Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. International SEO
    4. Hreflang for bilingual website in the same region/location

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Hreflang for bilingual website in the same region/location

    International SEO
    4
    16
    2876
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • ennovators
      ennovators last edited by

      Hi everyone,

      got a quick question concerning the hreflang tag.

      I have a website with 2 different language versions targeting to the same region(Reason: The area is bilingual however not everyone speaks the other language fluently)

      Question:
      Can I use hreflang in that case like:

      Many thanks in advance

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • DmitriiK
        DmitriiK @ennovators last edited by

        Sure, I did this: http://bfy.tw/2hTu

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • ennovators
          ennovators @DmitriiK last edited by

          Hi Dmitrii,

          can you perhaps tell me the source, where you found the supported annotations above. Many Thanks

          DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • gfiorelli1
            gfiorelli1 @ennovators last edited by

            My answer is the correct. See what I replied above to Dmitrii

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • gfiorelli1
              gfiorelli1 @DirkC last edited by

              Lol! You're right. I was indeed thinking about Belgium and not Netherlands 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • gfiorelli1
                gfiorelli1 @DmitriiK last edited by

                It's a cultural thing. I'm that province of Italy people talk or Italian or German, so if you want to target both with your multilingual site you must tell it to Google with hreflang, even if it is not listed in the ISO chart.

                you do the same for targeting Spanish speaking people in the usa, for instance.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • DirkC
                  DirkC @gfiorelli1 last edited by

                  Gianluca - I guess this time it's my turn:  As far as I know they only have one official language in the Netherlands (Dutch) - I guess you refer to Belgium (3 official languages Dutch/French/German).

                  It's a common error to make this mistake - but the difference is easy to spot: Belgium is qualified for Euro '16 - unlike the Netherlands 🙂

                  gfiorelli1 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • ennovators
                    ennovators @gfiorelli1 last edited by

                    Hi Gianluca,

                    Thank you for your reply. In fact I'm refering to that exact region. The difference to your CH examples are though, that in Switzerland, the 3 language regions are not the exact same "location".

                    In my case they are though so I got a bit confused.

                    So basically Im not saying, a specific region in Switzerland speaks French, another German and another Italian, but I say the exact same location/region speaks German and Italian.

                    gfiorelli1 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DmitriiK
                      DmitriiK @gfiorelli1 last edited by

                      Well, I do see the ones you mentioned on that list, but not it-it or de-it.

                      gfiorelli1 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • gfiorelli1
                        gfiorelli1 @DmitriiK last edited by

                        Yes, it exists (it is Alto Agide/South Tirol), and it's the same case of Netherlands (fr-NL and de-NL) or Switzerland (it-CH, fr-CH and de-CH)

                        DmitriiK ennovators DirkC 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • gfiorelli1
                          gfiorelli1 last edited by

                          Yes, you can.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • DmitriiK
                            DmitriiK @ennovators last edited by

                            Interesting. Google search doesn't return anything on this locale.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • ennovators
                              ennovators @DmitriiK last edited by

                              yes, sure about that

                              DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • DmitriiK
                                DmitriiK @ennovators last edited by

                                Are you sure that locale exists?

                                ennovators gfiorelli1 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • ennovators
                                  ennovators @DmitriiK last edited by

                                  Hi Dmitrii,

                                  many thanks for your reply. Great list, unfortunately I can't find my case. Though I think this list is not complete. E.x. I miss the the french speaking part in Italy for example,...

                                  Helpful anyway though.

                                  DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • DmitriiK
                                    DmitriiK last edited by

                                    Hi there.

                                    I found this list of all available locales, if locales you're trying to do are in this list, then go ahead, otherwise it won't work.

                                    P.S. List might be old and updated by now, but i don't think so.

