• seohunters9

        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 multiple hreflang tags point to one URL? International SEO question

        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

        International SEO
        6
        11
        9745
        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.
        • DA2013
          DA2013 Subscriber last edited by

          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!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • justin-brock
            justin-brock last edited by

            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.

            watch?v=f85sAafNIUw

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

              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

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

                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.

                BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • Autoboof
                  Autoboof @justin-brock last edited by

                  I have this same question Justin.  Did you find that this is an acceptable setup for hreflang?

                  katemorris 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Aleyda
                    Aleyda @justin-brock last edited by

                    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.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • justin-brock
                      justin-brock @Aleyda last edited by

                      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.

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

                        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!

                        justin-brock 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • justin-brock
                          justin-brock @katemorris last edited by

                          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?

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

                            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!

                            justin-brock 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                            • BlueprintMarketing
                              BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                              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

                              tCIV5Z1.png INByMVG.png

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • 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

                              • MMcCalden

                                Setting up international site subdirectories in GSC as separate properties for better geotargeting?

                                My client has an international website with a subdirectory structure for each country and language version - eg. /en-US. At present, there is a single property set up for the domain in Google Search Console but there are currently various geotargeting issues I’m trying to correct with hreflang tags. My question is, is it still recommended practise and helpful  to add each international subdirectory to Google Search Console as an individual property to help with correct language and region tagging? I know there used to be properly sets for this but haven’t found any up to date guidance on whether setting up all the different versions as their own properties might help with targeting. Many thanks in advance!

                                International SEO | | MMcCalden
                                0
                              • moon-boots

                                International SEO

                                Okay, so I have read through the following link in respect to International SEO (https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/learn/seo/international-seo), and I believe that the way forward it a ccTLD. My thought was to have .com, .co.uk and .eu. Currently my site is .com, but receives most of its traffic from UK sources. I'm concerned that when I switch over to ccTLDs, the .co.uk in particular, that my UK traffic could dry up. Switching from .com to .co.uk and then using the .com to target the US market makes sense, but I would like to know others opinions on the potential dangers of doing this. Also, are ccTLDs kept on the same hosting or would they require individual hosting? The link doesn't cover this question.

                                International SEO | | moon-boots
                                1
                              • mattdinbrooklyn

                                Country and Language Specific URL Paths

                                Wanted to ask everyone a questions: So our company is going to be doing a website that is going to be full of videos. The url path will be country.domain.com/language/slug/content-id. We redirect the user when they go to the different country. So if you're in spain on a train to france your URL will change from es.domain.com/es/slug/content-id to fr.domain.com/es/slug/content-id. Each country can listen to each video in all languages. My question is with hreflang tags and canonicals. Aside from targeting users in a certain country via Google Search Console, how do I eliminate duplication and tell Google which I'd like to show up via which country. In spain I would like es.domain.com/es/slug/content-id to show in Google and would have hreflang tags on each of the es.domain pages but what about fr.domain.com/es/slug/content-id since it would show the same content? I can't canonical to one of them since I need them to show in their respective country. How do I show the difference in language and country without showing duplication?

                                International SEO | | mattdinbrooklyn
                                0
                              • ecommercebc

                                Language Usage for SEO in Hong Kong

                                Hi guys, I was wondering if you could help me with an SEO query for language usage in Hong Kong? Specifically, I'm aware that in mainland China it's preferred to use simplified Chinese. However, in Hong Kong, if you want to rank well in Google and Yahoo! HK, should you be use traditional or simplified Chinese in your web content? Any guidance would be much appreciated.

                                International SEO | | ecommercebc
                                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
                              • JonClark15

                                What are the best practices for translation of city/state names for international SEO? (ie. New York in English vs. Nueva York in Spanish)

                                I'm working on international SEO / translation of a global travel site. While we have a global keyword research and translation strategy in process for each market they serve, I've run into a unique question. Overall, we are translating (and localizing) content for each market but aren't sure what to do with location names. Each country/state has cities and locations that have their own dedicated pages. I see three options for these location names (when titling a page and writing content):  keep them in English, translate the names in the market languages, or use a combination of the two. The challenge with altering the location names to the market languages is that they are truly not known by those names. Though there are some instances where it may make sense…for instance **New York **in Spanish would be "Nueva York" with **‘**Nueva' being the Spanish translation of ‘new’. There are other instances, where no translation exists. If you’ve had a similar experience I'd love to hear your approach/recommendation.

                                International SEO | | JonClark15
                                0
                              • Awaraman

                                Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO

                                Hi, I have two questions. Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords? Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions. My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder. Thanks in advance, Sam

                                International SEO | | Awaraman
                                1
                              • mongillo

                                International (foreign language) URL's best practices

                                I'm curious if there is a benefit or best practice with regards to using the localized language on international sites (with specific ccTLDs).  For example, should my french site (site.fr) use the french language as keywords within the URLs or should they be in english? e.g. www.site.fr/nourriture  vs. www.site.fr/food Is that considered best practice for SEO (or just for brand perception those markets?).  Is there a tangible loss in SEO if we do not use the correct language for those URLs and just stick with English around the world? I recall seeing a Matt Cutts video on the topic and he said that google does support i18n URL's but other SE's might not support them as gracefully but he didn't come down with a hard recommendation to go with i18n URL's or just English. Would love a strong ruling in favor one direction based on best practices.

                                International SEO | | mongillo
                                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.