How should I handle hreflang tags if it's the same language in all targeting countries?
-
My company is creating an international version of our site at international.example.com. We are located in the US with our main site at www.example.com targeting US & Canada but offering slightly different products elsewhere internationally. Ideally, we would have hreflang tags for different versions in different languages, however, it's going to be an almost duplicate site besides a few different SKUs. All language and content on the site is going to be in English. Again, the only content changing is slightly different SKUs, they are almost identical sites. The subdomain is our only option right now. Should we implement hreflang tags even if both languages are English and only some of the content is different? Or will having just canonicals be fine? How should we handle this?
Would it make sense to use hreflang this way and include it on both versions? I believe this would be signaling for US & Canda visitors to visit our main site and all other users go to the international site. Am I thinking this correctly or should we be doing this a different way?
-
Hi tcope25,
Thanks for the clarification, that helps me to understand better the end goal. To futher clarify, you say "we want every other visitor in the world to visit our international subdomain." Do you mean "every other [English speaking] visitor in the world." ? If so, I think your proposed code is close. It is now just missing a self-referencing element, so it should be:
Just keep in mind that even if your tags are perfect, if your English US site has significantly more authority, it may show up in international search results anyway as rel="alternate" hreflang is a signal, not a directive.
Hope that helps!
Dana
-
Thanks for your comments Dana! I do appreciate the time you took to help explain more about hreflang.
I have implemented hreflang on multiple other websites in different languages without any issues. However, this situation is a bit different. To answer your questions...yes, our main site is the English site in the US & Canada. Same exact site, URL, content. We want every other visitor in the world to visit our international subdomain.
If implemented the code below, what would happen if I searched our website brand in the US? Would our main site come up? What would happen to a searcher in France? Would Google serve our international site?
By your comments above are you suggesting the below?
-
Hi tcope25,
Implementing rel="alternate" hreflang is likely one of the most complex, and most commonly incorrectly implemented elements for SEO. Just the example you've provided above would take about 30 minutes to talk through, clarify business needs, and then determine a course of action.
I normally don't push off answering a question, but I would highly recommend seeking out an SEO professional to help you sort this out. Tere's just a lot wrong with the proposed code above - sorry, not trying to be insulting, but helpful.
One real standout in your proposed code above that I would not recommend is to set your "x-default" to one of your secondary international sites. The "x-default" if used, should point to your strongest, primary version of your business sites. For example, if your English site in the US is your primary, most important site, then your "x-default" should the English US site URL.
Also based on your code above, it looks like you are serving the same content, via the same URLs to US and Canada searchers. If this is true , meaning you are not localising content for Canada and it is 100% the same page (I hope you aren't showing different content to US and Canada visitors via the same URL by attempting to use geo-location to decide what they see - that's a whole separate SEO issue) - then you don't need "en-us" and "en-ca" you just need "en" - But you would need to be sure that you haven't set your International Targeting in Google Search Console to "United States" - You need to leave the country targeting there unchecked.
This are very high level observations - I would recommend engaging a reliable SEO consultant to help make sure it's all implemented correctly.
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
-
Hreflang implementation via sitemap - don’t need canonical tags?
Hi, Quick easy question here I hope! An international site has hreflang and canonical tags in page head sections and also hreflang in the sitemap so I can see one version needs removing. The head section versions are relative URLs and need updating so think we will keep the sitemap hreflangs instead. If the sitemap implementation is going to be used (sitemap auto-updates when changes are made to pages so seems easier to do this way) am I right in thinking No canonical tags are needed at all (and can safely be removed from head section too?). Pretty sure links included in sitemap are assumed to be canonicals, or any issues with this approach? Will be using x-default for the default language version of homepage too.
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
Which would Google prefer In my case? Country Specific TLD or SubFolders?
