Hreflang and canonical for multi-language website
-
Hi all,
We're about to have a new website in different languages and locations, which will replace the existing one.
Lets say the domain name is example.com. the US version will be example.com/en-us/ and the UK version will be example.com/en-uk/. Some of the pages on both version share the same content. So in order to solve it, we're about to use hreflang on each page + a canonical tag which will always use the US address as canonical address.
My question is - since we are using canonical tag along with hreflang, is there a possibility that a user who is searching with Google.co.uk will get the canonical US address instead of the UK address? Or maybe the search engine will know to display the right localized address since (UK) i've been using hreflang? It is really important for me to know, because i'm afraid we will lose the high rankings that we have right now on google.co.uk.
Thanks in Advance
-
Thanks Lynnp for your answer, but unfortunately the suggestions given and documented with those previous Q&As are not valid anymore, because Google has since few months offered a new interpretation to the hreflang/rel="canonical" co-existence issue (read my answer).
-
If the hreflang is set up correctly, then the answer is NO.
hreflang and rel="canonical", as stated by Google itself, are two completely different kind of information.
- The first tells Google what URL to show depending on the language and location of users;
- The second tells Google if the URL it is crawling is identical to another one, which is referenced as href in the rel="canonical", therefore to consider it for indexing.
Check this post by David Sottimano, that is quite claryfing (and reports what Google really says now about this kind of situation)
When both annotations are used, we are practically saying this to Google (pardon me for the maybe poor metaphor):
Ok Google, I'm telling you that this URL - A - must be canonicalized to the URL B, so please don't count it as duplicated content. On the other hand, though, for me it is extremely important that you show URL A to the all English speaking users in Great Britain (Google.co.uk). Therefore, just for the situation don't filter out URL A.
Disclaimer: this is true in 99% of the cases, because we know also that the rel="canonical" is not a directive, but a strong hint we are giving to Google.
Because of this it is always a good idea - in the long term - to localize the content, even if American English and British English seems so similar (they aren't). Google has become smart enough to understand the different "flavors" a language may have in different territories.
-
Hi,
If the high rankings you have on .co.uk are for competitive keywords then I think you are wise to be concerned. Is the site originally from the US or what is influencing the decision to make the en-us version the default with the new site? Keep in mind also what the default example.com will be supporting, would that also be en-us (thereby rendering /en-us/ irrelevant)?
It used to be that using canonical together with hreflang was ok by google but had some odd side effects: If you canonical the uk version to the us version then certain uk searches could see the uk url but with title/meta/content from the us page. That can be ok depending on what your titles/content are like. If your us page title is 'my company USA' then that is probably not what you want uk searches seeing even if the link lands them on the uk page in the end. It also usually meant that the uk pages CONTENT itself was not searchable in google, so if the page for example had the only mention of a uk phone number then this number would not show up in google serps.
That being said, it seems that google has changed the guidance on using canonicals and hreflang together and is now suggesting only using canonicals within the same language/region set. Check here and the comments here for some more details. Soooo.... not sure if that helps answer your question much more!
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
-
How to decrease the spam score of website ?
Hello , Everyone I have my own website crawlmyline we are doing seo from last 2 years but didn't do any spammy work on my my site .Still I won't able to stop the spam score and now my website has 28 % spam score according to the moz.I have taken subscription of moz pro but still i can't understand the process. Can anyone please tell me how to decrease the spam score of website ?
Technical SEO | | kuldeep_chauhan0 -
Multiregional SEO - different website designs
Hello, when it comes to location & language targeting, is it possible to have different website page designs for their respective regions? So let's say we have one design for www.example.com/product-1 and a completely different design for www.example.com/us/product-1? Our branding is different for the US so would ideally like to use specific US designs for US pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | SEOCT0 -
Should I use canonical tag in these cases?
Should I use canonical tag in these cases? On the page itself (with the tag pointing to itself) On pages that doesn't have duplicate versions
Technical SEO | | GoMentor0 -
Is my website is over optimized for ON page SEO?
The keyword for the page is “locksmith Logan” based in: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Is webpage over used main keyword 'Logan locksmith' and what other areas are for improvement.
Technical SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Canonical URLs in an eCommerce site
We have a website with 4 product categories (1. ice cream parlors, 2. frozen yogurt shops etc.). A few sub-categories (e.g. toppings, smoothies etc.) and the products contained in those are available in more than one product category (e.g. the smoothies are available in the "ice cream parlors" category, but also in the "frozen yogurt shops" category). My question: Unfortunately the website has been designed in a way that if a subcategory (e.g. smoothies) is available in more than 1 category, then itself (the subcategory page) + all its product pages will be automatically visible under various different urls. So now I have several urls for one and the same product: www.example.com/strawberry-smoothie|SMOOTHIES|FROZEN-YOGURT-SHOPS-391-2-5 and http://www.example.com/strawberry-smoothie|SMOOTHIES|ICE-CREAM-PARLORS-391-1-5 And also several ones for one and the same sub-category (they all include exactly the same set of products): http://www.example.com/SMOOTHIES-1-12-0-4 (the smoothies contained in the ice cream parlors category) http://www.example.com/SMOOTHIES-2-12-0-4 (the same smoothies, contained in the frozen yogurt shops category) This is happening with around 100 pages. I would add canonical tags to the duplicates, but I'm afraid that by doing so, the category (frozen yogurt shops) that contains several non-canonical sub-categories (smoothies, toppings etc.) , might not show up anymore in search results or become irrelevant for Google when searching for example for "products for frozen yoghurt shops". Do you know if this would be actually the case? I hope I explained it well..
Technical SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
When will seomoz rank my website?
Hi all, I am really excited to be here. I joined seo moz three weeks ago. Seo moz crawled my website twice and still under competitive domain analysis my domain authority is 1 and everything else underneath is zero. I fixed some errors and warning after first crawl but still nothing in root domain metrics. Can anyone please explain whats happening? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | proaspirant0 -
Canonical tag in preferred and duplicate page
Hi, I have a super spiffy (not) CMS that tends to create some pages at the root level of the site (not where I want it) i.e. www.site.com/page.htm as well as the desired location i.e. www.site.com/category/keyword/page.htm . Now obviously a canonical tag inserted into the URL at the undesired location would be the best option, however the source code is exactly the same for both pages (can’t change this) i.e. if I put the canonical tag that reads www.site.com/category/keyword/page.htm"/> it will appear in the head section of both pages, the desired URL and the non desired URL. Will a canonical tag inserted into the head section of a the preferred URL directing the search engine spiders pretty much to itself cause more grieft than the solution it offers re duplicate content ? Marc
Technical SEO | | NRMA0 -
Canonical on ecommerce pages
I have seen some competitors using the nofollow tag as well as canonical on all refinements and sorts on their ecommerce pages. Example being if you went to their hard drive category page and refined by 500gb hard drives then that page would have a canonical element to send it back to hard drives page without the refinement. I see how this could be good for control indexation and the amount pages Google crawls, but do you see problems in using the canonical tag this way? Also I have seen competitors have category page descriptions (describing what that type of product is) on all pagenation and refinements (the exact same block of text on all of the pages). Would this be a duplicate content problem or is it not that big of a deal since the content is only on their site so they are only competiting with themselves. Thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | Gordian0