Can the Alternate/hreflang tags harm SEO?
-
Hello,
Recently one of my regional websites, targeted for Denmark (xxxx.dk (TLD)), received a manual penalty from Google, specified as “pure spam”.
The reason for this (as I suspect) can be the fact that the Danish site’s content, is fully translated from English, on the main site (.com).
To fix that problem with Google, I want to use the “alternate/hreflang” tags on both sites
URL’s (the main and the regional), before submitting it for a second review on WMT.Following this, I would like to ask you few questions:
1. Is there any RISK in using alternate tags between two sites (a “healthy” site to the one that got the penalty), Can it harm the SEO of the main site (.com)?
2. Once done, Will it resolve my problem with Google? Will they remove the manual penalty?
3. Based on your experience, would you recommend me to rewrite all the content on the Danish site, instead of just translating it (the current status)?Would love to hear your opinion on those issues.
Thanks a lot!
-
Hello,
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604777?hl=en That would be your main guidelines. Now, here are my questions/suggestions. How did you translate that website? Is it automatically generated through google translate? Have you done any other spammy stuff? Is your backlink profile clean?
According to Matt explainations in video above, it would have to be very good reason to mark your website as pure spam. So, if you just translated (properly) english website, then it shouldn't be the reason for taking manual action on your website. So, check everything else.
Now, as to your questions.
- I think that would depend on is your "healthy" website really healthy. Because if it's actually as spammy (at least in the eyes of google), then you'll basically tell google "Hey, look at my another spammy website". But, I believe, if english website is all good and has no spam attached to it, then it shouldn't be a problem.
- According to Matt, it will be pretty difficult to unmark your website and you'll have to spend a lot of time and effort on proving it. So, roll up your sleeves and get ready to work.
- If you're translating it, you're pretty much rewriting it. I used to work as a translator and there is no way to translate word to word, the proper way of translation is when you translate the idea/thought/intent, not words itself.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Follow/NoFollow?
I run Magento 2 and have two stores, one intended for the EU and one for the US. 99% of the products available appear on both stores, there is an automatic redirect in place to either store depending on your location. But I think Google is seeing these as duplicate products/stores. Should I add the Index,NoFollow tag to one of the two stores? My issue is that I want both stores to rank in their geographical locations and I am concerned that by adding the NoFollow tag is will stop that dead in its tracks for one location. Any advice would be helpful.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots2 -
Site migration/ CMS/domain site structure change-no access to search console
Hi everyone, We are migrating an old site under a bigger umbrella (our main domain). As mentioned in the title, We'll perform CMS migration, domain change, and site structure change. Now, the major problem is that we can't get into google search console for the old site. The site still has old GA code, so google search console verification using this method is not possible, also there is no way developers will be able to add GTM or edit DNS setting (not to bother you with the reason why). Now, my dilemma is : 1. Do we need access to old search console to notify Google about the domain name change or this could be done from our main site (old site will become a part of) search console 2. We are setting up 301 redirects from old to the new domain (not perfect 1:1 redirect ). Once migration is done does anything else needs to be done with the old domain (it will become obsolete)? 3.The main site, Site-map... Should I create a new sitemap with newly added pages or update the current one. 4. if you have anything else please add:) Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bgvsiteadmin0 -
Long Title Tags
Hi guys, We have product e-commerce title tags which are over 60 characters - around 80 plus. The reason we added them in there is to incorporate
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowork214
more information for Google. The format of these title tags are: Name + Colour + Rug Type + Origin Name = for people searching for the name of the rug
Color = people searching for a specific color
Type = The type of rug (e.g. normal or designer)
Origin = Where the rug is for. So this title will cover people searching for: People searching for designer rugs, the specific colour and also where it comes from. This then results in the title tag going way over 60 characters - around 80-90 characters. -- Would it be wise to try and shrink it down to under 60 characters, and what would be a good approach to do this? Cheers.0 -
Can we use webiste content to Marketplce websites (Etsy / Amazon etc..)?
