Href lang and multilingual question
-
Greetings Moz-Hive mind! I'm hoping you can help me on the internationalisation conundrum below;
We currently have a website with three distinct 'locales' US, SEA and UK we automatically redirect customers using IP recognition to a locale which matches, we also determine their currency based on IP. The issue we currently have is a lot of duplicate content and no use of href lang or rel=canonical tags etc...
My proposed structure would be to create a locale based directory for the three locales we offer.
- / - being US and most other Worldwide
- /uk - being UK
- /as - being Hong Kong and other Asian territories.
How would you suggest we set up the href lang tags for these? Because technically there are going to be multiple language possibilities within. Our main customers are English only if this helps.
Also as a secondary question, how should I set up the Google Search Console settings for each of these directories?
Many thanks in advance.
-
Thank you so very much!
-
Correct.
About using the hreflang="x-default" or the hreflang="en", that depends if you are interested in targeting also users not searching in English.
If not, you can go for the hreflang="en" option.
-
OK that makes sense. So let me get this straight;
1. USA/Worldwide version - /
- hreflang="en" (Can I use "x-default" here instead?)
- no targeting within Search Console
2. SEA version - /as/
- hreflang="en-HK" (repeat for all SEA territories)
- no targeting within Search Console
3. UK version - /uk/
- hreflang="en-GB"
- targeting United Kingdom on Search Console- use a selector pop up using IP sniffing to detect if the customer is viewing the wrong version of the page/site.
-
A solution could be implementing an alert system (Amazon style), so that people with those characteristics visiting the website and having eventually landed on it (but on / and /uk/ URLs) albeit they are located in HK or other EAS country, they are alerted that the best version of the site for them is the /as/ one.
You can do it via IP detection. Don't do automatic redirection, though.
-
Just to let you know, none of the above has been implemented yet, I am still planning the best course of action.
The majority of our clients browsing from Hong Kong have their language set to "en-US" and "en-GB". Is there a way to target these users without showing them the USA version of the site?
The USA version of the site needs to be the global one because the majority of our clients are based there.
Would you be willing to take this conversation offline into email? I would very much appreciate the help.
-
Mmm... question: do those users visiting the site from Hong Kong or from USA and/or GB?
Because if that is the situation, then you should check out if you have:
- Well implemented the hreflang;
- If you have geo-targeted the /uk/ subfolder to Great Britain/United Kingdom in Search Console.
Said that, following the logic I presented in my first answer, the hreflang="en" should suggest only "/" "(USA) URLs, because you told me that you want the USA version of your site to be also the "Global" one.
If it so, then the "/as/" cannot be paired to the hreflang="en" annotation, because you will have two identical hreflang (hreflang="en") suggesting two different URLs, and that would be wrong and confusing Google so much that it can ignore all the hreflang you may have implemented.
However, in the "home page" of the /as/ subfolder, you should have these hreflang annotations:
- <rel="alternate" hreflang="en-HK" href="http://www.domain.com/as/"></rel="alternate">
- <rel="alternate" hreflang="en-AU" href="http://www.domain.com/as/"></rel="alternate">
- REPEAT IT SO TO COVER ALL EAS COUNTRIES
- <rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="http://www.domain.com/"></rel="alternate">
- <rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="http://www.domain.com/uk/"></rel="alternate">
- <rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.domain.com/"></rel="alternate">
-
Thanks for your detailed response Gianluca! Very helpful.
One question, am I also able to include hreflang="en" under the /as/ subfolder? Looking at Analytics and 80% of our Hong Kong clients are browsing in either en-US or en-GB (complicated).
-
Your situation is a tricky one, because the SEA area is not a country, and therefore cannot be geo-targeted via Search Console.
To use the hreflang in order to suggest Google to show the /as/ subfolder is possible, though. Simply, you have to implement as many hreflang="en-[Code of the Country] as many are the countries included in the SEA area.
Then, in order to have the USA version being the global one:
-
You should not geo-target it toward USA in Search Console;
-
You should use the hreflang="en" and not the hreflang="en-US" (that will target only users from USA).
-
As an option, you can
-
set up the hreflang="en-US" to suggest google to show / to people using English in the USA;
-
set up the hreflang="x-default" to suggest google to show / to everybody (using English or not), who are not geo-targeted by other hreflang annotations.
Obviously, for UK, you must use the hreflang="en-GB".
-
-
Hey Dmitrii, sorry I should have mentioned in the question I understand how href lang works. I am more asking for the best practice implementation when the language might possibly vary? With US and Worldwide and the Hong Kong and Asian territories.
-
Hi there.
