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 for bilingual website in the same region/location
- 
					
					
					
					
Hi everyone,
got a quick question concerning the hreflang tag.
I have a website with 2 different language versions targeting to the same region(Reason: The area is bilingual however not everyone speaks the other language fluently)
Question:
Can I use hreflang in that case like:Many thanks in advance
 - 
					
					
					
					
Sure, I did this: http://bfy.tw/2hTu
 - 
					
					
					
					
Hi Dmitrii,
can you perhaps tell me the source, where you found the supported annotations above. Many Thanks
 - 
					
					
					
					
My answer is the correct. See what I replied above to Dmitrii
 - 
					
					
					
					
Lol! You're right. I was indeed thinking about Belgium and not Netherlands

 - 
					
					
					
					
It's a cultural thing. I'm that province of Italy people talk or Italian or German, so if you want to target both with your multilingual site you must tell it to Google with hreflang, even if it is not listed in the ISO chart.
you do the same for targeting Spanish speaking people in the usa, for instance.
 - 
					
					
					
					
Gianluca - I guess this time it's my turn: As far as I know they only have one official language in the Netherlands (Dutch) - I guess you refer to Belgium (3 official languages Dutch/French/German).
It's a common error to make this mistake - but the difference is easy to spot: Belgium is qualified for Euro '16 - unlike the Netherlands

 - 
					
					
					
					
Hi Gianluca,
Thank you for your reply. In fact I'm refering to that exact region. The difference to your CH examples are though, that in Switzerland, the 3 language regions are not the exact same "location".
In my case they are though so I got a bit confused.
So basically Im not saying, a specific region in Switzerland speaks French, another German and another Italian, but I say the exact same location/region speaks German and Italian.
 - 
					
					
					
					
Well, I do see the ones you mentioned on that list, but not it-it or de-it.
 - 
					
					
					
					
Yes, it exists (it is Alto Agide/South Tirol), and it's the same case of Netherlands (fr-NL and de-NL) or Switzerland (it-CH, fr-CH and de-CH)
 - 
					
					
					
					
Yes, you can.
 - 
					
					
					
					
Interesting. Google search doesn't return anything on this locale.
 - 
					
					
					
					
yes, sure about that
 - 
					
					
					
					
Are you sure that locale exists?
 - 
					
					
					
					
Hi Dmitrii,
many thanks for your reply. Great list, unfortunately I can't find my case. Though I think this list is not complete. E.x. I miss the the french speaking part in Italy for example,...
Helpful anyway though.
 - 
					
					
					
