undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • SEO Q&A

      Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. How does link juice flow through hreflang?

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.

How does link juice flow through hreflang?

Technical SEO
4
9
3.4k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • CuriosityMedia
    CuriosityMedia last edited by Jan 12, 2016, 4:58 PM

    We want to use the hreflang tag on our site (direct users searching for the Spanish version of spanishdict.com to spanishdict.com/traductor). Before doing so, we were wondering how link juice flows through hreflang? Any insight or resources on this would be very helpful. Thanks!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • CuriosityMedia
      CuriosityMedia @DirkC last edited by Jan 19, 2016, 1:43 PM Jan 19, 2016, 1:43 PM

      Thanks for this helpful response, Dirk! Yep, you understood our question correctly. Looks like we may not be able to add an hreflang tag on our /traductor page then.  If there's any way around this please let us know!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • gfiorelli1
        gfiorelli1 last edited by Jan 25, 2016, 12:59 PM Jan 13, 2016, 7:19 PM

        The answer by Dimitri is wrong! (Sorry Dimitri).

        The hreflang's href doesn't pass any link equity (use this definition, not link juice, please :-)).

        It is a rel="alternate" and doesn't have any connection with things like 301s.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • DirkC
          DirkC @CuriosityMedia last edited by Jan 13, 2016, 7:22 PM Jan 13, 2016, 7:15 PM

          Hreflang is reciprocal - so if page A indicates page B as equivalent - page B has to declare page A as equivalent.

          If I understand your question well - you want to have 2 English pages with a hreflang pointing to the same Spanish page. This is not possible.

          Dirk

          CuriosityMedia 1 Reply Last reply Jan 19, 2016, 1:43 PM Reply Quote 1
          • CuriosityMedia
            CuriosityMedia @DirkC last edited by Jan 13, 2016, 5:23 PM Jan 13, 2016, 5:23 PM

            Hi Dirk --  Thanks for your helpful response! One more question, can we have an hreflang tag from both our homepage (www.spanishdict.com) and another page (www.spanishdict.com/translation) to the Spanish version of the site (www.spanishdict.com/traductor)?

            DirkC 1 Reply Last reply Jan 13, 2016, 7:15 PM Reply Quote 0
            • DmitriiK
              DmitriiK @DirkC last edited by Jan 12, 2016, 7:05 PM Jan 12, 2016, 7:05 PM

              Ok, that's what I thought. I guess I just didn't explain properly in my first answer 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DirkC
                DirkC @DmitriiK last edited by Jan 12, 2016, 7:01 PM Jan 12, 2016, 7:01 PM

                In that case it will reinforce the domain (like any external link to any page on the domain).

                It's just that a link to domain.com/es/page will not count as a link to domain.com/en/page even when they are "linked" via the hreflang tag. Idem where the domains are different. ex domain.es/page & domain.co.uk/page - a link to .es page will not count for the .co.uk page (and domain) even when they are connected via the hreflang.

                Dirk

                DmitriiK CuriosityMedia 2 Replies Last reply Jan 13, 2016, 5:23 PM Reply Quote 2
                • DmitriiK
                  DmitriiK @DirkC last edited by Jan 13, 2016, 7:22 PM Jan 12, 2016, 6:54 PM

                  Hi. Well, they do not consolidate, that's for sure. However, I have a question then: so, if, let's say i have a to site.com/ and site.com/es/ for Spain and then somebody links to site.com/es/, wouldn't this increase DA of the whole domain, which is site.com?

                  DirkC 1 Reply Last reply Jan 12, 2016, 7:01 PM Reply Quote 2
                  • DirkC
                    DirkC last edited by Jan 13, 2016, 5:28 PM Jan 12, 2016, 6:45 PM

                    Not sure if what Dmitrii is stating is correct.
                    If you check the comments here https://www.distilled.net/blog/distilled/distilledlive-london-a-few-thoughts-on-hreflang/ they state:
                    " hreflang anotations do not consolidate link equity." (source: Maile Ohye (Google's Developer Programs Tech Lead) at SES London) "Hreflang was not designed to consolidate link authority" (source John Mu - chat with David Sottimano)

                    Also on Moz - Gianluca seems to be convinced of the same - https://moz.com/community/q/will-website-with-tag-hreflang-pass-link-juice-to-other-country-language-version-of-website -

                    Dirk

                    DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Jan 12, 2016, 6:54 PM Reply Quote 2
                    • 1 / 1
                    1 out of 9
                    • First post
                      1/9
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • DGAU

                      Can I use a 301 redirect to pass 'back link' juice to a different domain?

