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
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • 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.

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
    Moz Pro

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

    Try it free!
  • 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.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • 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.

    • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. HREFLANG setup for Europe (in English) + .eu domain

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.

HREFLANG setup for Europe (in English) + .eu domain

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
3
3
1.6k
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.
  • moz-maddesigngroup
    moz-maddesigngroup last edited by Nov 4, 2019, 1:42 AM

    We have been struggling to find answers since we launched our European website.

    We have the following structure:

    WEBSITE HUB
    https://ecosmartfire.com

    This works as a hub for our users. We show the url printed in our marketing materials. When someone lands in this URL, we check if we have a local store in the user's location and prompt the user to go to the right destination.

    The default hreflang is:

    LOCAL VERSIONS
    https://ecosmartfire.com/us/en/ (United States)
    https://ecosmartfire.com.au (Australia)
    https://ecosmartfire.eu (Europe)
    https://ecosmartfire.fr (France)

    We have no problems with United States, Australia and France.

    The hreflang tags look like this:

    EUROPE
    https://ecosmartfire.eu

    We have two problems in Europe:
    1. Language: the European store is available just in English
    2. No hreflang: Europe doesn't have a hreflang that covers all the countries so we had to create lots of hrelangs pointing to the same location.

    The hreflang tags look like this:

    ... and the list goes on.

    Do you think this is the right approach? Or should I just remove these European hreflang tags from the website code?

    Thanks,

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • seoelevated
      seoelevated Subscriber last edited by Apr 9, 2020, 11:06 PM Apr 9, 2020, 11:06 PM

      We used this same approach (except we are not using TLD, but instead are using directory paths for the regions). We have storefronts in US, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and EU. The hreflang tags are working very well for all the storefronts except EU.

      In these other regions, for all of our key tracked search terms, our ranking page is one within the right region for, when checked by the Moz Rank Tracker using the corresponding Google search engine. And, none of the pages from these other regions are ranking in a Google US search. So far so good.

      But, for Europe, only our US pages are ranking when I check with any of the EU country Google engines. And, The EU home page is ranking for some searches in the US, including right now it is showing as one of our organic sitelinks for our brand name search.

      We also geo-targeted all of our properties except for two, on Google Search Console. Originally. That would be EU (because Google doesn't allow to target for EU, only for specific countries) and our US site (because we use our www domain in US with no directory path, and in Google Search Console if we geo-target that, it applies to all of our regional directory paths).

      So, we changed our geo targeting recently, and targeted our EU property to Germany. We chose that because Germany is our largest market in EU. But this hasn't helped either.

      Basically, all the available tools we know of (hreflang tags, GSC geo-targeting) seem to fail at targeting EU. It is a shame, because many brands have an EU site (rather than individual sites for each country). But we have not yet found an approach which works well.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • aranford
        aranford last edited by Apr 9, 2020, 12:38 PM Apr 9, 2020, 12:38 PM

        Hi, this is something i'm looking to apply in the near future too - i was wondering whether you'd seen any positive/negative implications from using the above hreflang structure?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • 1 / 1
        1 out of 3
        • First post
          1/3
          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

        • kcb8178

          Sub Domain Usage

          I see that the gap uses gap.com, oldnavy.gap.com and bananarepublic.gap.com.  Wouldn't a better approach for SEO to have oldnavy.com, bananarepublic.com and gap.com all separate?  Is there any benefit to using the approach of store1.parentcompany.com, store2.parentcompany.com etc?  What are the pros and cons to each?

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 7, 2017, 1:20 AM | kcb8178
          0
        • Ullamalm

          Ranking 2 pages on the same domain in the same SERP

          I thought it was generally said that Google will favour 1 page per domain for a particular SERP, but I have seen examples where that is not the case (i.e. Same domain is ranking 2 different pages on the 1st page of the SERPs...) Are there any "tricks" to taking up 2 first page SERP positions, or am I mistaken that this doesn't always happen?

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 9, 2016, 5:46 AM | Ullamalm
          0
        • Taiger

          The correct hreflang for the GB

          Hi does anyone know the correct hreflang for the UK Google webmaster error: International Targeting | Language > 'en-GB' - no return tags (sitemaps)Sitemap provided URLs and alternate URLs in 'en-GB' that do not have return tags.Thanks you all

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 2, 2016, 8:52 AM | Taiger
          0
        • Macrofireball

          Reverting back to old domain name.

          I've recently been asked by a client if I can foresee any issues with reverting back to their original domain name. With the original domain name they had a pretty decent DA for their sector which they have now lost. Although I do appreciate that over time this might come back, the CEO is very keen to switch back to the old domain. They do currently have 301 redirects from the old domain to the new and have implemented rel canonical. As yet they have not notified Google of the change of address using Webmaster Tools. Can anyone forsee any issues with returning back to the old domain name? They have only been using the new domain name for a couple of months which currently has a DA for 1.

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 2, 2015, 5:19 PM | Macrofireball
          0
        • Hall.Michael

          How to setup multiple pages in Google Search?

          How to setup multiple pages in Google Search? I have seen sites that are arranged in google like : Website in Google
                         About us.        Contact us
                         Services.         Etc.. Kindly review screenshot. Is this can achieved by Yoast Plugin? X9vMMTw.png

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 24, 2015, 12:50 PM | Hall.Michael
          0
        • imran2078

          Should I redirect my Google Update Effected Domain to brand new Domain?

          Hey Moz experts, I had a domain which was really doing better but after the Humming Bird update my traffic was decreased up to 90%. There are plenty of posts on my existing blog, Now what should I do? I mean should I redirect it to a brand new domain or Copy all the posts to a brand new domain and delete my existing domain? Note that the Old domain has PR1, DA 19 and PA 30.

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 16, 2014, 3:18 PM | imran2078
          0
        • knielsen

          SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.

          A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links? Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be? thank yoyu

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 12, 2012, 7:06 PM | knielsen
          1
        • bronxpad

          Domain expiration and seo

          My domain name is free with my service with yahoo but it expires every year and gets extended automatically as I continue service, how does this impact my seo efforts? I've heard that the search engines prefer sites to expire in 3 years or more? Is this a fact?

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 17, 2012, 7:04 PM | bronxpad
          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
        • Digital Marketers
        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.