					
Hi there.
I found this list of all available locales, if locales you're trying to do are in this list, then go ahead, otherwise it won't work.
P.S. List might be old and updated by now, but i don't think so.
- af-ZA
 - am-ET
 - ar-AE
 - ar-BH
 - ar-DZ
 - ar-EG
 - ar-IQ
 - ar-JO
 - ar-KW
 - ar-LB
 - ar-LY
 - ar-MA
 - arn-CL
 - ar-OM
 - ar-QA
 - ar-SA
 - ar-SY
 - ar-TN
 - ar-YE
 - as-IN
 - az-Cyrl-AZ
 - az-Latn-AZ
 - ba-RU
 - be-BY
 - bg-BG
 - bn-BD
 - bn-IN
 - bo-CN
 - br-FR
 - bs-Cyrl-BA
 - bs-Latn-BA
 - ca-ES
 - co-FR
 - cs-CZ
 - cy-GB
 - da-DK
 - de-AT
 - de-CH
 - de-DE
 - de-LI
 - de-LU
 - dsb-DE
 - dv-MV
 - el-GR
 - en-029
 - en-AU
 - en-BZ
 - en-CA
 - en-GB
 - en-IE
 - en-IN
 - en-JM
 - en-MY
 - en-NZ
 - en-PH
 - en-SG
 - en-TT
 - en-US
 - en-ZA
 - en-ZW
 - es-AR
 - es-BO
 - es-CL
 - es-CO
 - es-CR
 - es-DO
 - es-EC
 - es-ES
 - es-GT
 - es-HN
 - es-MX
 - es-NI
 - es-PA
 - es-PE
 - es-PR
 - es-PY
 - es-SV
 - es-US
 - es-UY
 - es-VE
 - et-EE
 - eu-ES
 - fa-IR
 - fi-FI
 - fil-PH
 - fo-FO
 - fr-BE
 - fr-CA
 - fr-CH
 - fr-FR
 - fr-LU
 - fr-MC
 - fy-NL
 - ga-IE
 - gd-GB
 - gl-ES
 - gsw-FR
 - gu-IN
 - ha-Latn-NG
 - he-IL
 - hi-IN
 - hr-BA
 - hr-HR
 - hsb-DE
 - hu-HU
 - hy-AM
 - id-ID
 - ig-NG
 - ii-CN
 - is-IS
 - it-CH
 - it-IT
 - iu-Cans-CA
 - iu-Latn-CA
 - ja-JP
 - ka-GE
 - kk-KZ
 - kl-GL
 - km-KH
 - kn-IN
 - kok-IN
 - ko-KR
 - ky-KG
 - lb-LU
 - lo-LA
 - lt-LT
 - lv-LV
 - mi-NZ
 - mk-MK
 - ml-IN
 - mn-MN
 - mn-Mong-CN
 - moh-CA
 - mr-IN
 - ms-BN
 - ms-MY
 - mt-MT
 - nb-NO
 - ne-NP
 - nl-BE
 - nl-NL
 - nn-NO
 - nso-ZA
 - oc-FR
 - or-IN
 - pa-IN
 - pl-PL
 - prs-AF
 - ps-AF
 - pt-BR
 - pt-PT
 - qut-GT
 - quz-BO
 - quz-EC
 - quz-PE
 - rm-CH
 - ro-RO
 - ru-RU
 - rw-RW
 - sah-RU
 - sa-IN
 - se-FI
 - se-NO
 - se-SE
 - si-LK
 - sk-SK
 - sl-SI
 - sma-NO
 - sma-SE
 - smj-NO
 - smj-SE
 - smn-FI
 - sms-FI
 - sq-AL
 - sr-Cyrl-BA
 - sr-Cyrl-CS
 - sr-Cyrl-ME
 - sr-Cyrl-RS
 - sr-Latn-BA
 - sr-Latn-CS
 - sr-Latn-ME
 - sr-Latn-RS
 - sv-FI
 - sv-SE
 - sw-KE
 - syr-SY
 - ta-IN
 - te-IN
 - tg-Cyrl-TJ
 - th-TH
 - tk-TM
 - tn-ZA
 - tr-TR
 - tt-RU
 - tzm-Latn-DZ
 - ug-CN
 - uk-UA
 - ur-PK
 - uz-Cyrl-UZ
 - uz-Latn-UZ
 - vi-VN
 - wo-SN
 - xh-ZA
 - yo-NG
 - zh-CN
 - zh-HK
 - zh-MO
 - zh-SG
 - zh-TW
 - zu-ZA
 