Well, you setup hreflang very normally - on each of those language based pages specify rel="alternate" hreflang="whatever" href="matching url".Refer to this video from Google, they explain pretty good what's what and when to use which version: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
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
-
Question about Topics and subjects of sentences
Hello, This might be a bit of technical question but how is google linking entities together ? I understand that when writing a piece of content I need to cover multiple topics (which are also entities as far as I understand). Then, in order for google to link multiple entities together my guess is that my sentence needs to be written in subject, predicate, object format ? where my topic / entity comes out as the subject of the sentence. For example if I write that: "Tuscany is a famous for it's rolling hills?, here the subject is Tuscany which is what I want as it one of the topics I want to cover. But let's say that instead I write:" Rolling hills is something you find everywhere in Tuscany". Here Tuscany doesn't help because it isn't a subject and is just dropped there, correct ? Concerning the attributs of my entities (the object), does google have a list of what is right of wrong. For example if I say that Washington is the capital of italy ? can I be penalised for that ? I guess this is called entity disambiguation ? If the capital of italy would also be called Washington I believe that I would be ok but see that it isn't, can it hurt ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
HTTPS - implementation question
Hello, I am looking at a site on which they haven't 301'd http to https, so each URL is there whether you have http or https at the beginning. Why would a site owner not 301 to https? Is there any logical reason not to use 301? This particular website is simply using a canonical tag to point to the https version of each URL.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Questions About Link Detox
Greetings: In April of 2014 an SEO firm ran a link removal campaign (identified spammy links and uploaded a disavow). The overall campaign was ineffective and MOZ domain rank has fallen to 24 from about 30 in the last year and traffic is 20% lower. I purchased a basic package for Link Detox and ran a report today (see enclosed) to see if toxic links could be contributing to our mediocre rankings. As a novice I have a few questions for you regarding this the use of Link Detox: -We scored a domain wide detox risk of 1,723. The site has referring root domains with 7113 links to our site. 121 links were classified as high audit priority. 56 as medium audit priority. 221 links were previously disavowed and we uploaded a spreadsheet containing the names of the previously disavowed links. We had LinkDetox include an analysis of no-follow links as they recommend this. Is our score really bad? If we remove the questionable links should we see some benefit in ranking? -Some of the links we disavowed last year are still linking to our site. Is it worthwhile to include those links again in our new disavow file? -Prior to filing a disavow we will request that Webmaster remove offending links. LinkDetox offers a package called Superhero for $469.00 that automates the process. Does this package effectively help with the entire process of writing and tracking the removal requests? Do you know of any other good alternatives? -A feature called "Boost" is included in the LinkDetox Super Hero package. It is suppose to expedite Google's processing of the disavow file. I was told by the staff at Link Detox that with Boost Google will process the disavow within a week. Do you have any idea if this claim is valid??? It would be great if it were true. -We never experienced any manual penalty from Google. Will uploading a disavow help us under the circumstances? Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it!!! Alan p2S6H7l
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Metatags on drupal question
Hi Im quite inexperienced on drupal (normally an umbraco user!) and im having some difficulty with the Metatags on the CMS. I have been applying Meta Title and descriptions to the individual pages however they only appear when i preview the page and not when the page is saved. When i go into the metatag section located at /admin/config/search/metatags i am given a list of settings including Global: Front Page and Node. Im sure the reason it keeps defaulting the metatags back is to do with this but im not sure what to change to apply my own Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheZenAgency1 -
Subdomain SEO question (php script on domain + wordpress on subdomain)
Hi Moz fellows, I am doing my first website which is entirely .php scripted. But I would like to have a wordpress blog to create content and blog posts, while the .php side of the website is more for sales pages and user generated listings.The only way to do this is to install wordpress on a subdomain "blog.website.com" QUESTION: If all my keywords targeted content is on the subdomain's Wordpress blog, but all my guest blogging efforts link to my main website, which one will rank? The subdomain or the domain? I need the domain to rank well as it is a Fiverr-like script, so if tons of people land on my "blog.website.com" subdomain, they will not convert into users... Let me know if you have experience with such a scenario, and thank you all in advance for your help! -Marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcandre0 -
Anyone have an hour right now to cover some SEO questions
Hi folks, I need someone to Skype with me today, on some seo questions, for a multi wordpress set up I`m in middle of developing for franchise local sites. Will pay you $95 for the hour. Thanks Brent Sky pe me: cyberbrent (Brent H, Richmond, BC)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MenInKilts1 -
Site structure question
Hello Everyone, I have a question regarding site structure and I would like to mastermind it with everyone. So I am optimizing a website for a Ford Dealership in Boston, MA. The way the site architecture is set up is as follows: Home >>>> New Inventory >>> Inventory Page (with search refinement choices) After you refine your search (lets say we choose a Ford F150 in white) it shows a page with images, price information and specs. (Nothing the bots or users can sink their teeth into) My thoughts are to create category pages for each Ford model with awesome written content and THEN link to the inventory pages. So it would look like this: Home >>> New Inventory >>> Ford 150 Awesome Category Page>>>>Ford F150 Inventory Page I would work hard at getting these category pages to rank for the vehicle for our GEO targeted locations. Here is my questions: Would you be annoyed to first land on a category page with lots of written text, reviews images and videos first and then link off to the inventory page. Or would you prefer to go right from the new inventory page to the actual inventory page and start looking for vehicles? Thanks you so much, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wparlaman0 -
On Page question
HI folks, I have a warning that I have missing meta tag descriptions on two pages. 1) http://bluetea.com.au/wp-login.php 2) http://bluetea.com.au/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword Is this something I should just ignore? Or is there a best practice I should be implementing? Thank you for your time
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PHDAustralia680