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 : mixing with/without country code for same language
-
Hello,
I would like to display 3 different english versions of my website : 1 for UK, 1 for CA and 1 for other english users.
It would look like this for a page:
. (english content with £ prices)
<link rel="alternate" href="https: xxx.com="" en-ca" hreflang="en-CA">(english content with $CA prices)</link rel="alternate" href="https:>
<link rel="alternate" href="https: xxx.com="" en="" " hreflang="en">(english content without currency)</link rel="alternate" href="https:>
I wonder if I can mix this hreflang without country code with hreflangs with country code for the 2 other specific versions... or if the hreflang without country code version will appear whatever the country, even if i specified it .
In other terms, is hreflang="en" > hreflang="en-CA" + hreflang="en-GB" if tagged together on a same page?
Thank you
-
I think you are taking that rather too literally.
For example, as I said the .com could be the one targeted with an hreflang="x-default. A person in the UK would, by definition be served with the .com/uk version.
You wouldn't put a hreflang="x-default on the /uk homepage.
Regards
Nigel
-
The x-default is just what the link you provided says it is:
From Google: The reserved value hreflang="x-default" is used when no other language/region matches the user's browser setting. This value is optional, but recommended, as a way for you to control the page when no languages match. A good use is to target your site's homepage where there is a clickable map that enables the user to select their country.
If you use it for just one language, the issue comes when you have more than one language. The setup for x-default is for when there is no language detected, not that a general, non-regional language is detected.
-
Surely the x-default is, as the tag suggests, a default where no country or language is targeted? So if someone resided in an untargeted country and the site happened to rank it would be that one that came up.
Someone in the UK (which contained a UK target tag) would not go to default first, as you suggest, and then select their own country & language. That's misleading.
I agree that the subfolders would be used to target each country but you would still need both country and language. With Canada you may wish to target en and fr as both are relevant and each would reside in a different sub-folder.
The language is essential imho.
Regards Nigel
-
Actually, the x-default is meant to be for a page that allows users to select a country/language combination.
Alexis, in theory, what you are proposing should work. However, it is not always perfect. There is so much that goes into how Google serves content to each user. You might not see it working perfectly every time, but you can use the non-country with two country-specific hreflang tags together.
In fact, the country coded hreflang tags were meant to be dialect-specific. So a site could have US English content and UK English content, but also more general English content for the rest of the English speaking people.
In fact, it sounds like if the only thing changing is the currency, you might try geo-targeting subfolders. You can do hreflang in addition to that, but geotargeting is what is meant to be used here.
- Content for CA: https://www.domain.com/ca/content
- Content for GB: https://www.domain.com/gb/content
- General Content: https://www.domain.com/content
Claim the subfolders in Google Search Console as different properties and then target each one to those countries in the International Targeting area.
Then add hreflang the way you mentioned with those URLs. However, this setup won't work if you are doing things with another language mixed in. If you are planning on that, let me know.
-
Hi Alexis
If the third one is the default then you need a default hreflang tag.
https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag
So the last one would have this tag pointing to it:
More on Google here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
It will then become the default site for all people not in England or Canada. Google will not see any of them as duplicate content.
