Multilingual Structure
-
Hello fellow SEO fans, I've got a setup that I'm interested in some opinions on.
I have a website which has the following setup:
www.site.com (english version of the site)
www.site.com/nl (dutch version of the site)
Now, my experience tells me the dutch version would be written in dutch (not using Google Translate) and the meta data et al should also be in dutch. But my question is:
If somebody in, say, Netherlands perform a search in english for a specific keyword, we would want the www.site.com page to appear in the SERPs, not the www.site.com/nl page, because the person has searched in english. However, because there's a www.site.com/nl page, purely the /nl page will be optimized and linked to in order to rank it higher in the SERPs for dutch searches and not english searches? But if that's the case, then the person in the Netherlands searching for the english version of the keyword, probably won't see www.site.com in the ranks because of targeting and keyword distribution?
Bit of a tricky situation that I've been pondering over and can't quite put the nail on the head.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
-
@Gianluca - Thank you very much for stepping in here, I know you're a busy man so this is appreciated. What you've suggested is definitely an option and I'll investigate that approach when I'm back in the office. Thank you kindly.
-
In your case I would use the hreflang mark up like this:
That way you are saying to Google that whenever a search is realized in English (and independently of the country, because the code used is just the ISO language code), it must present the English home page URL.
Vice versa, if a search is done in flemish (independently of the location), it must present the Flemish home page.
This should be repeated for all the pages of the site.
-
Oh I'm sorry to hear there are problems already.
I thought that you are worrying about some possible problems in the future.
Maybe it's not very clear what the current problems are, mate, and maybe that's the reason there are no more answers with more specific information. Maybe you should be more specific about the current problems and not only about the ones which might or might not happen.
Cheers and still be happy, life is more than this.
-
Unfortunately over thinking is a requirement here because the site's not ranking as it should be, and I cannot just be happy until I've made a plan unfortunately.
I appreciate your response mate, I just need someone a little more technical to assist me.
-
Don't worry that much!
Just do it as you intend and be happy!
- if the english page is with english content and english (context & anchor) backlinks it will rank for english terms
- and same for the dutch page - there is no way 100% dutch (as content and backlinks) page to rank for english search terms.
My 2 cents.
Cheers
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
-
blog url structure change affect on pagerank
We are looking to change our blog structure which will help us with the organization of the topics but the url structure will change if we do this. Right now all of the blogs are under a general news blog, which we will be breaking out articles into several blog category topics Current:
Technical SEO | | theblueprints
example of current structure
current site: https://domain/blogs/news/blog article name Proposed Change:
current site: https://domain/blogs/keyword-name-of-blog-category/blog article name We have ranked #1 for several keywords that we would like to preserve the ranking if we make this switch with 301 redirects. Looking for suggestion on the percentage of chance our ranking will be negatively affected and by how much? Also what everyones recommendation is if we should make this switch or not touch the urls. Your help is appreciated, thanks in advance.0 -
Does the URL structure matter?
I have a blog on entertainment. does the url structure matter to rank my blog and iam also facing the issue of indexing of my blog. visit and check this if i need further changes.
Technical SEO | | Hammad784540 -
International SEO - Hreflang tags and URL Structure
Hello, I wonder if any SEO internationalisation experts can help. We are a UK centric business with a .com domain which all our traffic currently goes to. We have been growing in the US and are therefore looking to internationalise our website by building out some US pages using the subfolder .com/us. Since the keywords we wish to target in the US are different to the keywords we are targeting elsewhere, when implementing hreflang tags is it possible to use a different URL for the US page? So let’s say we are targeting ‘estate car’ generally but want to target ’station wagon’ as the keyword for the equivalent US page, can the URLs be different? Example: General page: www.example.com/estate-car US: www.example.com/us/station-wagon Hreflang tags: Would that be the correct implementation? Any help or guidance would be much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | SEOCT0 -
URL Structure for "Find A Professional" Page
I've read all the URL structure posts out there, but I'm really undecided and would love a second opinion. Currently, this is how the developer has our professionals directory working: 1. You search by inputting your Zip Code and selecting a category (such as Pool Companies) and we return all professionals within a X-mile radius of that ZIP. This is how the URL's are structured... 1. Main Page: /our-professionals 2. The URL looks like this after a search for "Deck Builders" in ZIP 19033: /our-professionals?zipcode=19033&HidSuppliers=&HiddenSpaces=&HidServices=&HidServices_all=[16]%2C&HidMetroareas=&srchbox= 3. When I click one of the businesses, URL looks like this: viewprofile.php?id=409 I know how to go about doing this, but I'm undecided on the best structure for the URL's. Maybe for results pages do this: find-professionals/deck-builders/philadelphia-pa-19033 And for individual pro's profiles do this: /deck-builders/philadelphia-pa-19033/Billys-Deck-Service Any input on how to best structure this so that we can have a good chance of showing in SERPs for "Deck Builders near New Jersey" and the such, would be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | zDucketz0 -
Toggle Menu's and Collapsible Nav Structure Good For SEO?
Does anyone have any insights on toggle menu's or collapsible navigation structure and if its good/bad for Search?
Technical SEO | | Your_Workshop0 -
Link Structure & Duplicate Content
I am struggling with how I should handle the link structure on my site. Right now most of my pages are like this: Home -> Department -> Service Groups -> Content Page For Example: Home -> IT Solutions -> IT Support & Managed Services -> IT Support Home -> IT Solutions -> IT Support & Managed Services -> Managed Services Home -> IT Solutions -> IT Support & Managed Services -> Help Desk Services Home -> IT Solutions -> Virtualization & Data Center Solutions -> Virtualization Home -> IT Solutions -> Virtualization & Data Center Solutions -> Data Center Solutions This structure lines up with our business and makes logical sense but I am not sure how to handle the department and service group pages. Right now you can click them and it just brings you to a page with a small snippet for the links below. The real content is on the content pages. What I am worried about is that the snippets on those pages are just a paragraph or two of the content that's on the content page. Will this hurt me and get considered duplicate content? What is the best practice for dealing with this? Those department/service group pages have some good content on them but it's just parts of other pages. Am I okay doing this because there are not direct duplicates of other pages just parts of a few pages? Any help on this would be great. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | ZiaTG0 -
What are the considerations in setting language within the url of multilingual sites?
Is it good practice to use Language-Agnostic + LOCALE=en +LOCALE=fr (as per example below)? If not what is the best way to determine language within a url and why? For example, today we use: http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/default.jsf (goes to language last used by user) http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/default.jsf?LOCALE=fr (forces a French-launguage page) http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/default.jsf?LOCALE=en (forces and English-language page) I think you can get tell Google about these parameters through Webmaster tools to help them properly crawl and understand your content, but if we had the opportunity to change it what should we do?
Technical SEO | | CanadaPost0 -
Permalink structure for Wordpress Getshopped Plugin
Hi everyone, has anyone had any experience with Getshopped eCommerce plugin for Wordpress and it's permalink structure? Currently the permalink reads something like http://www.sitename.com/products-page/product-category/product-description/ I would like to modify it to be http://www.sitename.com/product-description/ but the SEO Plugin I am using All-in-One SEO only allows me to edit the "product-description" part of the permalink and not the "products-page/product-category/" part of it The permalink structure is set to /%postname%/ under Settings in Wordpress. Any help/comments will be greatly appreciated Thanks
Technical SEO | | webseoservices0