                                    • af-ZA
                                    • am-ET
                                    • ar-AE
                                    • ar-BH
                                    • ar-DZ
                                    • ar-EG
                                    • ar-IQ
                                    • ar-JO
                                    • ar-KW
                                    • ar-LB
                                    • ar-LY
                                    • ar-MA
                                    • arn-CL
                                    • ar-OM
                                    • ar-QA
                                    • ar-SA
                                    • ar-SY
                                    • ar-TN
                                    • ar-YE
                                    • as-IN
                                    • az-Cyrl-AZ
                                    • az-Latn-AZ
                                    • ba-RU
                                    • be-BY
                                    • bg-BG
                                    • bn-BD
                                    • bn-IN
                                    • bo-CN
                                    • br-FR
                                    • bs-Cyrl-BA
                                    • bs-Latn-BA
                                    • ca-ES
                                    • co-FR
                                    • cs-CZ
                                    • cy-GB
                                    • da-DK
                                    • de-AT
                                    • de-CH
                                    • de-DE
                                    • de-LI
                                    • de-LU
                                    • dsb-DE
                                    • dv-MV
                                    • el-GR
                                    • en-029
                                    • en-AU
                                    • en-BZ
                                    • en-CA
                                    • en-GB
                                    • en-IE
                                    • en-IN
                                    • en-JM
                                    • en-MY
                                    • en-NZ
                                    • en-PH
                                    • en-SG
                                    • en-TT
                                    • en-US
                                    • en-ZA
                                    • en-ZW
                                    • es-AR
                                    • es-BO
                                    • es-CL
                                    • es-CO
                                    • es-CR
                                    • es-DO
                                    • es-EC
                                    • es-ES
                                    • es-GT
                                    • es-HN
                                    • es-MX
                                    • es-NI
                                    • es-PA
                                    • es-PE
                                    • es-PR
                                    • es-PY
                                    • es-SV
                                    • es-US
                                    • es-UY
                                    • es-VE
                                    • et-EE
                                    • eu-ES
                                    • fa-IR
                                    • fi-FI
                                    • fil-PH
                                    • fo-FO
                                    • fr-BE
                                    • fr-CA
                                    • fr-CH
                                    • fr-FR
                                    • fr-LU
                                    • fr-MC
                                    • fy-NL
                                    • ga-IE
                                    • gd-GB
                                    • gl-ES
                                    • gsw-FR
                                    • gu-IN
                                    • ha-Latn-NG
                                    • he-IL
                                    • hi-IN
                                    • hr-BA
                                    • hr-HR
                                    • hsb-DE
                                    • hu-HU
                                    • hy-AM
                                    • id-ID
                                    • ig-NG
                                    • ii-CN
                                    • is-IS
                                    • it-CH
                                    • it-IT
                                    • iu-Cans-CA
                                    • iu-Latn-CA
                                    • ja-JP
                                    • ka-GE
                                    • kk-KZ
                                    • kl-GL
                                    • km-KH
                                    • kn-IN
                                    • kok-IN
                                    • ko-KR
                                    • ky-KG
                                    • lb-LU
                                    • lo-LA
                                    • lt-LT
                                    • lv-LV
                                    • mi-NZ
                                    • mk-MK
                                    • ml-IN
                                    • mn-MN
                                    • mn-Mong-CN
                                    • moh-CA
                                    • mr-IN
                                    • ms-BN
                                    • ms-MY
                                    • mt-MT
                                    • nb-NO
                                    • ne-NP
                                    • nl-BE
                                    • nl-NL
                                    • nn-NO
                                    • nso-ZA
                                    • oc-FR
                                    • or-IN
                                    • pa-IN
                                    • pl-PL
                                    • prs-AF
                                    • ps-AF
                                    • pt-BR
                                    • pt-PT
                                    • qut-GT
                                    • quz-BO
                                    • quz-EC
                                    • quz-PE
                                    • rm-CH
                                    • ro-RO
                                    • ru-RU
                                    • rw-RW
                                    • sah-RU
                                    • sa-IN
                                    • se-FI
                                    • se-NO
                                    • se-SE
                                    • si-LK
                                    • sk-SK
                                    • sl-SI
                                    • sma-NO
                                    • sma-SE
                                    • smj-NO
                                    • smj-SE
                                    • smn-FI
                                    • sms-FI
                                    • sq-AL
                                    • sr-Cyrl-BA
                                    • sr-Cyrl-CS
                                    • sr-Cyrl-ME
                                    • sr-Cyrl-RS
                                    • sr-Latn-BA
                                    • sr-Latn-CS
                                    • sr-Latn-ME
                                    • sr-Latn-RS
                                    • sv-FI
                                    • sv-SE
                                    • sw-KE
                                    • syr-SY
                                    • ta-IN
                                    • te-IN
                                    • tg-Cyrl-TJ
                                    • th-TH
                                    • tk-TM
                                    • tn-ZA
                                    • tr-TR
                                    • tt-RU
                                    • tzm-Latn-DZ
                                    • ug-CN
                                    • uk-UA
                                    • ur-PK
                                    • uz-Cyrl-UZ
                                    • uz-Latn-UZ
                                    • vi-VN
                                    • wo-SN
                                    • xh-ZA
                                    • yo-NG
                                    • zh-CN
                                    • zh-HK
                                    • zh-MO
                                    • zh-SG
                                    • zh-TW
                                    • zu-ZA
                                    ennovators 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • 1 / 1
                                    • First post
                                      Last post

                                    Got a burning SEO question?

