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        4. Hreflang tags and canonical tags - might be causing indexing and duplicate content issues

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        Hreflang tags and canonical tags - might be causing indexing and duplicate content issues

        International SEO
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        • Avid_Demand
          Avid_Demand Subscriber last edited by

          Hi,

          Let's say I have a site located at https://www.example.com, and also have subdirectories setup for different languages. For example:

          https://www.example.com/es_ES/

          https://www.example.com/fr_FR/

          https://www.example.com/it_IT/

          My Spanish version currently has the following hreflang tags and canonical tag implemented:

          My robots.txt file is blocking all of my language subdirectories. For example:

          User-agent:*

          Disallow: /es_ES/

          Disallow: /fr_FR/

          Disallow: /it_IT/

          This setup doesn't seem right. I don't think I should be blocking the language-specific subdirectories via robots.txt

          What are your thoughts?

          Does my hreflang tag and canonical tag implementation look correct to you? Should I be doing this differently?

          I would greatly appreciate your feedback and/or suggestions.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • gfiorelli1
            gfiorelli1 last edited by

            Hi... I'm sorry to tell you that the answer offered by Gaston is not totally correct.

            So, in your Spanish page you have these hreflang and canonical annotations:

            This is not correct because you are not adding also the self-referential hreflang annotation

            Google is very precise about this, and it states its need in the help pages as well in many Googlers tweets and webmaster office hangouts.

            The rel="canonical" is correct. Remember that the self-referential and the alternative href URLs must always be canonicals.

            Finally, regarding the subfolders blocked via robots.txt, yes! that's totally incorrect:

            if you're blocking Googlebot from accessing the Spanish, French and Italian subfolders, then Googlebot won't be able to parse the code of their pages, hence it won't be able to see also the hreflang annotations... with obvious erroneous consequences.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
            • GastonRiera
              Gaston Riera @Avid_Demand last edited by

              that's corect.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Avid_Demand
                Avid_Demand Subscriber @GastonRiera last edited by

                Yes. example.com/en-US/ redirects 301 to example.com

                So, when referencing that version in hreflang will it look like this?

                Is this correct?

                GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • GastonRiera
                  Gaston Riera @Avid_Demand last edited by

                  So, every page of example.com/en-US/ redirects 301 to example.com/ ?

                  If that's the case, then there is no reason in having that folder (/en-US/), just when configuring Hreflang for en-US use the URL without that folder

                  Avid_Demand 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Avid_Demand
                    Avid_Demand Subscriber @GastonRiera last edited by

                    What do you mean by "exactly the same then there should not be 2 sites"?

                    My https://www.example.com/en-US/ 301 redirects to https://www.example.com

                    Thoughts?

                    GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • GastonRiera
                      Gaston Riera @Avid_Demand last edited by

                      Yeap, those implementations are correct.

                      in order to avoid duplicate content between different language/countries websites, in each page that is present on each site, there should be their corresponding hreflang tag.

                      In your case:
                      And for a sample page: https://www.smarttechMKT.com/es-ES/gastonriera-espanol

                      NOTE, in the case that site.com and site.com/en-us/ are exactly the same then there should not be 2 sites. Just the one without the folder and hreflang tag with en-US should point to that
                      Hope it helps.
                      Best luck.
                      GR

                      Avid_Demand 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Avid_Demand
                        Avid_Demand Subscriber @GastonRiera last edited by

                        Thank you for the response, Gaston! I really appreciate it.

                        So you are certain that my hreflang and canonical tags are implemented correctly? For example, my Spanish version (https://www.example.com/es_ES/😞

                        Is this implementation correct?

                        Also, will I have any duplicate content issues with these different language versions?

                        GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • GastonRiera
                          Gaston Riera last edited by

                          Hello there,

                          Watch out your question, there is a site there. If its your clients, edit it.

                          Canonical and hreflang seems OK. 
                          Blocking other languages/countries is wrong. There you are allowing google to see ONLY the us version.

                          For further reading, take a look at these articles:
                          Hreflang:
                          Multi-regional and multilingual sites - Google Search Console
                          International checklist - Moz Blog
                          Using the correct hreglang tag - Moz Blog
                          Guide to international website expansion - Moz Blog
                          Tool for checking hreflang anotations - Moz Blog Canonicals:
                          SEO Best Practices for Canonical URLs + the Rel=Canonical Tag - Whiteboard Friday Consolidate duplicate URLs - Google Search Console Help

                          Hope it helps.
                          Best Luck.
                          GR.

                          Hope it helps.
                          Best luck.
                          GR.

                          Avid_Demand 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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