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.
Canonical or hreflang?
-
I have four English sites for four different countries, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and I want to share some content between the sites. On the pages that share the content, which is essentially exactly the same on all 4 sites, do I use the hreflang tags like:
or do I add a canonical tag to the other three pointing to the "origin", which would be the UK site?
I believe it is best practice to use one or the other, but I'm not sure which make sense in this situation.
-
Hello!
I found one amazing article about Canonicals and Hreflangs for International Store. It might be helpful.
-
I feel like my question isn't being understood here.
I understand the difference between the two and if the sites were for example English and Spanish I would get which to use, but the hreflang tag sub-divides languages into individual regional variants, in my case en-GB, en-IE, en-AU and en-NZ.
So, my question is which to use when the "base" language is the same, so in all essence, the article is basically identical, with the odd regional spelling variation, e.g. colour and color, tossed in?
-
Canonical tags are used to signal the official version of a URL whereas hreflang tags are used to match the correct piece of content to region-specific users speaking another language. However, it's important to remember that the hreflang attribute and canonical tags are just signals or hints and are not directives.
-
In this case I'll choose Hreflang because work in differents languages.
-
So, you are saying to use both which seems to be contrary to all the articles I've read about this, which seem to suggest you should only use one or the other, but never really talk about this particular scenario.
-
you canoncial every page by defualt and hreflang it
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
-
Robots.txt in subfolders and hreflang issues
A client recently rolled out their UK business to the US. They decided to deploy with 2 WordPress installations: UK site - https://www.clientname.com/uk/ - robots.txt location: UK site - https://www.clientname.com/uk/robots.txt
Technical SEO | | lauralou82
US site - https://www.clientname.com/us/ - robots.txt location: UK site - https://www.clientname.com/us/robots.txt We've had various issues with /us/ pages being indexed in Google UK, and /uk/ pages being indexed in Google US. They have the following hreflang tags across all pages: We changed the x-default page to .com 2 weeks ago (we've tried both /uk/ and /us/ previously). Search Console says there are no hreflang tags at all. Additionally, we have a robots.txt file on each site which has a link to the corresponding sitemap files, but when viewing the robots.txt tester on Search Console, each property shows the robots.txt file for https://www.clientname.com only, even though when you actually navigate to this URL (https://www.clientname.com/robots.txt) you’ll get redirected to either https://www.clientname.com/uk/robots.txt or https://www.clientname.com/us/robots.txt depending on your location. Any suggestions how we can remove UK listings from Google US and vice versa?0 -
How long does it take for canonical tags to work
How long on average does it take for a canonical tag to work? Understand that canonicals are just a suggestion, but after adding a canonical tag and submitting the page via Google fetch, assuming Google follows the canonical, would you expect it to work after a day or two or does it take longer? We added canonicals to old PPC landing pages that are ranking organically, though our new landing pages (which we want to rank organically) are not identical and have a bit more content/features. They are similar though. Canonicals were added to the old pages (pointing to new pages) and requested indexing via search console. Old pages are still ranking and new pages not so much. FYI we are unable to 301 old PPC pages due to other non negotiable reasons unfortunately. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Removing a canonical tag from Pagination pages
Hello, Currently on our site we have the rel=prev/next markup for pagination along with a self pointing canonical via the Yoast Plugin. However, on page 2 of our paginated series, (there's only 2 pages currently), the canonical points to page one, rather than page 2. My understanding is that if you use a canonical on paginated pages it should point to a viewall page as opposed to page one. I also believe that you don't need to use both a canonical and the rel=prev/next markup, one or the other will do. As we use the markup I wanted to get rid of the canonical, would this be correct? For those who use the Yoast Plugin have you managed to get that to work? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jessicarcf0 -
Can I set a canonical tag to an anchor link?
I have a client who is moving to a one page website design. So, content from the inner pages is being condensed in to sections on the 'home' page. There will be a navigation that anchor links to each relevant section. I am wondering if I should leave the old pages and use rel=canonical to point them to their relevant sections on the new 'home' page rather than 301 them. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Vizergy0 -
Do canonical tags pass all of the link juice onto the URL they point to?
I have an ecommerce website where the category pages have various sorting and paging options which add a suffix to the URLs. My site is setup so the root category URL, domain.com/category-name, has a canonical tag pointing to domain.com/category-name/page1/price however all links, both interner & external, point to the former (i.e. domain.com/category-name). I would like to know whether all of the link juice is being passed onto the canonical tag URL? Otherwise should I change the canonical tag to point the other way? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | tjhossy0 -
Use webmaster tools "change of address" when doing rel=canonical
We are doing a "soft migration" of a website. (Actually it is a merger of two websites). We are doing cross site rel=canonical tags instead of 301's for the first 60-90 days. These have been done on a page by page basis for an entire site. Google states that a "change of address" should be done in webmaster tools for a site migration with 301's. Should this also be done when we are doing this soft move?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0 -
Redirect non-www if using canonical url?
I have setup my website to use canonical urls on each page to point to the page i wish Google to refer to. At the moment, my non-www domain name is not redirected to www domain. Is this required if i have setup the canonical urls? This is the tag i have on my index.php page rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com.au" /> If i browse to http://mydomain.com.au should the link juice pass to http://www.armourbackups.com.au? Will this solve duplicate content problems? Thanks
Technical SEO | | blakadz0 -
How to structure rel=canonical for a e commerce site
Hello, So I have searched the Q & A , Google, the zen cart forum and at this point I am looking for some one to give a concrete answer on what I should do. There is a lot of different opinions on " rel=canonical" and how to apply it , since there are many other variable in place. I have a zen cart site. I am using the latest 1.3.9 version. The default setting ( seem to me) uses the rel=canonical to point back to the specific link product or category respectively. Most of the time I have two scenarios. 1. Main category ---> Sub category----> Product 2. Main Category----> Product I'll give an example http://www.perfectindesign.com/awards ---main category http://www.perfectindesign.com/awards/acrylic-awards sub category http://www.perfectindesign.com/awards/acrylic-awards/slanted-award product (this example has three sub categories with maybe 12 products in one 4 in the second and 5 in the third) From looking at the source code for each url it the rel=canonical just points back to its own url. I want to avoid competing against my self, for the example above keyword "acrylic awards" so should the use of the re=canonical be changes site wide to have products point back to sub categories when they exist and have products point back to main categories when no sub categories exist? I am very new to seo, specifically eCommerce seo. If you have experience and have done this to a site you manage for a client or your own please advise how to proceed. Also if I'm missing some thing that will give me a better understanding of the bigger seo picture that would be great. Thanks, Yevgeny
Technical SEO | | Yevgeny0