                                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                                    Start my free trial


                                    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.

                                    • See all categories

                                    Related Questions

                                    • spjain81

                                      Correct Hreflang & Canonical Tags for Multi-Regional Website English Language Only having URL Parameters

                                      Dear friends, We have a multi-regional website in English language only having the country selector on the top of each page and it adds countrycode parameters on each url. Website is built in Magento 1.8 and having 1 store with multiple store views. There is no default store set in Magento as I discussed with developer. Content is same for all the countries and only currency is changed. In navigation there are urls without url parameters but when we change store from any page it add parameters in the url for same page hence there are total 7 URLs. 6 URLs for each page (with country parameters) and 1 master url (without parameters) and making content duplicity. We have implemented hreflang tags on each page with url parameters but for canonical we have implemented master page url as per navigation without url parameters Example on this page. I think this is correct for master page but we should use URL parameters in canonical tags for each counry url too and there should be only 1 canonical tag on each country page url. Currently all the country urls are having master page canoncial tag as per the example. Please correct me if I am wrong and **in this case what has to be done for master page? **as google is indexing the pages without parameters too. We are also using GEOIP redirection for each store with country IP detection and for rest of the countries which are not listed on the website we are redirecting to USA store. Earlier it was 301 but we changed it to 302. Hreflang tags are showing errors in SEMRush due to redirection but in GWT it's OK for some pages it's showing no return tags only. Should I use **x-default tags for hreflang and country selector only on home page like this or should I remove the redirection? **However some of the website like this using redirection but header check tool doesn't show the redirection for this and for our website it shows 302 redirection. Sorry for the long post but looking for your support, please.

                                      International SEO | | spjain81
                                      0
                                    • Atalig2

                                      How to Localise per Region (Europe, America, APAC, EMEI) and not per country as best SEO practise?

                                      Hi SEO expertises! I am currently working with a client that initially have an English website targeting UK users but want to expand their market into four new regions (Europe, America, APAC and EMEI) keeping English as a main language. I would like to request your help here as I told the client ISO location and hreflang it will be just possible per language and they must need to localise each English region with local keywords, however I would like to double check if it will be any way (Sitemap, Hreflang) we can tell Google we are targeting per region and not per country? Thanks a lot!

                                      International SEO | | Atalig2
                                      0
                                    • SylviaH

                                      Is this setup of Hreflang xml sitemap correct?

                                      Hi, I'm trying to setup hreflang for 2 domains.  One is purely a US site and the other domain has the language-country as subdomains. For example: http://www.websiteUSA.com (Targets English - USA) https://www.websiteINT.com/en-CA (Targets English - Canada) https://www.websiteINT.com/fr-CA (Targets French - Canada) https://www.websiteINT/es (Targets Spanish) ..and so on and so forth for about 12 of these international URLs. I created an XML sitemap that looks something like this: <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><url><loc>http://www.websiteUSA.com</loc></url></urlset> <url><loc>https://www.websiteINT.com/en-CA</loc></url> <url><loc>https://www.websiteINT.com/fr-CA</loc></url> Question 1:  Is this correct?  In my actual file, I have all the countries listed and self-referencing. Question 2:  I'm hosting this file at https://www.websiteINT.com/hreflang.xml AND at http://www.websiteUSA.com/hreflang.xml.  Is this correct? Question 3:  Will this help the SERPs direct english speakers from the US to http://www.websiteUSA.com while show SERPs for say English Speakers in Canada to https://www.websiteINT.com/en-CA? Question 4:  For some reason, when I put up the xml site, it only listed each URL once instead of the full XML file.  Should I have uploaded a text file instead?  It doesn't seem to render correctly. Thank you!

                                      International SEO | | SylviaH
                                      0
                                    • nathanfranklin

                                      Multi Regional Website Best Practices

                                      Hi there, I have a website that is targeting 3 countries AU/US & NZ. I have set up hreflang tags for each page on each of the site however I am having difficulties getting it work right. I read this article which was a great insight into the hreflang tags. https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights and as a result I have implemented hreflang tags in the following manner: When users access the root domain http://[website] it will redirect the user to their locale with a 302 redirect. I have a few questions:
                                      1. When building my external link profiles, I'm not sure if I should be building link profiles for http://[website]/ or for the geo graphical pages (http://[website]/aus/ etc..). Note that the http://[website]/ is never used, it just issues a 302 to the actual geographical location. 2. It seems that the hreflang tags are not working correctly. Perhaps its the result of the 302 on the root page, but in google.com.au (using the link http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=au&pws=0&q=[branded search]) I would expect that I should see the search results for /aus/ given the fact that the hreflang tags are setup as en-au. Instead I am seeing the root domain page. Is that correct or should it be showing all the pages with /aus/. ALSO If I do a search in google thailand (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=th&pws=0&q=[branded search]) it returns the /aus/ version where it should be showing the /us/ using the x-default hreflang tag. In google webmaster tools I have setup 4 site profiles:
                                      http://[website]/
                                      http://[website]/us/
                                      http://[website]/aus/ (Targeted to Australia)
                                      http://[website]/nz/ (Targeted to New Zealand) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Nathan

