How does link juice flow through hreflang?

[CuriosityMedia]

We want to use the hreflang tag on our site (direct users searching for the Spanish version of spanishdict.com to spanishdict.com/traductor). Before doing so, we were wondering how link juice flows through hreflang? Any insight or resources on this would be very helpful. Thanks!

[CuriosityMedia]

Thanks for this helpful response, Dirk! Yep, you understood our question correctly. Looks like we may not be able to add an hreflang tag on our /traductor page then.  If there's any way around this please let us know!

[gfiorelli1]

The answer by Dimitri is wrong! (Sorry Dimitri).

The hreflang's href doesn't pass any link equity (use this definition, not link juice, please :-)).

It is a rel="alternate" and doesn't have any connection with things like 301s.

[DirkC]

Hreflang is reciprocal - so if page A indicates page B as equivalent - page B has to declare page A as equivalent.

If I understand your question well - you want to have 2 English pages with a hreflang pointing to the same Spanish page. This is not possible.

Dirk

[CuriosityMedia]

Hi Dirk --  Thanks for your helpful response! One more question, can we have an hreflang tag from both our homepage (www.spanishdict.com) and another page (www.spanishdict.com/translation) to the Spanish version of the site (www.spanishdict.com/traductor)?

[DmitriiK]

Ok, that's what I thought. I guess I just didn't explain properly in my first answer

[DirkC]

In that case it will reinforce the domain (like any external link to any page on the domain).

It's just that a link to domain.com/es/page will not count as a link to domain.com/en/page even when they are "linked" via the hreflang tag. Idem where the domains are different. ex domain.es/page & domain.co.uk/page - a link to .es page will not count for the .co.uk page (and domain) even when they are connected via the hreflang.

Dirk

[DmitriiK]

Hi. Well, they do not consolidate, that's for sure. However, I have a question then: so, if, let's say i have a to site.com/ and site.com/es/ for Spain and then somebody links to site.com/es/, wouldn't this increase DA of the whole domain, which is site.com?

[DirkC]

Not sure if what Dmitrii is stating is correct.
If you check the comments here https://www.distilled.net/blog/distilled/distilledlive-london-a-few-thoughts-on-hreflang/ they state:
" hreflang anotations do not consolidate link equity." (source: Maile Ohye (Google's Developer Programs Tech Lead) at SES London) "Hreflang was not designed to consolidate link authority" (source John Mu - chat with David Sottimano)

Also on Moz - Gianluca seems to be convinced of the same - https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/will-website-with-tag-hreflang-pass-link-juice-to-other-country-language-version-of-website -

Dirk