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
-
HREFLANG setup for Europe (in English) + .eu domain
We have been struggling to find answers since we launched our European website. We have the following structure: WEBSITE HUB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moz-maddesigngroup
https://ecosmartfire.com This works as a hub for our users. We show the url printed in our marketing materials. When someone lands in this URL, we check if we have a local store in the user's location and prompt the user to go to the right destination. The default hreflang is: LOCAL VERSIONS
https://ecosmartfire.com/us/en/ (United States)
https://ecosmartfire.com.au (Australia)
https://ecosmartfire.eu (Europe)
https://ecosmartfire.fr (France) We have no problems with United States, Australia and France. The hreflang tags look like this: EUROPE
https://ecosmartfire.eu We have two problems in Europe:
1. Language: the European store is available just in English
2. No hreflang: Europe doesn't have a hreflang that covers all the countries so we had to create lots of hrelangs pointing to the same location. The hreflang tags look like this: ... and the list goes on. Do you think this is the right approach? Or should I just remove these European hreflang tags from the website code? Thanks,0 -
Multiple hreflang tags pointing to one page from the same country
Hi All, Hypothetically, let’s say a brand established in the UK created the following URL for the Italian market, www.example.com/it/ticket-watch (Ticket watch the made up brand) In this scenario, Ticket Watch is used across multiple services and domains in the UK such as: www.example.com/ticket-watch www.ticketwatch.com/ Essentially, could you point multiple ticket watch pages that live on different domains so that www.example.com/it/ticket-watch could potentially have 4 or 5 tags from the same country (UK), but the self-referencing pages will only have one hreflang tag: canonical and hreflang meta information to be included on www.example.com/it/ticket-watch But the hreflang meta information to be included on www.ticketwatch.com/ will only have one tag I’ve only in included 2 hreflang tags for the for the first example but let’s say there were an additional 2 or 3 GB based ticket watch hreflang tags. Will these tags still be validated? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEONOW1230 -
Using hreflang for international pages - is this how you do it?
My client is trying to achieve a global presence in select countries, and then track traffic from their international pages in Google Analytics. The content for the international pages is pretty much the same as for USA pages, but the form and a few other details are different due to how product licensing has to be set up. I don’t want to risk losing ranking for existing USA pages due to issues like duplicate content etc. What is the best way to approach this? This is my first foray into this and I’ve been scanning the MOZ topics but a number of the conversations are going over my head,so suggestions will need to be pretty simple 🙂 Is it a case of adding hreflang code to each page and creating different URLs for tracking. For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caro-O
URL for USA: https://company.com/en-US/products/product-name/
URL for Canada: https://company.com/en-ca/products/product-name /
URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/products/product-name /
URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/en/products/product-name /1 -
Hreflang Tags & Canonicals Being Used
We have a site on which both hreflang tags and canonicals are being used. There are multiple languages, but for this I'll explain our problem using two. There are a ton of dupe page titles coming up in GSC, and we're not sure if we have an issue or not. First, the hreflang tags are implement properly. UK page pointing there, US page pointing there. Further down the page, there are canonical tags - except the UK canonical tag points to the UK page, and the US version points to the US page. I'm not sure if this will cause an issue in terms of SEO or indexing. Has anyone experienced this before or does anything have any insight into this? Thanks much! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Snaptech_Marketing0 -
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 Tags with Errors in Google Webmaster Tools
Hello, Google Webmaster tools is giving me errors with Hreflang tags that I can't seem to figure out... I've double checked everything: all the alternate and canonical tags, everything seems to match yet Google finds errors. Can anyone help? International Targeting | Language > 'fr' - no return tags
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GlobeCar
URLs for your site and alternate URLs in 'fr' that do not have return tags.
Status: 7/10/15
24 Hreflang Tags with Errors Please see attached pictures for more info... Thanks, Karim KQgb3Pn0 -
Hreflang="x-default"
Hello all This is my first question in the Moz Forum, hope I will get some concrete answers 🙂 I am looking for some suggestions on implementing the hreflang="x-default" properly in our site. Any previous experience or a link to a specific resource/ example will be very helpful. I have found many examples on implementing the homepage hreflang, however nothing on non-homepage urls within your site. The below will be the code for the "Homepage" for /uk/. Here /en-INT/ is a Global English site not targeted for any country unlike en-MY, en-SG, en-AU etc. Is this the correct approach? Now, in case of non homepage urls, should the respective en-INT url be "x-default" or the "x-default" shouldn't exist altogether? For example, will the below be the correct coding? Many thanks Avi
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Delonghi_Group0 -
Canonicalization issue? - URLs with and without trailing slashes showing up as unique
For some reason, our urls are set to change from “www.apprenda.com/ANYTHING" to “apprenda.com/ANYTHING” These register as different pages though? We have rankings in SEOMoz Pro for terms where our homepage shows up 6th on google, but SEOMoz says it's not on the first page because it's checking against apprenda.com and not www.apprenda.com Also, it seems like for some reason pages with trailing slashes also register differently than those without. Should we be doing something for that? Something to make sure all pages get rewritten to having the trailing slash or not? For instance, this url: http://apprenda.com/saasgrid/features/multi-tenancy/ and this url” http://apprenda.com/saasgrid/features/multi-tenancy are really the same page. Yet in our analytics, they register as different pages with their own stats, etc. What should we do in our particular case, and how can we get this fixed? I really appreciate the help, and thanks in advance! Jesse
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ApprendaPlatform0