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.
Worldwide and Europe hreflang implementation.
-
Hi Moz !
We're having quite a discussion here and I'd like to have some inputs. Let me explain the situation and what we plan to do so far.
One of our client has two separate markets : World and Europe. Both pages versions will be mostly the same, except for the fact that they will have their own products. So basically, we'd want to show only the European EN version to Europe and the standard EN version to the rest of the world, same goes for FR and ES. As far as IT, DE, CS and SK, they will only be present within the european version. Since we cannot target all Europe with a single hreflang tag, we might have to do it for every single european countries.
Regarding this subject, SMX Munich recently had quite an interesting session about this topic with a confirmation coming from John Mueller saying that we can target a single URL more than once with different hreflang tags. You can read more here : http://www.rebelytics.com/multiple-hreflang-tags-one-url/
So having all this in mind, here's the implementation we plan to do :
Self canonical
www.example.com/fr/ - hreflang = fr
www.example.com/es/ - hreflang = es
www.example.eu/it/ - hreflang = it
www.example.eu/de/ - hreflang = de
www.example.eu/cs/ - hreflang = cs
www.example.eu/sk/ - hreflang = sk
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = be-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = ch-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = cz-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = de-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = es-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = fr-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = uk-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = gr-fr
www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = hr-fr
etc… . This will be done for all european countries (FR, EN and ES).
www.example.com/en/ - x-default
Let me know what you guys think.
Thanks!
-
In general that kind of implementation is correct.
I do something similar for a client, who has a similar problem but more on the logistic side (different warehouse depending on the continent).
Said that, considering that some products are only for the European market, I don't see useful to use an hreflang like the "de", which would target all the German speaking users no matter from the where they are... I mean, if they are in the USA, I believe that they are not allowed to buy products that are meant only for the EU geography even if they are German or Austrian.
Regarding IP redirection, it's not an alternative... moreover, it's not an alternative obliging people to be sticked to one country/website because that it not allowed by legislation now.
For instance, if someone from the USA want to see the EU site, he should be allowed to do it (this is also valid - obviously for Googlebot, as it is a user at the end).
What you can do is working on the basket process, and there using the IP recognition for allowing or not a bought depending from the country someone is trying to buy a product or not.
Doing so, you will also avoid the frequent dumping issue (e.g.: European buying in the USA because it is cheaper).
-
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the in depth answer. The only problem remaining here is about the products related to Europe only - and this is why we came up with the .eu solution. Since we need to show a few products to Europe only, we can't use a single gTLD (.com).
Theoretically we could achieve this with geo IP targeting, but this option means that if someone from France is within the US and searching a specific product appearing only to Europe, he would not be able to see it - and we don't want that to happen.
The dev company working for this client made it clear that they can't and don't want to produce multiple directories for each countries (website.com/fr-fr/, website.com/fr-en/, website.com/de-en/, website.com/de-fr/, etc.). Same goes for subdomains (ca.website.com, fr.website.com, etc.).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of using two gTLDs (.com and .eu), but I don't see how we could resolve the European products problem without this option. I'm also worried about the sitemap, using two gTLDs. If you have an other solution in mind, it'd be more than welcome.
-
I would put them all on one domain I would not worry about people and your caring about the EU tag on the domain .com's are far more common over there then .eu
I would put it all under one Domain I would not break it up over to Domains using sub folders just target the rest of the world with English but you're basically making that all to your alternate ask for default which is the one design for if there is no proper language to fit the browser language.
Yes you absolutely can target The same URL with multiple tags. In your case because you're going to have so many hreflang tags I would recommend implementing them through the site map it tends to be faster although you'll need a tool like DeepCrawl or Screaming Frog Prod or to make sure that they're all right.
http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/
you don't need to add a sub folder to the alternative xt tag.
Obviously you can use/DE for Germany and then use the German language/DE – DE and so forth until you target each country with the specific language that you want to target them with. It seems like you're not interested in selling outside do yo selling outside the Europe as each piece of content I'm sure you know this will have to be written by somebody that is native to the country that you are targeting.
I really think it's just as important do you have the correct content is well is the correct tags. But most of the time people do not use the subfolder for their ex you could theoretically do it if you were not going to use English at all
http://www.acronym.com/bebrilliant/seo/hreflang-sitemaps-free-tool/
I would use a single domain or I would use depending on your resources and what you can put into this a separate TLD neither one of those teal these offer any benefit for Ranking what I'm saying is.edu.com or not as powerful is .CO.UK in the United Kingdom or .de in Germany.
