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.
Google does not index UK version of our site, and serves US version instead. Do I need to remove hreflanguage for US?
-
Webmaster tools indicates that only 25% of pages on our UK domain with GBP prices is indexed.
We have another US domain with identical content but USD prices which is indexed fine.When I search in google for site:mydomain I see that most of my pages seem to appear, but then in the rich snippets google shows USD prices instead of the GBP prices which we publish on this page (USD price is not published on the page and I tested with an US proxy and US price is nowhere in the source code).
Then I clicked on the result in google to see cached version of page and google shows me as cached version of the UK product page the US product page.
I use the following hreflang code: rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://www.domain.com/product" />
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="https://www.domain.co.uk/product" />canonical of UK page is correctly referring to UK page.
Any ideas? Do I need to remove the hreflang for en-US to get the UK domain properly indexed in google?
-
Hi Christy, not yet.
-
Hi there, have you been able to figure out this riddle yet -- or are you still working on it? We'd love an update!
Christy
-
Thanks. Will post an update once we figured out this riddle.
-
Worth a try, specifically since nothing else seems to be working at this point.
Sorry I couldn't be more help. Please let us know what the solution is when ever you figure it out.
-
No.
But in theroy it should not make a difference.
hreflang can be either implemented in sitemap or in page. -
Do your sitemaps indicate the varying languages. See: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2620865?hl=en
-
Thanks for checking. Yes, rich snippets are frequently not showing currently, however this is a different issue and it may be temporary.
My primary concern is rather that google does not index our sitemap for this domain according to search console and related that they show the .com page as cached version of the .uk page.
-
Very odd, when we do a search for "Adorini Firenze - Deluxe" in google UK with a VPN on for the UK it doesn't get any of the price schema markup. Maybe google is having a hard time deciding what to do with the schema so for normal results it doesn't pull any of the schema. What KW are ranking for this page? do you get similar results as us?
-
Happens already for many months.
Good idea to test with VPN. I just gave it a try with a UK proxy and same result.
-
odd, looks to pull the cached schema, the issue might correct itself with time.
It's a bit of a long shot, but have you tried the lang/country codes completely in lower case? I doubt that will fix it but the tool in this Moz article I found (https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool) generates them in all lower case.
Also out of curiosity are you doing your test searches through a VPN?
https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool
-
Sure, click on cached version of the first result in the following google search. Also you see here the rich snippets in USD instead of GBP:
-
Well at least we checked off one thing that it is not.
Can you provide a link to the SERP where you are seeing the issue?
-
everything looks fine in google search console.
no hreflang errors, no sitemap errors and google crawls every day basically all our pages for many months already.
-
Odd, are you seeing any errors in Google Search Console (use to be Google webmaster tools) under Search Traffic/International Targeting. It will show any hreflang errors, I would start there and fix any errors.
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
-
Multilang site: Auto redirect 301 or 302?
We need to establish if 301 or 302 response code is to be used for our auto redirects based on Accept-Language header. https://domain.com
International SEO | | fJ66doneOIdDpj
30x > https://domain.com/en
30x > https://domain.com/ru
30x > https://domain.com/de The site architecture is set up with proper inline HREFLANG.
We have read different opinions about this, Ahrefs says 302 is the correct one:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
302 redirect:
"You want to redirect users to the right version of the site for them (based on location/language)." You could argue that the root redirect is never permanent as it varies based on user language settings (302)
On the other hand, the lang specific redirects are permanent per language: IF Accept-Language header = en
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/en
IF Accept-Language header = ru
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/ru So each of these is 'permanent'. So which is the correct?0 -
Setting up international site subdirectories in GSC as separate properties for better geotargeting?
My client has an international website with a subdirectory structure for each country and language version - eg. /en-US. At present, there is a single property set up for the domain in Google Search Console but there are currently various geotargeting issues I’m trying to correct with hreflang tags. My question is, is it still recommended practise and helpful to add each international subdirectory to Google Search Console as an individual property to help with correct language and region tagging? I know there used to be properly sets for this but haven’t found any up to date guidance on whether setting up all the different versions as their own properties might help with targeting. Many thanks in advance!