Hello Webmasters, My Name is Dinesh. I am working with Commerce Pundit as Marketing Person. We have one question with one of the website and would like to get the more idea on it We have one page or category name with "Engraved Photos on Wood". Here is page URL: http://www.canvaschamp.com/engraved-photos-on-wood-plaques So my Question about the content which we have added on this page. We have another team and they are handling marketplace department and they are using same content from the above page of website to do listing onto below Marketplace website. Refer website listing which are done by our marketplace team and where you can see that they guys have use the same content of form the above website page as a product info or description of the listing. https://www.etsy.com/listing/237807419/personalized-photo-art-or-custom-text-on?ref=listings_manager_grid
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
http://www.amazon.in/dp/B01003REIC
http://www.amazon.in/dp/B010037IEM
http://www.amazon.in/dp/B01000JG6I
http://www.amazon.in/dp/B01003HT6Y Does it create Duplicate content Issue with the our Website? Can marketplace team use the our website content onto various marketplace website to do website? We are every serious with the Organic Ranking for our website. So do let me know that is this right way or do we have to ask to them to stop this activities? Waiting for your reply Thanks
Dinesh
Commerce Pundit0 -
Technical SEO
Where can I find knowledge of enhanced and technical SEO for all type of websites ( mainly E-Commerce)? Please share some good sources (PDFs, Videos, Checklist etc)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Using a 302 re-direct from http://www to https://www to secure customer data
My website sends Customers from a http://www.mysite.com/features page to a https://www.mysite.com/register page which is an account sign-up form using a 302 re-direct. Any page that collects customer data has an authenticated SSL certificate to protect any data on the site. Is this 302 the most appropriate way of doing this as the weekly crawl picks it up as being bad practise? Is there a better alternative?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ubique0 -
Can multiple redirects from old URLs hurt SEO?
We have a client that had an existing site with existing rankings. We rebuilt the site using DNN 7 and created/tested 301 redirects from all the Original URLs to the new DNN URLs which are nasty and have /tabid/1234 and will not allow for dashes (-)'s We have found a DNN module that will make the DNN 7 URLs search friendly. However, that will cause us to 301 the current DNN urls to the new URLs so in fact the original will redirect to the DNN and the DNN will redirect to the rewritten SEO friendly URLs. What should we know here before proceeding?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tjkirgin0 -
Need help/insights. Site SEO = OK, Authority BLs = OK, Rank page #1\. How to reach pos #1?
Hi there! Some doubts are confusing my head and need some assistence from you to get on the right track. I'll explain my situation and want to hear from you what do you really recommend for med/long term permanent results. 1 - I have a PR2 (.com.br) domain; 2 - I'm talking about little/med competition micro-niche keywords; 3 - I got all pages I want to, indexed (I have a well SEO constructed website with internal link building); 4 - If a keyword has average competition, I'll already start ranking in page #3 on the SERP's; For a few low competition keywords I start on page #1; 5 - I do a little whitehat link building, 1 or 2 backlinks on authority sites and then like 15 days later I came to page #1, generally on position 9/10; And then I got stucked 🙂 No more authority sites where I can get backlinks... I do some posts on the company twitter/facebook page's, but they are no follow, so I don't really now if this can help. (never see a SERP result). I did some "blackhat" stuff to see if it really work: I can say for sure the "profile backlinks" that we can buy from some sites doesn't work (maybe it's just for me). I can't see it on webmaster tool and neither my ranks changed since I bought a pack of 100 links (the links are working, I see it one by one) to test. Maybe the problem is about the domains, cause my site is .com.br and I'm buying .com profile links. I guess google understand backlinks from .com.br more valuable for my sites. Back to whitehat: I wrote some articles and posted it the right way, of course on .com.br articles sites, got it indexed and can see the backlink on webmaster tool, but no change on SERP's. (maybe this can be a long term result and I'm not seeing it yet). I'm really "scratching my hand" to do some blackhat stuff, but I don't want to lose what I already have done... I heard a lot about scrapebox but doesn't fell confortable to spam as hell a lot of blogs. I really want long term permanent results (my sites are totally whitehat/corporate sites). Can you expert guys give me some point to where I need to "walk" now to improve the SERP's? I never reached top #1 and want to try to rank at least one time to understand how this can be made... I'm thinking now to pay someone to rewrite 20 copies of an article and up it on some sites, to see if 20 can improve something. But still no confident, because it will cost like $100 for a good writer do it for me on my language. Maybe I can do better things with 100 bucks. I guess I did the path right: Internal SEO -> got indexed -> backlinking from authorities -> new articles backlinks to me (is it ok at this position or no?) -> (what next ?) I know SEO is a hard/never ending work, but what I'm trying to get cleaned on my head is the path of the work (if a right path really exists). Every word will be apreciated. What do you can suggest to me to try now? (please give me a hint to see SERP's results 🙂 if I feel that something worked, no matter how it can cost to me, but I'll pay for the work happily) Sorry if I'm a little confusing, english isnt' my first language. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | azaiats20