My thoughts would be it would save you a lot of time not to have to use to generic Domains for just the sake of aesthetics. When they have no added trust I honestly feel in Europe people do not think don't you is something more trustworthy than.com though this is only one person's opinion mine.
Make sure that if you're splitting up your domains you do not try to run them as one domain. With the tags as shown.
-
Hi Thomas,
Any updates on your thoughts ?
-
I think I have a good answer for you give me about four hours.
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 -
Should Hreflang x-default be on every page of every country for an International company?
UPDATED 4/29/2019 4:33 PM I had made to many copy and pastes. Product pages are corrected Upon researching the hreflang x-default tag, I am getting some muddy results for implementation on an international company site older results say just homepage or the country selector but…. My Question/Direction going forward for the International Site I am working on: I believe I can to put x-default all the pages of every country and point it to the default language page for areas that are not covered with our current sites. Is this correct? From my internet reading, the x-default on every page is not truly necessary for Google but it will be valid implemented. My current site setup example:
International SEO | | gravymatt-se
https://www.bluewidgets.com Redirects to https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as US/Global) Example Countries w/ code Site:- 4 countries/directories US/Global, France, Spain Would the code sample below be correct? https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ (functions as US/Global) US/Global Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/ US/Global Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en/whizzer-5001/ http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions for France) France Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/fr/fr/ France Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products- https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 http://www.bluewidgets.com/us/en (functions as Spain) Spain Country Homepage - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/ Spain Country Product Page(s) This would be for all products - https://www.bluewidgets.com/es/es/whizzer-5001 Thanks for the spot check Gravy0 -
How to Localise per Region (Europe, America, APAC, EMEI) and not per country as best SEO practise?
Hi SEO expertises! I am currently working with a client that initially have an English website targeting UK users but want to expand their market into four new regions (Europe, America, APAC and EMEI) keeping English as a main language. I would like to request your help here as I told the client ISO location and hreflang it will be just possible per language and they must need to localise each English region with local keywords, however I would like to double check if it will be any way (Sitemap, Hreflang) we can tell Google we are targeting per region and not per country? Thanks a lot!
International SEO | | Atalig20 -
Hreflang Alternate & Pagination
Hi everybody, So I'm setting up hreflang tags on an ecommerce site. The sites are in the USA and Canada. The Canadian site will have fewer products than the American site, meaning that there won't be as many pages in each category as there are on the American site. What is the correct way to handle hreflang tags on these extra category pages? To put this another way, the American site may have a category with 3 pages of products, while the Canadian equivalent only has 2 pages of products. What happens to this extra American category page (example.com/widget-category/page-3) ? Does it get an hreflang tag linking to the first page of the equivalent Canadian category (example.ca/widget-category/)? Does it not get any hreflang tags because it has no true Canadian counterpart? Does it matter at all if it has a canonical tag pointing to the first page in the series anyway (example**.com**/widget-category/)? Thanks, Andrew B.
International SEO | | ABullis0 -
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:
International SEO | | ennovators
Can I use hreflang in that case like: Many thanks in advance0 -
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 -
Multiple hreflang tags
I'm trying to advise on the multi country seo for a site in terms of markup. We've already decided on using sub folders rather than separate sites or subdomains due to an established link profile and good rankings in all countries. The question is in relation to the homepage. Obviously this is the page most likely to rank well in any country (the site is a .com). But can multiple hreflang tags be put on the page to say that the page targets many countries? Or would leaving the hreflang tag off allow it to just rank for all countries? Also do Yahoo and Bing follow hreflang tags? I can't find any info on this anywhere! Thanks very much in advance for any help!
International SEO | | Bdig0 -
Website Target in Europe
Hi, I am planning a site to target in Europe and I expect to translate my site into ten different languages namely English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish. I am doing some study of this case in targeting different countries for SEO, most of the advise are the following: a. Build 10 different websites and target different geographical location in Google Webmaster b. Get 10 different country specific domains for 10 different websites I would like to hear any suggestion if there is anything better than this ? I had all the materials and translation ready but building 10 different websites or getting 10 different domains are very time consuming and costly. I would be appreciated if any one had any advise for me to make the website more management friendly. Thank you. Tom
International SEO | | Stevejobs20110