Question about region codes and Hreflang?
-
A client (see example above) has accidentally place region codes into the hreflang when the content is intended for all audiences that speak the language. So "fr-fr" should really just be "fr" since those that are "fr-be", "fr-ca", and "fr-ch" should all be getting to the French version of the website too. And there isn't a specific subdirectory for French speakers in Belgium or France or Switzerland, etc.
However, when looking at Google Analytics, these region codes don't seem to be stopping those from other regions from getting to the correct landing page. So a user from Belgium is still getting to https://www.example.com/fr/ depsite the "fr-fr" in the hreflang.
So question: is it worth adjusting the hreflang to be non-region specific (from
-
Hreflang tags are essential for indicating to search engines the language and geographical targeting of your web pages. They help search engines serve the most relevant version of your content to users based on their language and location preferences. (study abroad)
Region codes, in this context, are two-letter country codes that you can use in conjunction with hreflang tags to specify the target audience for a particular page. These codes follow the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard and are used to indicate the country or region to which your content is specifically tailored.
For example, if you have a web page with content in English but want to target users in the United States and the United Kingdom, you would use hreflang tags like this:
html
Copy code
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://www.example.com/us/page" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="https://www.example.com/uk/page" />
In this example:en-US specifies that the page is intended for English-speaking users in the United States.
en-GB specifies that the page is intended for English-speaking users in the United Kingdom.
Hreflang tags help search engines understand the intended audience for your content and improve the user experience by delivering the most relevant version of your page in search results.Remember to implement hreflang tags correctly and consistently across your international web pages to ensure that search engines accurately understand your targeting preferences and display the appropriate pages to users in different regions.
-
Hello
I am facing a Problem. My website DA is very Low. Someone can help me how I can increase my website DA. -
Thanks For The Great Guide.
-
I would adjust it personally. If for no other reason than, if someone analyses the site later on they should be able to get a good idea of your strategy. Even if you come back to the site later and re-crawl it. Leaving it as it is will inevitably cause strategic confusion down the line. Just set it to your original vision, keep all the signals under your control pointing in a single direction
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
-
Homepage organization schema question: logo lives on amazon server, can I call that out on the structured data?
Basically, the homepage organization schema has called out the logo, but it lives on the amazon server. We're having issues with Google rendering the correct logo on the knowledge graph. The URL for the amazon asset looks something like this: <brandname>-assets.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/<logo>.png</logo></brandname> Calling that out on the organization structured data for the logo is okay right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imjonny1230 -
Question about Topics and subjects of sentences
Hello, This might be a bit of technical question but how is google linking entities together ? I understand that when writing a piece of content I need to cover multiple topics (which are also entities as far as I understand). Then, in order for google to link multiple entities together my guess is that my sentence needs to be written in subject, predicate, object format ? where my topic / entity comes out as the subject of the sentence. For example if I write that: "Tuscany is a famous for it's rolling hills?, here the subject is Tuscany which is what I want as it one of the topics I want to cover. But let's say that instead I write:" Rolling hills is something you find everywhere in Tuscany". Here Tuscany doesn't help because it isn't a subject and is just dropped there, correct ? Concerning the attributs of my entities (the object), does google have a list of what is right of wrong. For example if I say that Washington is the capital of italy ? can I be penalised for that ? I guess this is called entity disambiguation ? If the capital of italy would also be called Washington I believe that I would be ok but see that it isn't, can it hurt ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Site Migration Question
Hi Guys, I am preparing for a pretty standard site migration. Small business website moving to a new domain, new branding and new cms. Pretty much a perfect storm. Right now the new website is being designed and will need another month, however the client is pretty antsy to get her new brand out over the web. We cannot change the current site, which has the old branding. She wants to start passing out business cards and hang banners with the new domain and brand. However, I don't want to be messing with any redirects and potentially screw up a clean migration from the old site to the new. To be specific, she wants to redirect the new domain to the current domain and then when the new site, flip the redirect. However, I'm a little apprehensive with that because a site migration from the current to the new is already so intricate, I don't want to leave any possibility of error. I'm trying to figure out the best solution, these are 2 options I am thinking of: DO NOT market new domain. Reprint all Marketing material and wait until new domain is up and then start marketing it. (At cost to client) Create a one pager on new domain saying the site is being built & have a No Follow link to the current site. No redirects added. Just the no follow link. I'd like option 2 so that the client could start passing out material, but my number one concern is messing with any part of the migration. We are about to submit a sitemap index to Google Search Console for the current site, so we are just starting the site migration. What do you guys think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Khoo0 -
Using href lang tag for multi-regional targeting on the same page
Hi, I have the site au.example.com and I ranked on google AustraliaI would like to be ranked also in Google New Zeland for the same page (au.example.com) Because they are geographically & culturally close Can I place href lang tag for both countries and present the same page The code should look like: OR should i have create a different page for New Zealand (for eample: http://au.example.com/EN-NZ) And the code will look like: What will work better or there is other solution? Hope I’m clear.. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda0 -