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
International Site Merge
Hello, I've never had to deal with an international site before, let alone a site merge. These are two large sites, we've got a few smaller old sites that are currently redirecting to the main site (UK). We are looking at moving all the sites to the .com domain. We are also currently not using SSL (on the main pages, we are on the checkout). We also have a m.domain.com site. Are there any good guides on what needs to be done? My current strategy would be: Convert site to SSL. Mobile site and desktop site must be on the same domain. Start link building to the .com domain now (weaker link profile currently) What's the best way of handling the domains and languages? We're currently using a .tv site for the UK and .com for the US. I was thinking, and please correct me if i'm wrong, that we move the US site from domain.com to domain.com/us/ and the domain.tv to domain.com/en/ Would I then reference these by the following: What would we then do with the canonicals? Would they just reference their "local" version? Any advice or articles to read would really be appreciated.
International SEO | | ThomasHarvey0 -
In the U.S., how can I stop the European version of my site from outranking the U.S. version?
I've got a site with two versions – a U.S. version and a European version. Users are directed to the appropriate version through a landing page that asks where they're located; both sites are on the same domain, except one is .com/us and the other is .com/eu. My issue is that for some keywords, the European version is outranking the U.S. version in Google's U.S. SERPs. Not only that, but when Google displays sitelinks in the U.S. SERPs, it's a combination of pages on the European site and the U.S. site. Does anyone know how I can stop the European site from outranking the U.S. site in the U.S.? Or how I can get Google to only display sitelinks for pages on the U.S. site in the U.S. SERPs? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this topic!
International SEO | | matt-145670 -
Country subfolders showing as sitelinks in Google, country targeting for home page no longer working
Hi There, Just wondering if you can help. Our site has 3 region versions (General .com, /ie/ for Ireland and /gb/ for UK), each submitted to Google Webmaster Tools as seperate sites with hreflang tags in the head section of all pages. Google was showing the correct results for a few weeks, but I resubmitted the home pages with slight text changes last week and something strange happened, though it may have been coincidental timing. When we search for the brand name in google.ie or google.co.uk, the .com now shows as the main site, where the sitelinks still show the correct country versions. However, the country subdirectories are now appearing as sitelinks, which is likely causing the problem. I have demoted these on GWT, but unsure as to whether that will work and it seems to take a while for sitelink demotion to work. Has anyone had anything similar happen? I thought perhaps it was a markup issue breaking the head section so that Google can no longer see the hreflangs pointing to each other as alternates. I checked the source code in w3 validator and it doesn't show any errors. Anyway, any help would be much appreciated - and thanks to anyone who gets back, it's a tricky type of issue to troubleshoot. Thanks, Ro
International SEO | | romh0 -
If I redirect based on IP will Google still crawl my international sites if I implement Hreflang
We are setting up several international sites. Ideally, we wouldn't set up any redirects, but if we have to (for merchandising reasons etc) I'd like to assess what the next best option would be. A secondary option could be that we implement the redirects based on IP. However, Google then wouldn't be able to access the content for all the international sites (we're setting up 6 in total) and would only index the .com site. I'm wondering whether the Hreflang annotations would still allow Google to find the International sites? If not, that's a lot of content we are not fully benefiting from. Another option could be that we treat the Googlebot user agent differently, but this would probably be considered as cloaking by the G-Man. If there are any other options, please let me know.
International SEO | | Ben.JD0 -
Two versions of a website with different languages - Best way to do it?
I'm working on a website for a Swedish artist and her page is in Swedish, everything is in Swedish on the site, even though it's not a lot of text on the site. We would like to have the site in English too, or another version of the site in English on a separate domain, what's the best way to proceed from here? The domain name is a .se (swedish domain), would it be better to create a another domain and host the english version of the site on a .com domain? Or will we bump into problems with duplicate content if we create a replica of the swedish site in english. We're using wordpress and I know that there's translation plugins out there, is that a good option? I'm a bit clueless on how to proceed and would love some help or guidance here.
International SEO | | Fisken0 -
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Implementation for Multilingual Site
OK, 2 primary questions for a multilingual site. This specific site has 2 language so I'll use that for the examples. 1 - Self-Referencing Hreflang Tag Necessary? The first is regarding the correct implementation of hreflang, and whether or not I should have a self-referencing hreflang tag. In other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), I am uncertain whether the source code should contain the second line below: Obviously the Spanish version should reference the English version, but does it need to reference itself? I have seen both versions implemented, with seemingly good results, but I want to know the best practice if it exists. 2 - Canonical of Current Language or Default Language? The second questions is regarding which canonical to use on the secondary language pages. I am aware of the update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines recently that state not to use canonical, but they say not to do it because everyone was messing it up, not because it shouldn't be done. So, in other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), which of the two following canonicals is correct? OR For this question, you can assume that (A) the English version of the site is our default and (B) the content is identical. Thanks guys, feel free to ask any qualifiers you think are relevant.
International SEO | | KaneJamison1