Will hreflang indication help single language site?
-
I have read a few articles that say indicating a language per webpage with hreflang really only helps sites that use multiple languages.
Although my site is only in English, I see that it is ranking for a few foreign language keywords in Google Search Console (not sure exact traffic but roughly 15% of visitors from Search are non English preferred).
My thought is that indicating language will help my single-language site because it will weed out the non-english speakers who are probably bouncing from the site. Overall I am thinking it might improve the quality of my search traffic.
Do you think my logic is sound, or is adding hreflang not beneficial to my site?
All feedback welcomed. Thanks!
-
Are there any major cons to include the hreflang attribute if there isn't a translated version? My site has some pages that are translated, which we include proper hreflang tags, but some pages that do not currently have a translated page. It sounds like it would take more work to remove the tags on those pages without a translated version than to keep it. Will this cause major issues with Google?
-
Thanks for the response, Gianluca. When you point out that rel=alternate is used, that does make it clearer that this is a tag used for a pair of URLs. That makes sense that this feature probably wasn't built to use for my scenario.
So I am guessing, in my situation I can't really inform Google to only target people who speak a certain language. I kind of just have to leave it up to Google to decipher. Even if I set the target country in Search Console to the US, this would exclude other English-speaking countries who are still in my target audience, which includes global English speakers (i.e. Singapore).
Is there anything we haven't brought up that you would recommend for my situation?
-
Ups, then im sorry.
I've never intended to give false information. I had incorrect information.Thanks for correcting me.
GR -
Here the answers:
-
the hreflang tag doesn't slow down websites performance. it makes have an incidence only in the case you have hundreds of hreflang markups in the html code, so that in t case it is better to use the sitemap.xml implementation.
-
you site is only in English, hence you can't use the hreflang, because it is an "alternate", therefore it always needs a pair (eg: "e-US". using it only in self-referential way (as sometimes we do with rel "canonical" is wrong and Google will present it as a mistake and not consider it
-
if you really want to target only the US public, then you must geotarget the domain in Search Console, going to its "International" section and selecting United States as the country targeted by the site.
-
-
You are is wrong and misleadin, sorry.
The he is never redundant and an English site could also be targeting another country than the USA.
You're correct saying it's not useful in this case, but not for the reason you give
-
Thanks for the response Gaston!
I am aware this will not help my page rankings. My thought is that it will improve the quality of my site's search traffic as explained in my original post.
Hmm.. do you really think adding "" to my html will slow down load speed? If that is the case, you are saying adding one link to your page will slow down the load time. I just don't think adding this small piece of code will have a significant effect on page speed.
If I check the International Targeting tab in Search Console, it says no hreflang tags being used, so I'm not sure how redundant this would be. I know Google can pick up languages, but I think of adding hreflang tags as insurance that the right audience will be reached.
I like your example about my mom (haha) and I would like to expand on it. If you were looking for "a woman" and came across my mother, you would be able to read the sign and be satisfied your search came to an end. However, if a non-english speaker was searching for "a woman" and came across my mother, although she has the features of a woman, s/he may be confused by the sign with foreign characters and leave immediately (this is bounce rate IRL).
God (AKA Google) would then take note that 50% of the people searching for a woman, that visited my mother, left confused. So s/he would stop leading people in search of "a woman" to my mother.
Does this depiction change your opinion on my thoughts at all?
-
Hi Jonathan,
Technically speaking, adding the hreflang sentence will not help your SERPs. Because it's redundant.
Also, I'd advise you to not add it. The reason is simple, the more lines of code, the slower the page is. And there is a common sense that google does not like redundant code.
Think it by yourself, in which way will it help you, that knowing that an english site, having a signal expressing that their language is english? Its like your mom would have a sign with ''I am a woman''
Hope it helps.
