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 for bilingual website in the same region/location
-
Hi everyone,
got a quick question concerning the hreflang tag.
I have a website with 2 different language versions targeting to the same region(Reason: The area is bilingual however not everyone speaks the other language fluently)
Question:
Can I use hreflang in that case like:Many thanks in advance
-
Sure, I did this: http://bfy.tw/2hTu
-
Hi Dmitrii,
can you perhaps tell me the source, where you found the supported annotations above. Many Thanks
-
My answer is the correct. See what I replied above to Dmitrii
-
Lol! You're right. I was indeed thinking about Belgium and not Netherlands
-
It's a cultural thing. I'm that province of Italy people talk or Italian or German, so if you want to target both with your multilingual site you must tell it to Google with hreflang, even if it is not listed in the ISO chart.
you do the same for targeting Spanish speaking people in the usa, for instance.
-
Gianluca - I guess this time it's my turn: As far as I know they only have one official language in the Netherlands (Dutch) - I guess you refer to Belgium (3 official languages Dutch/French/German).
It's a common error to make this mistake - but the difference is easy to spot: Belgium is qualified for Euro '16 - unlike the Netherlands
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thank you for your reply. In fact I'm refering to that exact region. The difference to your CH examples are though, that in Switzerland, the 3 language regions are not the exact same "location".
In my case they are though so I got a bit confused.
So basically Im not saying, a specific region in Switzerland speaks French, another German and another Italian, but I say the exact same location/region speaks German and Italian.
-
Well, I do see the ones you mentioned on that list, but not it-it or de-it.
-
Yes, it exists (it is Alto Agide/South Tirol), and it's the same case of Netherlands (fr-NL and de-NL) or Switzerland (it-CH, fr-CH and de-CH)
-
Yes, you can.
-
Interesting. Google search doesn't return anything on this locale.
-
yes, sure about that
-
Are you sure that locale exists?
-
Hi Dmitrii,
many thanks for your reply. Great list, unfortunately I can't find my case. Though I think this list is not complete. E.x. I miss the the french speaking part in Italy for example,...
Helpful anyway though.
-
Hi there.
I found this list of all available locales, if locales you're trying to do are in this list, then go ahead, otherwise it won't work.
P.S. List might be old and updated by now, but i don't think so.
- af-ZA
- am-ET
- ar-AE
- ar-BH
- ar-DZ
- ar-EG
- ar-IQ
- ar-JO
- ar-KW
- ar-LB
- ar-LY
- ar-MA
- arn-CL
- ar-OM
- ar-QA
- ar-SA
- ar-SY
- ar-TN
- ar-YE
- as-IN
- az-Cyrl-AZ
- az-Latn-AZ
- ba-RU
- be-BY
- bg-BG
- bn-BD
- bn-IN
- bo-CN
- br-FR
- bs-Cyrl-BA
- bs-Latn-BA
- ca-ES
- co-FR
- cs-CZ
- cy-GB
- da-DK
- de-AT
- de-CH
- de-DE
- de-LI
- de-LU
- dsb-DE
- dv-MV
- el-GR
- en-029
- en-AU
- en-BZ
- en-CA
- en-GB
- en-IE
- en-IN
- en-JM
- en-MY
- en-NZ
- en-PH
- en-SG
- en-TT
- en-US
- en-ZA
- en-ZW
- es-AR
- es-BO
- es-CL
- es-CO
- es-CR
- es-DO
- es-EC
- es-ES
- es-GT
- es-HN
- es-MX
- es-NI
- es-PA
- es-PE
- es-PR
- es-PY
- es-SV
- es-US
- es-UY
- es-VE
- et-EE
- eu-ES
- fa-IR
- fi-FI
- fil-PH
- fo-FO
- fr-BE
- fr-CA
- fr-CH
- fr-FR
- fr-LU
- fr-MC
- fy-NL
- ga-IE
- gd-GB
- gl-ES
- gsw-FR
- gu-IN
- ha-Latn-NG
- he-IL
- hi-IN
- hr-BA
- hr-HR
- hsb-DE
- hu-HU
- hy-AM
- id-ID
- ig-NG
- ii-CN
- is-IS
- it-CH
- it-IT
- iu-Cans-CA
- iu-Latn-CA
- ja-JP
- ka-GE
- kk-KZ
- kl-GL
- km-KH
- kn-IN
- kok-IN
- ko-KR
- ky-KG
- lb-LU
- lo-LA
- lt-LT
- lv-LV
- mi-NZ
