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

Google

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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