Hreflang vs canonical
-
I'm having an international Drupal website and the hreflang module is in use. However, I'm still not sure how to optimize the pages. Perhaps it's easier to ask with an example
**International: **www.example.com/products/product1
Here we have the master content of the product**US: **www.example.com/us/products/product1
Here we have exactly the same content as international. Nothing is localized.**UK: **www.example.com/uk/products/product1
Here we have almost the same content as on International. Here and there some local terms and extra text.**German: **www.example.com/de/products/product1
Here we have a translated version of the international page.Questions
- Do I add hreflang from all to all pages + to itself?
- Where do I add canonicals?
- How should I optimize the content on the US and UK pages?
-
Answer to the quick question: The reason of having the same content (e.g. solution/product/reference) page, is that the international content can be used for a local (e.g. /us) page as well. Sometimes, it's really needed to localize the content, sometimes the same content as the international one can be used.
1. Good, that's how it's done now.
2. Yes, very good explanation for this question. Thanks Thomas!
3. True. Perhaps we should not look this from an seo point of view but from a market perspective. I got some ideas, thanks
-
Quick question: Is there another reason you have the same content at /us/ as the "international" version? I assume the /us/ subdirectory is geo-targeted to the US in WMT?
-
hreflang should be present for the current pages and all other translated versions.
-
See the note about canonicals and hreflang in the other reply. Canonicals are for use in each specific page instance when you need them.
-
For the US vs UK, you need to research your market. I can't give you the answer to this without tons of research. I recommend researching each country market individually. There are different target keywords, competitors, and backlink profiles to research.
-
-
This is a useful post for you: https://hreflang.org/use-hreflang-canonical-together/
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 do hreflang attributes affect ranking?
We have a site in English. We are considering translating the site into Dutch. If we use a hreflang attribute does that mean we have to create a duplicate page in Dutch for each English page, or does Google auto-translate? How would duplicate pages, even if they are in a different language, affect ranking?
International SEO | | Substance-create0 -
Hreflang for selected pages?
My English site example.com has 1300 Pages I have launched a Russian transasation of the site example.ru This site has only 20 pages so far. Doubt: I need to set hreflang for all 1300 pages or only for 20 Pages of example.com that are converted to russian? Due to the limitations of the plugins avaialable I need to MANUALLY set hreflang for all 1300 pages of example.com Please guide
International SEO | | Janki990 -
Providing a default hreflang for translations
I've been doing a lot of research on hreflang and had a question regarding the implementation with location targeting. I have a translation for Brazilian Portuguese, I'd like to target Brazil with this translation on my site but also provide it as the default for other users that speak Portuguese outside of Brazil. Can I use the same translation for two different sites? So my hreflang would look like this: So in this example the pt-br and pt sites would be duplicates but with one being specifically targeted to Brazil and the other for all other people speaking Portuguese anywhere else in the world. The default language of the site is English so the full implementation would look like this:
International SEO | | Brando160 -
Will hreflang with a language and region allow Google to show the page to all users of that language regardless of region?
I'm launching translations on a website with the first translation being Brazilian Portuguese. If I use the following hreflang: If a user is outside of Brazil and has their browser language set to just Portuguese (Not Portuguese (Brazil)) will Google still serve them the Portuguese version of my pages in search results?
International SEO | | Brando160 -
/en-us/ Outranking Root Domain and other hreflang errors
I'm working with a new site that has a few regional sites in subdirectories /en-us/, /en-au/, etc and just noticed that some of our interior pages (ourdomain.com/en-us/interior-page1/ ) are outranking the equivalent ourdomain.com/interior-page1. This only occurs in some SERPS while others correctly display the non-regional result. I was told we have hreflang tags implemented correctly in the meta information of each of our pages but have yet to research deeply. Should we even have a /en-us/ version when our root domain is the default version, in english, and targeted to US primarily? Any help would be appreciated as I am a little lost. Cheers, Andrew
International SEO | | AndyMitty0 -
Hreflang no return tags error in GWT
Hello everybody, It has been 2 month since I'm trying to figure out the cause of increasing "no return tags" error count in GWT. I have checked the syntax several times and even switched from meta tags method to including language versions in sitemap without any luck. Below is a screen shot of GWT error and a sitemap excerpt that shows original and alternate URL both having return tags pointing to each other. The full sitemap can be found here: http://wordsru.com/sitemap.xml Any help or insight about whats going on here much appreciated. Thanks! RKP6AhZ.jpg KFluNCC.jpg
International SEO | | Icemax0 -
What are the best practices for translation of city/state names for international SEO? (ie. New York in English vs. Nueva York in Spanish)
I'm working on international SEO / translation of a global travel site. While we have a global keyword research and translation strategy in process for each market they serve, I've run into a unique question. Overall, we are translating (and localizing) content for each market but aren't sure what to do with location names. Each country/state has cities and locations that have their own dedicated pages. I see three options for these location names (when titling a page and writing content): keep them in English, translate the names in the market languages, or use a combination of the two. The challenge with altering the location names to the market languages is that they are truly not known by those names. Though there are some instances where it may make sense…for instance **New York **in Spanish would be "Nueva York" with **‘**Nueva' being the Spanish translation of ‘new’. There are other instances, where no translation exists. If you’ve had a similar experience I'd love to hear your approach/recommendation.
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
International Hub site: .uk vs domain vs subdomain
Financial company with 2 sites: 1- Mybrand.com for the US market.
International SEO | | FXDD
2- global.mybrand.com is the hub for international with selection for 10 languages: drop-down allows selecting between mybrand.jp, mybrand.fr, etc Now we have the opportunity to redesign the site from zero and I am exploring to get rid of the subdomain for the global site What would be your preference to use as the international hub? a) mybrand.co.uk: I have to use lawyers to get the URL from squatter b) mybrandGlobal.com : URL easy to get, and can be geo targeted using google webmaster tools. Cons: It might not rank as well as .co.uk in the UK, which is our biggest market c) global.mybrand.com-- pros: keep using it because it is aged and has some authority. Google might now see subdomains as part of TLD, thus making it a valid way to separate international from US .. Cons: SEO best practices advice to avoid subdomains because it might not pass full link value across domains. There is not really different content the subdomain, it is just the hub for international Thanks in advance for the help0