international sites hreflang video slides

Expanding your site to new languages or country-based language variations

Maile OhyeDeveloper Programs Tech LeadGoogle

Agenda

• Search issues with international sites

• Background questions before you start

• Use cases

• Signals to help Google understand your international site

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”http://www.example.com” />

• Best practices

Potential search issues

• Searchers of a particular language/region aren't shown a URL tailored to them when one exists

Searching on google.co.ukWhat if there exists an equivalent URL for google.co.uk searchers? :(

Potential search issues (cont.)

• Search results might display two very similar URLs from your site, confusing users

• Search engines might not be aware of all language variations

Self-reflection before you start

Is your team committed to...

• Developing an experience tailored to users of a different region/language?

• Creating, reviewing, maintaining newly written content for different users of your site?

• Supporting customers in a new region and/or language?

Ranking in one language/country

≠Automatically ranking in a new

language/country

Use case: Regional variations of the same language

Use case: Full translations (car, coche, auto!)

rel="alternate" hreflang to help Google understand your site

rel="alternate" hreflang

Several places to explain markup

• On-page markup <link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es.example.com/page.html" />

• HTTP HeaderHTTP/1.1 200 OKContent-Type: text/htmlLink: <http://es.example.com/>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="es"Content-Length: 5710(... rest of HTTP response headers...)

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

• Sitemap with all variations for each URL<loc>http://www.example.com/deutsch/</loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.example.com/english/"/> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="http://www.example.com/deutsch/"/>

...

• Can submit one Sitemap if all sites are verified

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

• Specify language (en), or both language and region (en-gb)

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en.example.com/" />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="http://en-gb.example.com/" />

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

Without a general language specified (imagine you had no general “en,” only “en-gb” and “en-us”), Google will behave as before we

supported the hreflang annotation (i.e., we'll try to choose one of the versions that would

be relevant to the user).

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

Specify x-default for pages (often homepages) that

• Autoredirect

• Serve dynamic content based on IP

• Act as a language selector (where users choose their preferred language)

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="http://www.example.com/" />

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

Potential implementation at the Play store, both homepage and apps vary language based on user's IP

• https://play.google.com/

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.maps

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

• For duplicative URLs, such as URLs with sessionIDs o Include the proper rel=”canonical”

• On canonical URLs, specify rel=alternate hreflang values to the corresponding canonicalso No need to list hreflang values on non-canonical URLs

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

Most efficient configuration when dealing with duplicative URLs and rel=”alternate” hreflang

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

Specify all alternates on each page, including the page itself (whether with on-page markup, Sitemaps, or HTTP headers)

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)Can be on same or different domain (e.g.,

www.example.com for "en", maileohye.com for "sp")o Subdirectory

www.example.com/en/ www.example.com/jao

o Subdomain en.example.com/ ja.example.com/

o ccTLD or gTLD www.example.com/ www.example.co.jp/

o Different domains www.example.com/en/page.html maileohye.com/ja/page.html

Targeting a specific country (for sites with a gTLD)

Can still use Geographic target feature in Webmaster Tools

• Verified subdomains or subdirectories

• Not to be used for a generic language

rel="alternate" hreflang (cont.)

May not be treated by other major search engines in the same manner.

Use case: Country-based variations of the same language

Use case: Full translations

Full translation and country-based variations

Benefit: rel="alternate" hreflang

When implemented correctly, helps search engines like Google consolidate several

indexing signals.

Benefit: Helps discovery of new URLs

Benefit: More targeted URL for searchers

For searchers on google.co.uk

Yay! Appropriate localized URL!

Best practices

Shareable URLs

Each URL should be shareable: URL gives same information regardless of user’s IP or language preference

• It’s fine to autoredirect from x-default URL to language/country specific URLs

• Autoredirecting from one language URL to another language URL may prevent the crawling of all pages

• Dynamically serving different languages on one URL will allow only one language version to be indexed (whichever version was crawled)

Language and region not as parameter

• Parameters can be overloaded, more difficult for search engines to understand

• ccTLD, gTLD subdirectory, gTLD subdomain is fine

Use Unicode in URLs when necessary

UTF-8 encoding in the path, filenames, URL parameters:http://example.ca/fr/vélo-de-montagne.html

becomes

http://example.ca/fr/v%C3%A9lo-de-montagne.html

Be sure to test that your entire stack (server, database, CMS, etc.) supports UTF-8.

Build your business with your new language users

Finding users in the new language who can recommend, link, and refer others to your site can help you business gain new customers.

Factor page speed

Architecture must scale to new/more users and network distances.

More Page Speed tips https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/

"Site performance for webmasters" videohttp://goo.gl/kqS2

Power to the user

• Ability to switch a page to their language of choice

• Enjoy a tourist experience (US English speaker purchasing while in Germany)

Reference resources!Working with multilingual sites

http://goo.gl/NmgpWorking with multiregional sites

http://goo.gl/Fm0Urel="alternate" hreflang

http://goo.gl/oxN0arel="alternate" hreflang="x-default"

http://goo.gl/WI3EIWebmaster discussion forum for internationalization

http://goo.gl/T6IB7

www.google.com/webmasters

Thanks!