• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • 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
        • My Q&A
        • 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. International SEO
        4. Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?

        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.

        Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?

        International SEO
        3
        13
        7846
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • SimonByrneIFS
          SimonByrneIFS last edited by

          Hi,

          I have a question regarding the country targeting aspect of HREFLANG. Can the same site be targeted with multiple country HREFlang entries?

          Example: A global company has an English South African site (geotargeted in webmaster tools to South Africa), with a hreflang entry targeted to "en-za", to signify English language and South Africa as the country. Could you add entries to the same site to target other English speaking South African countries? Entries would look something like this:

          • (cd = Congo, a completely random example)

          • etc...

          Since you can only geo-target a site to one country in WMT would this be a viable option?

          Thanks in advance for any help!

          Vince

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • katemorris
            katemorris @SimonByrneIFS last edited by

            Nope, not needed, unless you are changing the language.

            Now, if you wanted to do one big site and then offer certain pages that are the same except for "translation" - and it's a local dialect translation, then yes, HREFLANG would be used in that situation.

            So you could use HREFLANG rather than a canonical between the kinda duplicated pages if they are changed only in dialect translation. But since there is different content per country, you would still need that geo-targeted section for the content that is different.

            domain.com/congo/about-congo-office (I don't know the country code for Congo) - No hreflang, will be geo-targeted with the subfolder.

            domain.com/congo/similar-product-page - If just translated to the local Congo English dialect, use HREFLANG with all similarly "translated" pages. If not changed at all, use canonical to the original page. If changed overall to target the Congo market, no canonical or HREFLANG needed.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • SimonByrneIFS
              SimonByrneIFS @katemorris last edited by

              For option 2, or 1 for that matter, would you use hreflang to do any of the targeting or just geotarget with WMT?

              katemorris 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • katemorris
                katemorris @SimonByrneIFS last edited by

                Hmmm, I am thinking there are two possible solutions.

                1. Create a "site" per country (subfolders like you have now), but use canonical for the pages that are duplicated, the pages that are the same across all countries.
                Also use javascript to detect a new user's location (don't auto redirect though, ask) to get them to the "right" version of the page, if they come into the non-country focused general page.

                2. Create a "site" per country (subfolders like you have now), and spend the resources to change the content on each page just enough to target that country. It doesn't have to be much, just enough to target that group.

                Option 2 is the most time and resource intensive. Option 1 can be messed up quickly if the technical implementation isn't done right.

                I know that's not a clean answer but international never is. There are always so many moving parts.

                SimonByrneIFS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • SimonByrneIFS
                  SimonByrneIFS @katemorris last edited by

                  Yes. Beneficial information would be local events, customer stories/wins, press releases, local sales contact information, local partners, etc

                  katemorris 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • katemorris
                    katemorris @SimonByrneIFS last edited by

                    This is tough. Let me ask you one question: For a potential customer in South Africa, is there any different information they need to see than someone in the Congo, or somewhere else in the world that speaks English? If yes, what kind of different information would they need to see?

                    SimonByrneIFS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • SimonByrneIFS
                      SimonByrneIFS @katemorris last edited by

                      We choose to target our sites based on where the regional/country offices are located. So in the example of South Africa our main African office is located in South Africa so the site content (events, forms, news) is based primarily on South Africa. That being said much of the content is duplicated from our main corporate English site. Our South African site mainly targets South Africa but could potentially go after any English speaking African country. Since the ZA site is primarily targeting a country with a duplicated language, is your recommendation to only geo-target via webmaster tools and not utilize hreflang? Most of our regions/countries do their best to translate the language on their sites but many follow the same tactic as my South African example, some content is local but most is a duplicate of our Corporate English site. What is the best tactic to not have duplicate content and to get the right sites ranking in the correct local version of Google?

                      katemorris 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • BlueprintMarketing
                        BlueprintMarketing @katemorris last edited by

                        Excellent answer Kate!

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • katemorris
                          katemorris last edited by

                          This is one of the instances that made me change the way I see the HREFLANG tag. So many people disagree but hear me out.

