brightonseo - international targeting with hreflang tags
Post on 08-Jan-2017
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April 2016
International targeting
withhreflang tags
Emily Mace Head of
International SEO
@ObanDigital
@IAmTheLaserHawk
#BrightonSEO
What is a hreflang tag anyway?
Language content to different countries
Resolves duplicate content
Identifies regional differences in language (Spanish for Spain and Spanish for Mexico)
What isn’t a hreflang tag?The same as a canonical tag
A geotargeting tool which sends people to a location site by default – it’s not IP serving or like IP
Serving
Who understands the hreflang tag?
Who doesn’t?
Use the HTML Language code for these!
Understanding the Hreflang tag
GETTING IT RIGHT
How to use – on pageIn <head> section
List all versions of a page available
Syntax
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ie" hreflang="en-ie" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en" hreflang="en" />
How to use – sitemapSame as on page just coded as XHTML:Link
<url> <loc>http://www.example.com/english/</loc> <xhtml:link
rel="alternate" hreflang="de"href="http://www.example.com/
deutsch/" />
<xhtml:link rel="alternate"hreflang="de-ch"href="http://www.example.com/
schweiz-deutsch/" /></url>
Which way to choose?Smaller sites
Larger sites, e-commerce sites, etc.
Don’t do bothMore chance you’ll get it wrong
Get your codes the right way round
Language code first
Then country code
“Call off Christmas!”
Something went wrong
Can’t I just use canonical tags?
Won’t help your international users see the right version of the site and could lead to
pages not being indexed
NoNão
NeinNai Nu
NietNonNei
NaiTidak
Nage
NieNil
Aniyo
Nej没有
нямаনাDili
GeenJo አይ
الոչ
Yox
Ez
NeНе
InnòIngen
Nee
Neniu
Ei
Hindi
Όχι
ન
ʻAʻole
לאनही
TsisNem
Engin
Níl
ノーOra
ಯಾವುದೕ
жоқ
គមា� ន 아니오
Na
ບມ! Nē
Tsia
ഇലല
Nru
Kahore
नाही
Үгүй ээ
မရသေ�းပါ
कन
نه
ਕਈ
НетLeai
Chan eil
Cheنهනැත
இலலை�
తబుటు� వుల
Hayır
Немаєنہیں
Yo'q
KhôngHayi
ניין Ko si
Cha
I’ve got IP Serving – that’ll work right?
JUST NO!
COUNTRY AND LANGAUGE TARGETING
Get your language codes right
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/se" hreflang=“se-se" />
Swedish is SV not SE
Get your language codes right
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/at" hreflang="at-at" />
They speak German in Austria – not Austrian
Get your country codes right
Some aren’t what you’d think
Israel's code is?
South Africa’s code is?
Get your country codes right
Some aren’t what you’d think
Israel's code is?IS is Iceland and IL is Israel
South Africa’s code is?SA is Saudi Arabia and ZA is South
Africa
Don’t make up countries<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/ar" hreflang=“ar-ar" />
AR is Argentina – NOT ARABIA
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/de" hreflang=“de-eu" />
EU is not a country – this won’t target German speakers in Europe!
Don’t forget the page you’re on
Often see people leaving out the current page
Listing alternatives only works if you include the current page
Leave that out and the search engines will potentially ignore all the other hreflang tags
for the content
Don’t overcomplicate things
English .eu domain name hreflang tags
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.eu" hreflang="en-de" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.eu" hreflang="en-be" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.eu" hreflang="en-ch" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.eu" hreflang="en-pt" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.eu" hreflang="en-fi" />
And on and on and on
One page for all those locations??????
Don’t overcomplicate things
Try this…..
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.eu" hreflang="en" />
But really?
People want content in their language, not English – thanks!
X-DEFAULT TAG
What’s the X-default option?This is my original website right?
The canonical one which is most important?
The one to serve to people who I’ve not covered….
X-default as your main site?
NOPE
So why use X-default?Language selector page
Use real URLs
Don’t use URL aliases
Don’t use URLs which redirect
All URLs in the hreflang should be the live version of the page else you’ll confuse
No returns!No Return Tag Errors – Google Search
Console’s favourite moan
Linking all over the place
French Services
Page
English Services
Page
English Home Page
No returns!Not neatly from one thing to the same thing
English service page
French service page
No Mans Land codeCode goes in the <head> not anywhere else
Certainly not in no man’s land
</head>
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/at" hreflang=“de-at" />
<body>
Remember it’s like this
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ie" hreflang="en-ie" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en" hreflang="en" />
Thanks and any questions?www.obandigital.com | +44 1273 613 400 | @ObanDigital | @IAmTheLaserHawk
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