 
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
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Tags for Multi-Regional Website English Language Only having URL Parameters
Dear friends, We have a multi-regional website in English language only having the country selector on the top of each page and it adds countrycode parameters on each url. Website is built in Magento 1.8 and having 1 store with multiple store views. There is no default store set in Magento as I discussed with developer. Content is same for all the countries and only currency is changed. In navigation there are urls without url parameters but when we change store from any page it add parameters in the url for same page hence there are total 7 URLs. 6 URLs for each page (with country parameters) and 1 master url (without parameters) and making content duplicity. We have implemented hreflang tags on each page with url parameters but for canonical we have implemented master page url as per navigation without url parameters Example on this page. I think this is correct for master page but we should use URL parameters in canonical tags for each counry url too and there should be only 1 canonical tag on each country page url. Currently all the country urls are having master page canoncial tag as per the example. Please correct me if I am wrong and **in this case what has to be done for master page? **as google is indexing the pages without parameters too. We are also using GEOIP redirection for each store with country IP detection and for rest of the countries which are not listed on the website we are redirecting to USA store. Earlier it was 301 but we changed it to 302. Hreflang tags are showing errors in SEMRush due to redirection but in GWT it's OK for some pages it's showing no return tags only. Should I use **x-default tags for hreflang and country selector only on home page like this or should I remove the redirection? **However some of the website like this using redirection but header check tool doesn't show the redirection for this and for our website it shows 302 redirection. Sorry for the long post but looking for your support, please.
International SEO | | spjain810 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
Redirect to 'default' or English (/en) version of site?
Hi Moz Community! I'm trying to work through a thorny internationalization issue with the 'default' and English versions of our site. We have an international set-up of: www.domain.com (in english) www.domain.com/en www.domain.com/en-gb www.domain.com/fr-fr www.domain.com/de-de and so on... All the canonicals and HREFLANGs are set up, except the English language version is giving me pause. If you visit www.domain.com, all of the internal links on that page (due to the current way our cms works) point to www.domain.com/en/ versions of the pages. Content is identical between the two versions. The canonical on, say, www.domain.com/en/products points to www.domain.com/products. Feels like we're pulling in two different directions with our internationalization signals. Links go one way, canonical goes another. Three options I can see: Remove the /en/ version of the site. 301 all the /en versions of pages to /. Update the hreflangs to point the EN language users to the / version. **Redirect the / version of the site to /en. **The reverse of the above. **Keep both the /en and the / versions, update the links on / version. **Make it so that visitors to the / version of the site follow links that don't take them to the /en site. It feels like the /en version of the site is redundant and potentially sending confusing signals to search engines (it's currently a bit of a toss-up as to which version of a page ranks). I'm leaning toward removing the /en version and redirecting to the / version. It would be a big step as currently - due to the internal linking - about 40% of our traffic goes through the /en path. Anything to be aware of? Any recommendations or advice would be much appreciated.
International SEO | | MaxSydenham0 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
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 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
Best practice for Spanish version of English website?
I'm doing an audit for a site that has all of its English pages under the same roof with Spanish pages in Wordpress. It is intended for Chicago, not Mexico. I suspect this is not a good thing, but I only have instinct to rely on here. What is the best practice for having the same website in two languages? http://www.enhancedform.com/ and http://www.enhancedform.com/spanish/
International SEO | | realpatients0 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?
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
International SEO | | SimonByrneIFS0 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
For a website in portuguese what would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br
Hello We are a company with a website in several languages, one of them is portuguese. Our market is 2 times bigger in Brazil than in Portugal, but obviously Brazil has more potential in the future. In domain.com we have our main site in English. What would you use? pt.domain.com, br.domain.com or domain.com.br? In the first case, it means just portuguese, in the second Brazil but it is not geolocalized, and in the third, you are almost ignoring Portugal users... Duplicating content, doesn't seem to make sense... The content is basically international, so it is just the language that matters. Any help will be very much appreciated.
International SEO | | forex-websites0 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
Showing different content according to different geo-locations on same URL
We would like our website to show different content according to different Geo-locations (but in the same language). For example, if www.mywebsite.com is accessed from the US, it would show text (in English) appealing to North Americans, but, if accessed from Japan, it would show text (also in English) that appeals more to Japanese people. In the Middle East, we would like the website to show different images than those shown in the US and Asia. Our main concern is that we would like to keep the same URL. How will Google index these pages? Will it index the www.mywebsite.com (Japan version) in its Asia archives and the www.mywebsite.com (US version) in its North American archives? Will Google penalise us for showing different content across Geo-locations on the same URL? What if a URL is meant to show content only in Japan? Are there any other issues that we should be looking out for? Kindest Regards L.B.
International SEO | | seoec0 - 
		
		
		
		
		
		
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 | | Stevejobs20110