                          The HREFLANG tag is only for language differentiation. There are language and country codes because, as you point out, there are many countries that speak the same language and some have some major dialect changes. The biggest example being UK and US English. Therefore, if you have a site developed in US English that you want to "translate" to UK English, but not change the content of the site other than that, you would use HREFLANG tags to note the difference in the pages to Google. Since you changed nothing else (no currency changes, no legal changes, no product set changes), there is no reason for country targeting. You are just translating the same content ... aka changing a few words.

                          Now, let's say that you are operating a site that has a geo-targeted section to South Africa. Depending on the setup, you might not need HREFLANG tags at all. If you are changing the content other than through translation to target South Africa, that is geo-targeting. Targeting the country.

                          You can do both geo-target AND change language settings. For instance, if you are a Canadian company that legally has to have all of it's content in Canadian French (fr-ca) and Canadian English (en-ca), you would use HREFLANG between those two. But then you decide to move into the US. You might create a subfolder, subdomain, or ccTLD specific to the US market since you can't offer all of your products or services over there due to regulations. You would geo-target the new section/site to the United States, but not use HREFLANG since the content is targeted at a different country. You would want to make sure the content changed enough and the Canadian English pages might rank for a while but over time the US site/section would get stronger.

                          I hope that all makes sense.

                          In your instance where you have geo-targeted, I assume that is for a reason. However, because you have geo-targeted that section to South Africa, you cannot geo-target it to the Congo as well. You would either need to great a section for the Congo and geo-target that, or, if geo-targeting isn't really needed, use one big site and country specific translations. Only do this if your content is the same across the board and you are changing some of the wording to local dialects.

                          If you want to know more, check out my international search tool that might help you find what structure you should have: http://www.katemorris.com/issg/

                          BlueprintMarketing SimonByrneIFS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                          • BlueprintMarketing
                            BlueprintMarketing @SimonByrneIFS last edited by

                            What is the preferred way to indicate to Google that one site(or subfolder in this case) is targeted to the same language in multiple countries?

                            the only way to target everyone Speaking the language on the one URL is telling Google Webmaster tools not to specify a location or geo-target.

                            I do not know if that is the best method for you but if you just want to target English with one subfolder and have multiple countries you would take that away if you geo-targeted it to a country.

                            May be the best ways to handle it is multiple subfolders I wish I had a better answer for you but if you want to use one sub folder it would be to not target and to use an IP address from a server inside the country you wish to target the most.

                            e.g

                            All you have to do is list the alternative version of the pages and have the x default at the bottom. For example, this is what you would do for the English Canadian version:

                            Specific regions in countries can be done the same way you would do something in Canada.

                            the other method would be to pick the countries with additional subfolders.

                            you can target the same language in multiple countries by not adding to the additional information

                            Canada for instance let's say you did not want to target French and you wanted to target the United States as well

                            with one subfolder it could not be done. If you set it up to something like this I know that's one subfolder and one domain

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • SimonByrneIFS
                              SimonByrneIFS @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                              Why would I target the main domain to a country that I have a subfolder for? My question is based on targeting one site (that is already set up via a subfolder) with the same language to multiple countries. What is the preferred way to indicate to Google that one site(or subfolder in this case) is targeted to the same language in multiple countries? Is this possible?

                              It may help to understand that my site is set up with multiple subfolders that target countries or regions. Some sites are translated and have local content for a specific country or region and other sites are in English but have content specific to that local country or region. I am worried about the sites that are in English but should be targeted to a specific region or country.

                              BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • BlueprintMarketing
                                BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                                the answer is yes you can

                                here are some more thorough resources

                                https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

                                http://www.branded3.com/blogs/implementing-hreflang-tag/

                                http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool

                                http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2232347/a-simple-guide-to-using-rel-alternate-hreflang-x

                                you can create the tags that this tool or create a site map using the tool below

                                http://www.internationalseomap.com/hreflang-tags-generator/

                                http://www.themediaflow.com/tool_hreflang.php

                                you can validate everything with this as well

                                http://flang.dejanseo.com.au/

                                http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/case-study-the-impact-of-hreflang-tag/

                                by the way the way you can validate with screaming Frog the same can be done with deep crawl on a larger level.

                                hope this helps,

                                Tom

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • BlueprintMarketing
                                  BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                                  you could target one language using this method

                                  as long as you add a subfolder or a sub domain preferably a subfolder. You can keep adding entries.

                                  Take a look at http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/learn/seo/hreflang-tag

                                  &

                                  https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-internationalisation

                                  Hope this helps,

                                  Tom

                                  SimonByrneIFS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • 1 / 1
                                  • First post
                                    Last post

                                  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

                                  • Substance-create

                                    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-create
                                    0
                                  • DigitalThirdCoast

                                    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 | | DigitalThirdCoast
                                    0
                                  • romh

                                    Country subfolders showing as sitelinks in Google, country targeting for home page no longer working

                                    Hi There, Just wondering if you can help. Our site has 3 region versions (General .com, /ie/ for Ireland and /gb/ for UK), each submitted to Google Webmaster Tools as seperate sites with hreflang tags in the head section of all pages.  Google was showing the correct results for a few weeks, but I resubmitted the home pages with slight text changes last week and something strange happened, though it may have been coincidental timing. When we search for the brand name in google.ie or google.co.uk, the .com now shows as the main site, where the sitelinks still show the correct country versions.  However, the country subdirectories are now appearing as sitelinks, which is likely causing the problem.  I have demoted these on GWT, but unsure as to whether that will work and it seems to take a while for sitelink demotion to work. Has anyone had anything similar happen?  I thought perhaps it was a markup issue breaking the head section so that Google can no longer see the hreflangs pointing to each other as alternates.  I checked the source code in w3 validator and it doesn't show any errors.  Anyway, any help would be much appreciated - and thanks to anyone who gets back, it's a tricky type of issue to troubleshoot. Thanks, Ro

                                    International SEO | | romh
                                    0
                                  • peteboyd

                                    What is the proper way to setup hreflang tags on my English and Spanish site?

                                    I have a full English website at http://www.example.com and I have a Spanish version of the website at http://spanish.example.com but only about half of the English pages were translated and exist on the Spanish site. Should I just add a sitemap to both sites with hreflang tags that point to the correct version of the page? Is this a proper way to set this up? I was going to repeat this same process for all of the applicable URLs that exist on both versions of the website (English and Spanish). Is it okay to have hreflang="es" or do I need to have a country code attached as well? There are many Spanish speaking countries and I don't know if I need to list them all out. For example hreflang="es-bo" (Bolivia), hreflang="es-cl" (Chile), hreflang="es-co" (Columbia), etc... Sitemap example for English website URL:
                                    <url><loc>http://www.example.com/</loc></url> Sitemap example for Spanish website URL:
                                    <url><loc>http://spanish.example.com/</loc></url> Thanks in advance for your feedback and help!

                                    International SEO | | peteboyd
                                    0
                                  • ramarketing

                                    Sub-domains or sub-directories for country-specific versions of the site?

                                    What approach do you think would be better from an SEO perspective when creating country-targeted versions for an eCommerce site (all in the same language with slight regional changes) - sub-domains or sub-directories? Is any of the approaches more cost effective, web development-wise? I know this topic's been under much debate and I would really like to hear your opinion. Many thanks!

                                    International SEO | | ramarketing
                                    0
                                  • dennis.globalsign

                                    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.globalsign
                                    0
                                  • Stevejobs2011

                                    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 | | Stevejobs2011
                                    0
                                  • Corel

                                    Non US site pages indexed in US Google search

                                    Hi, We are having a global site wide issue with non US site pages being indexed by Google and served up in US search results.  Conversley, we have US en pages showing in the Japan Google search results. We currently us IP detect to direct users to the correct regional site but it isn't effective if the users are entering through an incorrect regional page.  At the top of each or our pages we have a drop down menu to allow users to manually select their preferred region.  Is it possible that Google Bot is crawling these links and indexing these other regional pages as US and not detecting it due to our URL structure? Below are examples of two of our URLs for reference - one from Canada, the other from the US /ca/en/prod4130078/2500058/catalog50008/ /us/en/prod4130078/2500058/catalog20038/ If that is, in fact, what is happening, would setting the links within the drop down to 'no follow' address the problem? Thank you. Angie

                                    International SEO | | Corel
                                    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.