GR
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
-
IE & Edge issues with site relaunch - advice appreciated
Hi, I've been involved in a major ecommerce site relaunch, redesign and backend and have been involved in several successful ones before. On the whole things have gone great. Of course there are some minor bugs to fix, rendering issues etc but my real concern is a significant decline in conversion rate BUT only for IE and Edge users. All other major browsers conv rate has increased. Trawling through analytics and the site itself in those browsers there is no obvious sticking points e.g bounce rate has improved on all browser inc IE & Edge, no particular point in the funnel is suffering more than others, no particular page or landing page is doing much worse than others etc. it just seems like all the kpi's (except bounce) are down a little on the 2 microsoft browsers, which has a significant impact. One of the things that changed on relaunch is that we moved to https and im wondering if that might be causing an issue with IE / Edge security or privacy settings or that functionality on the site that relies on cookies is being affected, though in testing we haven't come across anything. I'd appreciate any advice or insight. Thanks, Andy
Conversion Rate Optimization | | AndyMacLean0 -
Breadcrumbs for ecommerce site
We are doing a major overhaul on our site, and we have some questions about URLs, breadcrumbs and ecommerce. Currently, a product can reside in multiple categories, and can have multiple URLs based on how a user navigates to the page. We handle this via canonicals, but it's awful for SEO on many levels. O-U-C-H. The main issue is that a product can reside in multiple categories. At this point, Plan A for our overhaul is that a product URL is always going to be www.domain.com/product-name-sku.html/. Neat and clean, and avoids end-user confusion if they navigate to the product through a category that doesn't match the URL. Plan B: We can anchor a product to a category or subcategory, (www.domain.com/category-name/subcategory-name/product-name-sku.html) but we think that this cuts down on usability as users can navigate to a product through different categories, and the URL may not match the user's navigation. Based on how Google has devalued URLs for ranking purposes, I don't think that there is much of an SEO advantage to Plan B. Am I wrong? A product can show up in multiple categories - for example: www.domain.com/womens-clothing/ www.domain.com/womens-clothing/dresses/ www,domain.com/womens-clothing/dresses/maxidresses/ Category breadcrumbs take care of themselves. What is the best practice to handle the breadcrumb on the product page considering that there are multiple paths a user can take to a product? Options: 1. The breadcrumb on the product page dynamically changes based on how the user navigates to the page. The URL is always fixed as per above, but we change the breadcrumb based on the session. ex: Product: Black Ruffled MuuMuu Home > Womens Clothing > Black Ruffled MuuMuu Home > Womens Clothing > Dresses > Black Ruffled MuuMuu We would be showing Google different breadcrumbs based on how the bot navigates to the page. Are there any issues with this from an SEO perspective as it would seem to provide the better user experience? 2. The breadcrumb on a product page is always fixed. We anchor a product to a category or subcategory and the breadcrumb is always the same no matter how a user navigates to the product. This is simpler from a development perspective, and we are always showing the same breadcrumb to Google. IMHO, this is not as good for usability. ex: Breadcrumb is always: Home > Womens Clothing > Dresses > Black Ruffled MuuMuu regardless of how a user navigates to it. Which way would our ecommerce experts recommend?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | AMHC0 -
Issue with a particular command of robots.txt! Help needed!
Hi all,I'm facing a strange issue with a website: www.foodmood.itI've written this robots.txt: www.foodmood.it/robots.txt in which I'm using all commands I've tested and used on other websites.The problem is that this website is not indexing correctly, and my fear is that I've written the robots in a wrong way.In this forum I've been taught that this command Disallow: /*? should be substituted with Disallow: /? in order to be sure the crawler is not indexing all the URLs containing a question mark.My question is: do you think this command modified in the above way can cause a problem to my website?I repeat that I've used it on several sites and this is the first time I'm having this kind of problems.Thanks in advance for your help.A.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | OptimizedGroup0 -
Microsites vs. one site
My client has created a product that he wants to market to two, very different, audiences. The goal is to funnel them through the site and get them to purchase. My question is about the best SEO strategy on how to do this effectively. Since they are distinct audiences with little in common we've recommended building two microsites, and optimizing each with unique content and different keyword focus. I realize it will be harder to optimize two sites rather than one, but it seems to make sense from a user perspective. But once the users goes to a "non-audience specific" page, like any page that is about the product or company and not about the audience, should we build yet a third website that houses the "company/product pages" and channel the conversions there in order to avoid having duplicate content on the two other sites? Or should we put the same "company pages" on both the Audience A and Audience B websites, only vary the text so it doesn't look like duplicate content. Or is the microsite strategy flawed all together? Please keep in mind this is a brand new product and it has national scope. There is no local focus. We will be building their rankings entirely from scratch. I REALLY appreciate any insights you may have. We have been going around and around about this. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ptdodge0 -
Which eCommerce site you consider using best practices? Site we can learn from
Hi, I'm looking to hear thoughts and suggestions as per sites that you consider to have great practices in the eCommerce world. Almost none of the sites do everything good so you can split your suggestions by any criteria -
Conversion Rate Optimization | | BeytzNet
the site structure
conversion funnel
Converting product pages (good design)
content creation and blog management / structure
content marketing
SEO guidelines / practices
... Thanks0 -
Does adding a well scripted and produced video help significantly in conversions from visits to my divorce lawyer website to calls for my services?
Should the addition of well scripted and produced video to my divorce lawyer website increase my conversions and, if so, to what extent?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | hildebrandlaw0 -
Conversion Rate - site feedback
Hi We gave a website a bit of a facelift last nov with the aim of increasing its position within Search Engines and getting it to begin making sales. The site: www.funkyfootstools.com is now moving in the right direction for its keyphrases, footstools and ottomans although it still needs some work. The issue I have is that from the visitors that come to the site, the stats prove they have a look around, they are just not purchasing - I am not sure if this is because of the layout, ie. usability or if there is something else. Any ideas & feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Carl
Conversion Rate Optimization | | keane-1145170 -
Spam to site with GMail addresses - any way to resolve.
We are noticing more and more spam around: Customer Name: Sylvia Abernathy Customer Email: sylviaa386@gmail.com Customer Phone Number: Service Type Requested: Please Choose From List Service description: We found your weblisting on one of the back pages of Google. Wouldn’t you rather be up front? Our experts in Search Engine Optimization can help you become more visible and more productive. A quick email will get you details. This is from a site around auto and truck service and is an actual cut and paste. My question is twofold: Is there a way to report individual Gmail addresses to Google as purveyors of spam and beyond a capcha, is there any other work around? This is form to schedule a service appt. so they are not emailing to an info@etc.com type address. It is a contact form. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | RobertFisher0