- mk-MK
- ml-IN
- mn-MN
- mn-Mong-CN
- moh-CA
- mr-IN
- ms-BN
- ms-MY
- mt-MT
- nb-NO
- ne-NP
- nl-BE
- nl-NL
- nn-NO
- nso-ZA
- oc-FR
- or-IN
- pa-IN
- pl-PL
- prs-AF
- ps-AF
- pt-BR
- pt-PT
- qut-GT
- quz-BO
- quz-EC
- quz-PE
- rm-CH
- ro-RO
- ru-RU
- rw-RW
- sah-RU
- sa-IN
- se-FI
- se-NO
- se-SE
- si-LK
- sk-SK
- sl-SI
- sma-NO
- sma-SE
- smj-NO
- smj-SE
- smn-FI
- sms-FI
- sq-AL
- sr-Cyrl-BA
- sr-Cyrl-CS
- sr-Cyrl-ME
- sr-Cyrl-RS
- sr-Latn-BA
- sr-Latn-CS
- sr-Latn-ME
- sr-Latn-RS
- sv-FI
- sv-SE
- sw-KE
- syr-SY
- ta-IN
- te-IN
- tg-Cyrl-TJ
- th-TH
- tk-TM
- tn-ZA
- tr-TR
- tt-RU
- tzm-Latn-DZ
- ug-CN
- uk-UA
- ur-PK
- uz-Cyrl-UZ
- uz-Latn-UZ
- vi-VN
- wo-SN
- xh-ZA
- yo-NG
- zh-CN
- zh-HK
- zh-MO
- zh-SG
- zh-TW
- zu-ZA
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
-
International SEO Question: Using hreflang tags across two different TLDs.
Hi! My UK based company just recently made the decision to let the US market operate their ecommerce business independently. Initially, both markets were operating off the same domain using sub-directories (i.e: www.brandname.com/en-us/ , www.brandname.com/en-gb/ ) Now that the US team have broken away from the domain - they are now using www.brandnameUSA.com while the UK continues to use www.brandname.com/en-gb/. The content is similar across both domains - however, the new US website has been able to consolidate several product variations onto single product pages where the UK website is using individual product pages for each variation. We have placed a geo-filter on the main domain which is 301 redirecting North American traffic looking for www.brandname.com to www.brandnameUSA.com However, since the domain change has taken place, product pages from the original domain are now indexing alongside the new US websites product pages in US search results. The UK website wants to be the default destination for all international traffic. My question is - how do we correctly setup hrlang tags across two separate TLDs and how do we handle a situation where multiple product pages on the "default" domain have been consolidated into one product page on the new USA domain? This is how we are currently handling it: "en-us" href="https://www.BRANDNAMEUSA.com/All-Variations" /> href="https://www.BRANDNAMEUSA.com/All-Variations" />
International SEO | | alexcbrands0 -
Hreflang tag on every page?
Hello Moz Community, I'm working with a client who has translated their top 50 landing pages into Spanish. It's a large website and we don't have the resources to properly translate all pages at once, so we started with the top 50. We've already translated the content, title tags, URLs, etc. and the content will live in it's own /es-us/ directory. The client's website is set up in a way that all content follows a URL structure such as: https://www.example.com/en-us/. For Page A, it will live in English at: https://www.example.com/en-us/page-a For Page A, it will live in Spanish at https://www.example.com/es-us/page-a ("page-a" may vary since that part of the URL is translated) From my research in the Moz forums and Webmaster Support Console, I've written the following hreflang tags: /> For Page B, it will follow the same structure as Page A, and I wrote the corresponding hreflang tags the same way. My question is, do both of these tags need to be on both the Spanish and English version of the page? Or, would I put the "en-us" hreflang tag on the Spanish page and the "es-us" hreflang tag on the English page? I'm thinking that both hreflang tags should be on both the Spanish and English pages, but would love some clarification/confirmation from someone that has implemented this successfully before.