                                      International SEO | | nathanfranklin
                                      1
                                    • realpatients

                                      Best practice for Spanish version of English website?

                                      I'm doing an audit for a site that has all of its English pages under the same roof with Spanish pages in Wordpress. It is intended for Chicago, not Mexico. I suspect this is not a good thing, but I only have instinct to rely on here. What is the best practice for having the same website in two languages? http://www.enhancedform.com/ and http://www.enhancedform.com/spanish/

                                      International SEO | | realpatients
                                      0
                                    • Dan-Lawrence

                                      International SEO Subfolders / user journey etc

                                      Hi According to all the resources i can find on Moz and elsewhere re int seo, say in the context of having duplicate versions of US & UK site, its best to have subfolders i.e. domain.com/en-gb/ & domain.com/en-us/ however when it comes to the user journey and promoting web address seems a bit weird to say visit us at: domain.com/en-us/ !? And what happens if someone just enters in domain.com from the US or UK ? My client wants to use an IP sniffer but i've read thats bad practice and should employ above style country/language code instead, but i'm confused about both the user journey and experience in the case of multiple sub folders. Any advice much appreciated ? Cheers Dan

                                      International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence
                                      0
                                    • Bdig

                                      Multiple hreflang tags

                                      I'm trying to advise on the multi country seo for a site in terms of markup. We've already decided on using sub folders rather than separate sites or subdomains due to an established link profile and good rankings in all countries. The question is in relation to the homepage. Obviously this is the page most likely to rank well in any country (the site is a .com). But can multiple hreflang tags be put on the page to say that the page targets many countries? Or would leaving the hreflang tag off allow it to just rank for all countries? Also do Yahoo and Bing follow hreflang tags? I can't find any info on this anywhere! Thanks very much in advance for any help!

                                      International SEO | | Bdig
                                      0
                                    • vanvallejo

                                      SEO for Subdomains for different languages .com/fr, .com/es

                                      Hi All, I was wondering how best to to approach optimisation of a site that exists on a single .com domain, but has different subfolders for different languages. The site is a .com and it has subfolders for French, Spanish, Russian and English.  The business is situated in France and the vast majority of clients are French and English speakers. I've read that it's possible to geo target these subfolders using webmaster tools however I believe this is an inferior method of optimisation than having tld's.  Just wondered if anyone had experience of htis and could provide any advice ?   As they won't be rebuilding the site for another year or so I wondered if there were any quick wins? My second question is to do with how best to set these campaigns up within SEO Moz. would it be better to track at a subdomain or subfolder leverl (for different languages)? If someone could advise I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks, vantresca

                                      International SEO | | vanvallejo
                                      0

                                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                    Start my free trial
                                    Products
                                    • Moz Pro
                                    • Moz Local
                                    • Moz API
                                    • Moz Data
                                    • STAT
                                    • Product Updates
                                    Moz Solutions
                                    • SMB Solutions
                                    • Agency Solutions
                                    • Enterprise Solutions
                                    Free SEO Tools
                                    • Domain Authority Checker
                                    • Link Explorer
                                    • Keyword Explorer
                                    • Competitive Research
                                    • Brand Authority Checker
                                    • Local Citation Checker
                                    • MozBar Extension
                                    • MozCast
                                    Resources
                                    • Blog
                                    • SEO Learning Center
                                    • Help Hub
                                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                    • How-to Guides
                                    • Moz Academy
                                    • API Docs
                                    About Moz
                                    • About
                                    • Team
                                    • Careers
                                    • Contact
                                    Why Moz
                                    • Case Studies
                                    • Testimonials
                                    Get Involved
                                    • Become an Affiliate
                                    • MozCon
                                    • Webinars
                                    • Practical Marketer Series
                                    • MozPod
                                    Connect with us

                                    Contact the Help team

                                    Join our newsletter
                                    Moz logo
                                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                    • Accessibility
                                    • Terms of Use
                                    • Privacy

                                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.