                      Hi, I have a backlink from a high DA/PA Government Website pointing to www.domainA.com which I own and can setup 301 redirects on if necessary. However my www.domainA.com is not used and has no active website (but has hosting available which can 301 redirect). www.domainA.com is also contextually irrelevant to the backlink. I want the Government Website link to go to www.domainB.com - which is both the relevant site and which also should be benefiting from from the seo juice from the backlink. So far I have had no luck to get the Government Website's administrators to change the URL on the link to point to www.domainB.com. Q1: If i use a 301 redirect on www.domainA.com to redirect to www.domainB.com will most of the backlink's SEO juice still be passed on to www.domainB.com? Q2: If the answer to the above is yes -  would there be benefit to taking this a step further and redirect www.domainA.com to a deeper directory on www.domianB.com which is even more relevant?
                      ie. redirect www.domainA.com to www.domainB.com/categoryB - passing the link juice deeper.

                      Technical SEO | Jun 16, 2018, 5:22 AM | DGAU
                      0
                    • UnbounceVan

                      How can I stop a tracking link from being indexed while still passing link equity?

                      I have a marketing campaign landing page and it uses a tracking URL to track clicks. The tracking links look something like this: http://this-is-the-origin-url.com/clkn/http/destination-url.com/ The problem is that Google is indexing these links as pages in the SERPs. Of course when they get indexed and then clicked, they show a 400 error because the /clkn/ link doesn't represent an actual page with content on it. The tracking link is set up to instantly 301 redirect to http://destination-url.com. Right now my dev team has blocked these links from crawlers by adding   Disallow: /clkn/   in the robots.txt file, however, this blocks the flow of link equity to the destination page. How can I stop these links from being indexed without blocking the flow of link equity to the destination URL?

                      Technical SEO | May 12, 2017, 2:12 PM | UnbounceVan
                      0
                    • inlinear

                      Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?

                      Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
                      RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
                      RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html 
                      RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
                      2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
                      Holger

                      Technical SEO | Jul 25, 2013, 6:54 PM | inlinear
                      0
                    • greenfoxone

                      Dofollow and Nofollow links

                      What is the difference between dofollow and nofollow links? I know that some sites/blogs only let you post nofollow links. In such a case how do I know if a comment I posted on a certain site will be a nofollow or dofollow? How about big traffic sites such as Huff Post. Do they only allow nofollow links?

                      Technical SEO | Oct 16, 2020, 10:51 PM | greenfoxone
                      0
                    • Santaur

                      Best practices for controlling link juice with site structure

                      I'm trying to do my best to control the link juice from my home page to the most important category landing pages on my client's e-commerce site. I have a couple questions regarding how to NOT pass link juice to insignificant pages and how best to pass juice to my most important pages. INSIGNIFICANT PAGES: How do you tag links to not pass juice to unimportant pages. For example, my client has a "Contact" page off of there home page. Now we aren't trying to drive traffic to the contact page, so I'm worried about the link juice from the home page being passed to it. Would you tag the Contact link with a "no follow" tag, so it doesn't pass the juice, but then include it in a sitemap so it gets indexed? Are there best practices for this sort of stuff?

                      Technical SEO | Feb 11, 2013, 8:06 PM | Santaur
                      0
                    • EwanFisher

                      International Site Links In Footer

                      We have several international sites and we have them linked in the footer of our main .com site . Should we add "nofollow" to these links? Our concern is that Google could see these sites as a network?

                      Technical SEO | Jul 10, 2012, 8:44 AM | EwanFisher
                      0
                    • LarsEriksson

                      Hreflang on non-canonical pages

                      Hi! I've been trying to figure out what is the best way to solve this dilemma with duplicate content and multiple languages across domains. 1 product info page 2 same product but GREEN
                      3 same product but RED
                      4 same product but YELLOW **Question: ** Since pages 2,3,4 just varies slightly I use the canonical tag to indicate they are duplicates of page 1. Now I also want to indicate there are other language versions with the_ rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _element. Should I place the _rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _on the canonical page only pointing to the canonical page with "x" language. Should I place the _rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _on all pages pointing to the canonical page with the "x" language? Should I place the _rel="alternate" hreflang="x"  _on all pages and then point it to the translated page (even if it is not a canonical page) ? /Lars

                      Technical SEO | Apr 5, 2012, 5:01 PM | LarsEriksson
                      0
                    • pauledwards

                      Link Volume - calculate what you need?

                      Hi everyone, an interesting question here. How do you determien what link volume you should try and get into your website? What analysis do you do to determine the number of links you feel is right to go into a back-link profiel every month? obviously there is no magic number but its an interesting question to know what others do. Obviously you don't want to build too many or too little. If you have been penalised for bad links in the past and are now back on track - how do you calculate the volume? Do you take links dropping out into consideration?

                      Technical SEO | Jan 20, 2012, 4:48 PM | pauledwards
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.