International SEO | | DigitalThirdCoast0 -
Multi Regional Website Best Practices
Hi there, I have a website that is targeting 3 countries AU/US & NZ. I have set up hreflang tags for each page on each of the site however I am having difficulties getting it work right. I read this article which was a great insight into the hreflang tags. https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights and as a result I have implemented hreflang tags in the following manner: When users access the root domain http://[website] it will redirect the user to their locale with a 302 redirect. I have a few questions:
International SEO | | nathanfranklin
1. When building my external link profiles, I'm not sure if I should be building link profiles for http://[website]/ or for the geo graphical pages (http://[website]/aus/ etc..). Note that the http://[website]/ is never used, it just issues a 302 to the actual geographical location. 2. It seems that the hreflang tags are not working correctly. Perhaps its the result of the 302 on the root page, but in google.com.au (using the link http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=au&pws=0&q=[branded search]) I would expect that I should see the search results for /aus/ given the fact that the hreflang tags are setup as en-au. Instead I am seeing the root domain page. Is that correct or should it be showing all the pages with /aus/. ALSO If I do a search in google thailand (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&gl=th&pws=0&q=[branded search]) it returns the /aus/ version where it should be showing the /us/ using the x-default hreflang tag. In google webmaster tools I have setup 4 site profiles:
http://[website]/
http://[website]/us/
http://[website]/aus/ (Targeted to Australia)
http://[website]/nz/ (Targeted to New Zealand) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Nathan1 -
International SEO Subfolders / user journey etc
Hi According to all the resources i can find on Moz and elsewhere re int seo, say in the context of having duplicate versions of US & UK site, its best to have subfolders i.e. domain.com/en-gb/ & domain.com/en-us/ however when it comes to the user journey and promoting web address seems a bit weird to say visit us at: domain.com/en-us/ !? And what happens if someone just enters in domain.com from the US or UK ? My client wants to use an IP sniffer but i've read thats bad practice and should employ above style country/language code instead, but i'm confused about both the user journey and experience in the case of multiple sub folders. Any advice much appreciated ? Cheers Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
For a website in portuguese what would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br
Hello We are a company with a website in several languages, one of them is portuguese. Our market is 2 times bigger in Brazil than in Portugal, but obviously Brazil has more potential in the future. In domain.com we have our main site in English. What would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br? In the first case, it means just portuguese, in the second Brazil but it is not geolocalized, and in the third, you are almost ignoring Portugal users... Duplicating content, doesn't seem to make sense... The content is basically international, so it is just the language that matters. Any help will be very much appreciated.
International SEO | | forex-websites0 -
How do I get a UK website to rank in Dubai?
We are trying to get a UK-based children's furniture website to rank in Dubai. We have had a couple of orders from wealthy expats in Dubai and it seems to be the correct target market. Does anyone have any specific knowledge of this area? We are promoting the same website as for the UK market. Also does anyone know any user behaviour stats on expatriates using search engines? Do they carry on using the version of Google they are used to, or do most change to the local version of Google? Thanks in advance
International SEO | | Wagada0 -
Does the location of my Domain Registrar affect SEO?
Does the location of my Domain Registrar affect SEO? For example, if my hosting company is in the U.S., but the domain registrar is overseas. Also, is it better to have both services be met by one company?
International SEO | | greenfoxone0 -
Does Keyword and Location Matter?
Hi Everyone, I'm always learning, but here's a question. I would like to know if keyword and location truly matter. For example, I've been trying to rank my website for a LONG time for a UK English term. My site is hosted in the US. My site has great content and internal and external links using the keyword. I cannot seem to climb the SERPs although my "American" keywords do fine and I see results. If anyone wants to take a look, that would be great. My website is JourneyBeyondTravel.com and I wish to rank for "Morocco Holidays" (I am at about #20 currently). I am also having trouble with "Morocco travel" although I have continuously ranked well for "Morocco tours" and "trips." Along this same line, I've been doing some quality guest posting and blogging. I've used longer phrase-type keywords (3-5 words) in the article text that have keyword terms in them. Should keywords be varied like this? How long until I see results? And, should I look for blogs in different countries to keep things balanced (such as blogging on .co.uk sites so that I can get link juice for UK keywords). Thanks again! Thomas
International SEO | | journeybeyondtravel0