I'm looking for some expert advice regarding multilingual SEO domain selection. I have a basic question that I'd love some help clarifying. I'd love to know what you do if you were in my position..From the research I've done so far, although there are other options, the two best suites ways of us separating 2 languages within our site is: **Country specific TLD's. (.com & .fr) ** SubDomain Folders (.com & .com/fr) Would google prefer the power of the country specific domains & the cleanliness of the separation (Option 1)? Or would it value more the link authority sent to one main domain with languages separated by subdomains (Option 2)? **Question background details:**I am developing a website in French & English. The main target markets language at present is French.In the future however I'm sure equal if not more website users will use the English language.1) Languages on two separate TLD's (Top level Domains) for each country (.fr & .com). We already own both domains We use WPML on wordpress so it's easy to update both languages. Languages in sub folder .com (en) .com/fr (fr) Through link building, all 'link juice' will be directed to .com (across french & English). We want all our customers to land on .com/fr if they are in French speaking country.
International SEO | | FullSteamBusiness2 -
Subdomains or subfolders for language specific sites?
We're launching an .org.hk site with English and Traditional Chinese variants. As the local population speaks both languages we would prefer not to have separate domains and are deciding between subdomains and subfolders. We're aware of the reasons behind generally preferring folders, but many people, including moz.com, suggest preferring subfolders to subdomains with the notable exception of language-specific sites. Does this mean subdomains should be preferred for language specific sites, or just that they are okay? I can't find any rationale to this other than administrative simplification (e.g. easier to set up different analytics / hosting), which in our case is not an issue. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
International SEO | | SOS_Children0 -
Changing server location for a global targetted site
Hi, I am just in the process of purchasing a site from someone. The site has a global target audience (well global English speaking anyway). The site is on a .info domain and is currently hosted in Germany. Checking on SemRush it looks like 70% of traffic comes from English speaking countries (US, Australia, Canada, UK). Now I need to move the hosting to one of my own when I change ownership of the site. Now does it overly matter where I choose my hosting as currently it is hosted in Germany (around 4% of visitors from Germany) but I want to do my best not to knock any rankings but I was thinking of moving it to a UK or US based host but still want to keep a general worldwide userbase. As the US accounts for the largest part of traffic (39%) would I be best choosing hosting based over in the US or does it not overly matter too much (I am in the UK so most hosting I use is UK based). I have read a number of posts on server location but most seem to be for site which have a country specific target audience. Thanks for your help! 🙂
International SEO | | Wardy0 -
Which hreflang tag to use for .eu domain
Hi there, We're trying to solve a problem with one of our domains, we have a .eu CCTLD and we're trying to implement hreflang tags. On our US and UK sites, we use "en-us" and "en-gb", but it's not clear how to approach this european problem, as there is not a "en-eu" tag. The site is in English, but serves several European countries speaking different languages. What's the best hreflang code to use in this situation? Any help much appreciated, Thanks!
International SEO | | dennis.globalsign0 -
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Implementation for Multilingual Site
OK, 2 primary questions for a multilingual site. This specific site has 2 language so I'll use that for the examples. 1 - Self-Referencing Hreflang Tag Necessary? The first is regarding the correct implementation of hreflang, and whether or not I should have a self-referencing hreflang tag. In other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), I am uncertain whether the source code should contain the second line below: Obviously the Spanish version should reference the English version, but does it need to reference itself? I have seen both versions implemented, with seemingly good results, but I want to know the best practice if it exists. 2 - Canonical of Current Language or Default Language? The second questions is regarding which canonical to use on the secondary language pages. I am aware of the update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines recently that state not to use canonical, but they say not to do it because everyone was messing it up, not because it shouldn't be done. So, in other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), which of the two following canonicals is correct? OR For this question, you can assume that (A) the English version of the site is our default and (B) the content is identical. Thanks guys, feel free to ask any qualifiers you think are relevant.
International SEO | | KaneJamison1 -
Lightbox on Home Page for Geo-Targeting
Hi -- I have a client with various international versions of their site. By adding a lightbox to their U.S. home page enabling the user to select their preferred translation (and cookie them)....does this have any negative SEO implications? It seems like a better alternative than the splash page they were using, but just want to be sure. Thanks!
International SEO | | MedThinkCommunications0