Regards
Nigel
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 and canonical tag for new country specific website - different base domain
I have a little different situation compared to most other questions which asks for hreflang and canonical tags for country specific version of websites. This is an SEO related question and I was hoping to get some insight on your recommendations. We have an existing Australian website - say - ausnight.com.au now we want to launch a UK version of this website - the domain is - uknight.co.uk please note, we are not only changing from .com.au to .co.uk.... but the base domain name as well changed - from ausnight to uknight as you can understand, the audience for both websites is different. Both websites has most pages same with same contents.... the questions I have is - Should we put canonical tag on the new website pages? If we don't put canon tag on new website pages, what is the impact on the SEO ranking of current website? I believe we need to put hreflang tag on both websites to tell google that we have another language version (en-au vs en-gb) of the same page. Is this correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TinoSharp0 -
Uppercase/Lowercase Reading As Duplicate Permalinks
I cannot figure out if this is an actual SEO issue or just a crawl reader error. I use Screaming Frog to crawl my site and use their SEO features. When I look at page titles and duplicates it shows all our pages twice... some with 1 letter capitalized and the other not. I don't REALLY have duplicate permalinks do I? I also noticed when I use some open site explorers and paste in both permalinks the specs will show for the permalink that's all lowercase but it won't find anything for the "duplicate" permalink that is capitalized. Below I included a few screenshots. Thank you Moz Fam! Q6866xZNUfpF cxXacVajCBGb
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LindsayE0 -
[Very Urgent] More 100 "/search/adult-site-keywords" Crawl errors under Search Console
I just opened my G Search Console and was shocked to see more than 150 Not Found errors under Crawl errors. Mine is a Wordpress site (it's consistently updated too): Here's how they show up: Example 1: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html/feed/rss2 Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html Example 2 (this surprised me the most when I looked at the linked from data): URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/3/ Linked From: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/2/ (this is showing as if it's from our own site) http://a-spammy-adult-site.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html Example 3: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html How do I address this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rmehta10 -
Using hreflang="en" instead of hreflang="en-gb"
Hello, I have a question in regard to international SEO and the hreflang meta tag. We are currently a B2B business in the UK. Our major market is England with some exceptions of sales internationally. We are wanting to increase our ranking into other english speaking countries and regions such as Ireland and the Channel Islands. My research has found regional google search engines for Ireland (google.ie), Jersey (google.je) and Guernsey (google.gg). Now, all the regions have English as one their main language and here is my questions. Because I use hreflang=“en-gb” as my site language, am I regional excluding these countries and islands? If I used hreflang=“en” would it include these english speaking regions and possible increase the ranking on these the regional search engines? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SilverStar11 -
Adding hreflang tags - better on each page, or the site map?
Hello, I am wondering if there seems to be a preference for adding hreflang tags (from this article). My client just changed their site from gTLDs to ccTLDs, and a few sites have taken a pretty big traffic hit. One issue is definitely the amount of redirects to the page, but I am also going to work with the developer to add hreflang tags. My question is - is it better to add them to the header of each page, or the site map, or both, or something else? Any other thoughts are appreciated. Our Australia site, which was at least findable using Australia Google before this relaunch, is not showing up, even when you search the company name directly. Thanks!Lauryn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | john_marketade0 -
Should you use a canonical tag on translated content in a multi-language country?
A customer of ours has a website in Belgium. There two main languages in Belgium: Dutch and French.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox
At first there was only a Dutch version with a .be extension. Right now they are implementing the French Belgium version on the URL website.be/fr. All of the content and comments will be translated. Also the URL’s will change from Dutch to French, so you've got two URL’s with the same content but in another language. Question: Should you use a canonical tag on translated content in a multi-language country? I think Google will understand this is just for the usability for a Multilanguage country. What do you guys think???0 -
Google is mixing subdomains. What can we do?
Hi! I'm experiencing something that's kind of strange for me. I have my main domain let's say: www.domain.com. Then I have my mobile version in a subdomain: mobile.domain.com and I also have a german version of the website de.domain.com. When I Google my domain I have the main result linking to: www.domain.com but then Google mixes all the domains in the sites links. For example a Sing in may be linking mobile.domain.com, a How it works link may be pointing to de.domain.com, etc What's the solution? I think this is hurting a lot my position cause google sees that all are the same domain when clearly is not. thanks!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
Keyphrase / Keyword arrangement
Hi all, What are your thoughts on the arrangement of keyphrases / words? For example, does it make a difference if the words are arranged in the following way: "Keyword 1 Keyword 2" or "Keyword 2 Keyword 1" Both ways make a phrases which is favourable in the search engines. Can I stick with 1 way or should I be going with both arrangements. Hope that is clear 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wtfi0