which folder or subdomainis the au section is.
previously because you have the .com.au in the domain Google understood that signal that this website is relevant to au visitors. but when you consolidated to the .com you need now to TELL or HINT to Google (through Google Webmaster Tools) where the whole domain that was targeting this country went.
and HREFLANG is not about Geotargeting but about the Language.
-
Hi Wissam, yes indeed all the pages are informative article pages. I want each country specific version to rank highly in it's own country i.e en-us article to rank in US, en-au in Australia etc. Does specifying a canonical strangle your ranking in all the other countries?
-
Google has actually updated their Google webmaster help section of the hreflang and remove the reference of rel canonical because people tend to get confused and implemented incorrectly.
so my question to you are these pages informational pages? are they fully equivalent to the others ? in aus and us ?
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
-
International Blog Structure & Hreflang Tags
Hi all, I'm running an international website across 5 regions using a correct hreflang setup. A problem I think I have is that my blog structure is not standardized and also uses hreflang tags for each blog article. This has naturally caused Google to index each of the pages across each region, meaning a massive amount of pages are being crawled. I know hreflang solves and issues with duplication penalties, but I have another question. If I have legacy blog articles that are considered low quality by Google, is that counting against my site once or multiple times for each time the blog is replicated across each region? I'm not sure if hreflang is something that would tell Google this. For example, if I have low quality blog posts: blog/en-us/low-quality-article-1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattBassos
blog/en-gb/low-quality-article-1
blog/en-ca/low-quality-article-1 Do you think Google is counting this as 3 low quality articles or just 1 if hreflang is correctly implemented? Any insights would be great because I'm considering to cull the international setup of the blog articles and use just /blog across each region.0 -
Question on Indexing, Hreflang tag, Canonical
Dear All, Have a question. We've a client (pharma), who has a prescription medicine approved only in the US, and has only one global site at .com which is accessed by all their target audience all over the world.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jrohwer
For the rest of the US, we can create a replica of the home page (which actually features that drug), minus the existence of the medicine, and set IP filter so that non-US traffic see the duplicate of the home page. Question is, how best to tackle this semi-duplicate page. Possibly no-index won't do because that will block the site from the non-US geography. Hreflang won't work here possibly, because we are not dealing different languages, we are dealing same language (En) but different Geographies. Canonical might be the best way to go? Wanted to have an insight from the experts. Thanks,
Suparno (for Jeff)1 -
Article page canonicalization
Hey there, A client rents all kinds of party articles, like plates, bowles, etc. Currently, al his article pages have canonicals to their parent category pages, supposedly to have any pagevalue flow to these category pages, (which are much more relevant for SEO). Is there anyone who agrees with this method? I think a noindex,follow would be a better measure to prevent Google from accessing all these 'low value' article pages. Besides, a canonical should indicate that page A and B are (almost) identical, which they most certainly are not in this case. What are your thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Adriaan.Multiply0 -
Can multiple geotargeting hreflang tags be set in one URL? International SEO question
Hi All, Thank you for this great post! I have a question please. If i target www.onedirect.co.nl/en/ in English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, are the tags below correct? English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg: http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-be" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-lu" /> AND Targeting Holland and Belgium in Dutch: Pour la page www.onedirect.co.nl on peut inclure ce tag: http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-be" /> thanks a lot for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Onedirect_uk0 -
Hreflang targeted website using the root directory's description & title
Hi there, Recently I applied the href lang tags like so: Unfortunately, the Australian site uses the same description and title as the US site (which was the root directory initially), am i doing something wrong? Would appreciate any response, thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | oliverkuchies0 -
Product Variations in Ecommerce: Combine or Canonicalize?
Hello, I have an ecommerce site that sells pond pumps. I have every pump separated because each pump has different flow rates, specs, and replacement parts. All of the content is original, and even the content on the pages are (more than) 15% different - so it isn't getting flagged by Moz as duplicate content. Essentially it is set up like this: Acme Pond Pumps Acme Pond Pump 100 Acme Pond Pump 200 Acme Pond Pump 300 I am wondering if it is best to leave all of the products as separate pages, or if I should canonicalize them to the category page? Will each of the pages pass link juice upward anyways? The difference between the products are the specs, parts, and model number. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | evan890 -
Hreflang many to one relationship (And canonical)
I have a question about the use of hreflang. In country one i have for instance web.one/BlueWidget web.one/YellowWidgetIn country (and language) two I have web.two/Widget In other words, the distinction between yellow and blue isn't there in country two. My best try would beweb.one/BlueWidget two" href="<a>http://</a>web.two/Widget" />web.one/YellowWidget <link rel="<a>alternate" hreflang="two" href="<a>http://</a>web.two/Widget" /></link rel="<a> <link rel="<a>canonical" href="web.one/BlueWidget"/></link rel="<a>web.two/Widget <link rel="<a>alternate" hreflang="one" href="web.one/BlueWidget" /> </link rel="<a> <link rel="<a>canonical" href="web.two/Widget "/></link rel="<a>So pointing both blue and yellow to the Widget in country two, and pointing widget in country two to Blue widget in country one, as BlueWidget is what I would prefer to promote if I had to choose.What do people think? Is this the way to go? If so, why? If not, why?And is it actually worth bothering with? Will country two get a boost because I get links to country one? Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peekabo0 -
What if you can't navigate naturally to your canonicalized URL?
Assume this situation for a second... Let's say you place a rel= canonical tag on a page and point to the original/authentic URL. Now, let's say that that original/authentic URL is also populated into your XML sitemap... So, here's my question... Since you can't actually navigate to that original/authentic URL (it still loads with a 200, it's just not actually linkded to from within the site itself), does that create an issue for search engines? Last consideration... The bots can still access those pages via the canonical tag and the XML sitemap, it's just that the user wouldn't be able to access those original/authentic pages in their natural site navigation. Thanks, Rodrigo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlgoFreaks0