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 multiple hreflang tags point to one URL? International SEO question
-
Moz,
Hi Moz,
Can multiple hreflang tags point to a single URL? For example, if I have a Canadian site (www.example.com/ca) that targets French and English speakers can I have the following:
or would I use:
Any insight would be very helpful and greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance!
-
Just an update for everyone. We use sitemaps, rather than meta tags, to do the circular href lang mapping for our localized domains. In doing so, we've found the HREFLANG XML Sitemap Tool from The Media Flow particularly AMAZING! Talk about saving time! Just make a csv file with a comma for each language/locale, upload it, and then download a zip file with all your sitemaps. Beautiful.
-
Hey Kate,
I remember this question as well it's a year old now great catch and they answer. Thumbs up.
Imagine if you tried to target all of different French dialects if you tried to target all of that with one url you would not be able to have the subtle differences between French and Canadian French
just like a US English and Canadian English there are minor details that make a huge difference to Google. Also I'm sure this is been sa just like in US English and Canadian English there are minor details that make a huge difference to Google.
Also I'm sure this is been said however I think it is worthwhile to host your website in the country you're targeting. Canada in this case (This not that it is going to hurt you badly) as long as hosting it's very fast were you going to target. if you do not however there is evidence pointing to the IP still making a large difference after Geo targeting. )
See Richard Baxter's article on using a UK IP versus US IP on the exact same hosting company and getting a pretty large difference in results based on the IP address after Geo targeting.
https://builtvisible.com/ip-location-search-results/
What's interesting is WPE (the host) was using a proxy so hosting was still out of the UK Data center but was assigned or US IP addres.
I hope that helps and agree 100% with what Kate said. She really knows her stuff.
Tom
-
Oh wow. Missed this somehow. I remember answering but the answer isn't here. Weird.
Short answer, this markup would be confusing to a bot. You are telling Google that /fr has multiple regional translations. Which isn't true. If you have one French translation that isn't regionally focused, you need one hreflang tag for that page.
If you are trying to geo-target a specific country, you need to actually make content for that country you are targeting. If you don't have the resources for that, just offer your content in french without geo-targeting and it should rank just fine if it's relevant and strong.
-
I have this same question Justin. Did you find that this is an acceptable setup for hreflang?
-
That's another question that has nothing to do with hreflang usage but about the best International SEO targeting to follow in your case and that will depend a lot on your business and capacity. I wrote about it here: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-international-seo/ if you still have questions you might want to open a new thread specifically asking about that topic.
-
Thank you Aleyda!
Do you know which type of targeting has more impact ... language or country?
I don't know that we need country targeting because we don't display currency or sell offline in physical locations. Also, I doubt we would create multiple French sites ... even if we do want to target France specifically.
-
Hi Justin,
If you're targeting French as "language" and not as country, and you only have one French site version for all your french speaking users then you don't need to add the specific country, just the language to the hreflang
It's much simpler!
------> English to the US. If you don't only target the US with it but any English speakers worldwide, then remove the US to become:
The same with the French one:
Like that you only need to add these two tags in your English and French (language targeted) URLs
The issue is that you were mixing language and country targeting which are two different things.
I hope this helps!
-
Kate,
What if I have one url translated into French but want to target French speakers in multiple countries? Would I do this with my hreflang tags:
Note: I generated these with Aleyda Solis's international sitemap generator. Does hreflang="x-default" ever get used?
-
Hi!
Your friendly international SEO here. (PS thanks for the call out there Tom)
You cannot point two HREFLANG tags at the same URL because it's impossible to have both languages on the same page. Well, not impossible, just not recommended. I am not sure if you have translations or not, so both possible answers are below.
Translations (FR and EN) Available
If you have a Canadian subsite and it has two translations, you need to use both geo-targeting and HREFLANG. In your case, the /ca would be geotargeted, but then you need to distinguish the two translations somehow. If /ca is how you are geo-targeting, I recommend parameter for translation. So the French translation of the Canadian homepage content would be http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=fr -- for English of the same Canadian homepage content, it would be http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=en.The canonical set up in that instance is:
Page: http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=fr
Page: http://www.domain.com/ca?lang=en
Note that the HREFLANG tags are the same because you have to reference the current page and all translations of that page.
Translations NOT Available
Now, this answer assumes that you just have the Canadian content in English, or just in French. If that is true, you don't need the HREFLANG. You just need to geo-target the subsite for Canada.Now I do recommend that you offer translated content for the Canadian audience, but please don't auto-translate content. Just offer it in one language until you can get the resources to have it translated by a real person.
Hope that helps!
-
Because you are in the country you wish to target already you could geo-target the domain to Canada and simply use the language but the using set up below would work. You may also want to read this by KATE MORRIS - http://www.stateofdigital.com/use-hreflang/.
You could check the above using http://www.impersonal.me/ and http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool.
Hope this Helps,
Tom
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
-
Top 10 SEO Experts in the World
Here are some of the top SEO experts in the world known for their contributions to the field, thought leadership, and innovative strategies: Rand Fishkin - Co-founder of Moz and SparkToro, widely known for his insights and contributions to SEO. Neil Patel - Co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics, renowned for his SEO and digital marketing expertise. 3.. Brian Dean - Founder of Backlinko, famous for his advanced SEO strategies and detailed guides. Rafay Waqar - Co-founder of SEOServices and a LinkedIn influencer, he provide valuable insights into search engine algorithms and updates. Barry Schwartz - Founder of Search Engine Roundtable, known for his in-depth coverage of SEO news and trends. Aleyda Solis - International SEO consultant and founder of Orainti, recognized for her expertise in technical SEO and international SEO strategies. Bill Slawski - Director of SEO Research at Go Fish Digital, known for his deep understanding of search engine patents and algorithms. Vanessa Fox - Creator of Google Webmaster Central and author of "Marketing in the Age of Google," known for her expertise in technical SEO and analytics. Ann Smarty - Founder of Viral Content Bee and a well-known figure in the SEO community for her content marketing and link-building expertise. Cyrus Shepard - Former Head of SEO at Moz and founder of Zyppy, known for his comprehensive SEO knowledge and actionable insights.
International SEO | | cupll.rs11 -
Worldwide and Europe hreflang implementation.
Hi Moz ! We're having quite a discussion here and I'd like to have some inputs. Let me explain the situation and what we plan to do so far. One of our client has two separate markets : World and Europe. Both pages versions will be mostly the same, except for the fact that they will have their own products. So basically, we'd want to show only the European EN version to Europe and the standard EN version to the rest of the world, same goes for FR and ES. As far as IT, DE, CS and SK, they will only be present within the european version. Since we cannot target all Europe with a single hreflang tag, we might have to do it for every single european countries. Regarding this subject, SMX Munich recently had quite an interesting session about this topic with a confirmation coming from John Mueller saying that we can target a single URL more than once with different hreflang tags. You can read more here : http://www.rebelytics.com/multiple-hreflang-tags-one-url/ So having all this in mind, here's the implementation we plan to do : www.example.com/en/ Self canonical www.example.com/fr/ - hreflang = fr www.example.com/es/ - hreflang = es www.example.eu/it/ - hreflang = it www.example.eu/de/ - hreflang = de www.example.eu/cs/ - hreflang = cs www.example.eu/sk/ - hreflang = sk www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = be-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = ch-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = cz-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = de-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = es-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = fr-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = uk-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = gr-fr www.example.eu/fr/ - hreflang = hr-fr etc… . This will be done for all european countries (FR, EN and ES). www.example.com/en/ - x-default Let me know what you guys think. Thanks!
International SEO | | Netleaf.ca0 -
In the U.S., how can I stop the European version of my site from outranking the U.S. version?
I've got a site with two versions – a U.S. version and a European version. Users are directed to the appropriate version through a landing page that asks where they're located; both sites are on the same domain, except one is .com/us and the other is .com/eu. My issue is that for some keywords, the European version is outranking the U.S. version in Google's U.S. SERPs. Not only that, but when Google displays sitelinks in the U.S. SERPs, it's a combination of pages on the European site and the U.S. site. Does anyone know how I can stop the European site from outranking the U.S. site in the U.S.? Or how I can get Google to only display sitelinks for pages on the U.S. site in the U.S. SERPs? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this topic!
International SEO | | matt-145670 -
How can I change the currency Google lists my products with in the SERP?
I.e. This product - http://www.absoluteautomation.ca/fgd400-sensaphone400-p/fgd400.htm - shows up as USD in the SERP. (In the US it just won't show a currency, if Canada it will show USD on the SERP). My pricing is all in CAD, how can I tell Google this? (It knows pricing is CAD in my Google Product Listings/Merchant Center). Thanks!
International SEO | | absoauto0 -
Upper case or/and lower case in rel="alternate" hreflang
Hi Mozzers, I have a question about the rel="alternate" hreflang tag, with an example. When I use two subfolders for two different countries/languages, for instance www.domain.com/nl-nl/ and www.domain.com/nl-en/ (for the English version) and I want to use the rel="alternate" hreflang tag, do I need to follow the ISO standards concerning Uppercase country code and Lowercase language code (en-NL)? Or is it okay to use the Lowercase country and language code (en-nl), since we also use this in the URL of the Subfolder. What does Google prefer? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | MartijnHoving820 -
SEO Company in Asia
Hi All. I have a client looking to expand their industrial services to southeast Asia (Vietnam and Indonesia specifically right now). Does anyone know of an SEO/Online Marketing firm local to that region that may be able to help them network with businesses and industries there? I've gone through the SEOmoz member database and reached out to a couple people with agencies in that area but never heard back from them. I personally thought a local firm would be more beneficial to the client but I'm also open to suggestions on ways that we might be able to help them market their services online from the US. Thanks so much! Megan
International SEO | | ILM_Marketing0 -
Is .in domain affecting international traffic inflow to my site?
My holiday website http://seekandhide.in/ was completed and went live in Feb 2012. Last month I got 83% traffic from India and 3-5% each from USA and UK. The rest is a mixed bag from other countries. This is largely the trend since the last 3-4 months. I want to attract more organic traffic from UK and rest of Europe. My SEO consultant says that with a .in domain that will be difficult. My website currently features unique holiday properties in India that typically attract European tourists so I don't think it is a product issue. But both website visits and sales enquiries remain primarily Indian even though total number of visitors have increased gradually over the last 6 months.. My queries are 1. Is it only the .in domain that's affecting inflow of international traffic? 2. Is there anything that I can do to offset it? 3. I own seekandhide.co.uk too. Is there something I can do with that site without building a whole different website there? If I shift completely to .co.uk, I will have the same issue of being geographically limited and end up losing Indian traffic. 4. Is there something else that is not ok on the site that I am missing? 5. Advice that I get from a lot of consultants is to buy seekandhideindia.com but I plan to add international properties in a couple of years so that name would limit my appeal. Thanks in advance! Sudha
International SEO | | Sudha_Mathew0 -
Is it a bad idea to use characters with accents or graves within URLs?
Is there an issue using within the URL for a page words with accents or graves, for example including "Estándares"? Thanks Stuart
International SEO | | mcvicar0