Technical Question on Image Links - Part of Addressing High Number of Outbound Links
Hi - I've read through the forum, and have been reading online for hours, and can't quite find an answer to what I'm searching for. Hopefully someone can chime in with some information. 🙂 For some background - I am looking closely at four websites, trying to bring them up to speed with current guidelines, and recoup some lost traffic and revenue. One of the things we are zeroing in on is the high amount of outbound links in general, as well as inter-site linking, and a nearly total lack of rel=nofollow on any links. Our current CMS doesn't allow an editor to add them, and it will require programming changes to modify any past links, which means I'm trying to ask for the right things, once, in order to streamline the process. One thing that is nagging at me is that the way we link to our images could be getting misconstrued by a more sensitive Penguin algorithm. Our article images are all hosted on one separate domain. This was done for website performance reasons. My concern is that we don't just embed the image via , which would make this concern moot. We also have an href tag on each to a 'larger view' of the image that precedes the img src in the code, for example - We are still running the numbers, but as some articles have several images, and we currently have about 85,000 articles on those four sites... well, that's a lot of href links to another domain. I'm suggesting that one of the steps we take is to rel=nofollow the image hrefs. Our image traffic from Google search, or any image search for that matter, is negligible. On one site it represented just .008% of our visits in July. I'm getting a little pushback on that idea as having a separate image server is standard for many websites, so I thought I'd seek additional information and opinions. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MediaCF0 -
URL Question and Advice on Site Architecture
Good morning one and all, i have a specific question pertaining to my Domain Migration Website URL structure. I have a computer repair business that I am re branding and my question at this point is centrally focused on how to best handle my URL naming structure that will best suite my needs for my the Search Engines and also my customers UX while not looking SPAMMY I am a web developer and SEO and I am building a SILO Site Architecture in WordPress using Pages (not Posts) so no discussion is need on the Permalink structure. I am attaching several Images below of Screen Shots of the new site that I have designed so that you may look at them and see the Silo Architecture Layout in action for the most part. OK, here we go. Looking at the Silo Mast Head, we can see that the following Main Menu items each represent a specific Silo Theme Silo Theme # 1 - COMPUTER REPAIR Silo Theme # 2 - VIRUS REMOVAL Silo Theme # 3 - PHONE REPAIR Silo Theme # 4 - NETWORKING Silo Theme # 5 - DATA RECOVERY My specific question is, if /computer-repair/ is a main silo theme (WP -Parent Page) and /laptop-repair/ is a (Child Page) of Computer Repair is the following example below (the actual URL string) going to 'trigger' a SPAM signal to either the user or GOOGLE or both?? URL String: http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair/laptop-repair/ Here's another example with the VIRUS REMOVAL SILO http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/virus-removal/malware-removal/ Seeing how computer repair is the main silo theme that cannot be changed in the URL Structure (it can) but I wont change it seeing how COMPUTER REPAIR is the single largest keyword phrase used by individuals when they are looking for computer repair. Secondly, - LAPTOP REPAIR is also a Keyword Phrase that that has HIGH search queries that I am trying to rank for and that too (ideally) should also not changed! How do I deal with this situation? Or, am I seeing this in a overly paranoid way? I currently have the site allowing only my IP Address so I am afraid that the screen shots below is all that I can do on this in lieu of actually visiting the Site Currently, I have my URL Structure where Wilmington NC immediately follows the targeted keyword phrase for the Silo Theme like below http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/virus-removal-wilmington-nc/malware-removal/ The example above, - including the location after the keyword phrase does look much more attractive and breaks it up so it does not read SPAMMY and it will help with SEO but yet another problem exists using the location after the keyword phrase which I explain in detail Below. On top of doing a complete re-branding Domain Change I am actually going to be relocating myself and my business to Charlotte, NC at the end of the summer so I have serious doubts if using Wilmington NC within the URL structure would be a wise idea considering that I will be relocating and an internal 301 Redirect on a Newly Migrated site 2-3 months after the initial site migration and site setup may have some negative impact and confuse Google and compound the situation thus much further despite the fact that it would immediately help me bounce back up with my rankings after the migration process. Thoughts a suggestions on both explained scenarios please? I have asked this specif question once already but obviously people do not read my very detailed and well thought out questions. This can also be viewed here>http://www.seomoz.org/q/need-very-urgent-advice-on-wedsite-migration-questions-please#reply_150847> Thank you Sincerely, Marshall Thompson SEOMOZ-PC-MEDICS-ON-CALL-1.jpg SEOMOZ-PC-MEDICS-ON-CALL1.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarshallThompson310 -
Do you have to disclose an affiliate code?
If I put an affiliate code, which will get me commission if someone purchases after clicking my link, do I have to disclose it is an affiliate code?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Domains for regional websites
Please take a look at 7city.com This landing page contains links to: www.7city.co.uk www.7city.ae www.7city.com.sg and our US website which is also www.7city.com It is programmed so: If you are a first time user and type www.7city.com you go to the landing page above. If you then click on AMERICAS, it sets a cookie and directs you to http://www.7city.com/home . When you revisit www.7city.com in the future as the cookie is set you will be automatically sent to the AMERICAS website i.e http://www.7city.com/home. Our US websites is nor performing well on organic ranking compared to other regional website. Is the above technique hindering our organic ranking in the US. Also, I have been led to believe that you get a higher ranking if the domain is specific to a country. Is this true? Does 7city.com receive higher ranking than if I created it as 7city.us for example? Many Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | markc-1971830