hreflang for international seo: lessons from 3,000 implementations
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HREFLANG Learnings from Over 3,000 Implementations
2012
Technical SEO agency, working in global ecommerce. Publically documented our adventures in HREFLANG sitemaps…
@NicholaStott
Pioneering Stuff is Hard
@NicholaStott
So we built a thing!
Today
• What HREFLANG can do
• What it can’t do
• Ways to implement
• HREFLANG sitemaps
• Most common errors
• Tips to manage and maintain
@NicholaStott
Hreflang
HTML tag to describe the language OR language AND intended region; of a web page, and alternate versions of said page in different language OR language AND region settings.
@NicholaStott
Right (intended) URL
Right (intended) index
Right (intended) customer
Language OR LANGUAGE/location
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Grow Accuracy, CTR and Conversion Propensity
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NOT
• The answer to your thin content problems
• Help you rank in new markets
• Syphon/copy PageRank from one location to another
• Replace canonical (orthogonal concepts)
@NicholaStott
Ways to Implement Manage and Maintain your Set-up
In HTTP Headers
Link: <http://es.example.com/faq.pdf>; rel=“alternate”; hreflang=“es”, <http://mx.example.com/faq.pdf>; rel=“alternate”; hreflang=“es-mx”,
For non-HTML content
Link elements in <head> HTML pages
< link rel=“alternate”; href=: http://es.example.com/” hreflang=“es”/> < link rel=“alternate”; href=: http://mx.example.com/” hreflang=“es-mx”/>
Pros and cons
• Solution for non-html • Server configuration access not easy • Really simple for small suites • Not for large implementations • Impact to speed • Freq. updates - development resource
For headers and head
See: http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/
Tag Generator: Aleyda Solis
XML Sitemaps
<url> <loc>http://example.com/</loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es" href="http://es.example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-mx" href="http://mx.example.com/" /> </url>
For bigger implementations
RULES, EXCEPTIONS AND OTHER QUIRKS
X-default
• ELSE statement at the end of IF • Language selector • Can be used for generic “catch-all”
language • Or not at all IF prefer to use language
Each <loc> Must have Self referential REL Alternate
Use ISO Codes
LANG = ISO 639-1 REGION = ISO 3166-1 But… you may get away with some common errors! (en-uk)
XML Sitemaps
<url> <loc>http://example.com/</loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es" href="http://es.example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-mx" href="http://mx.example.com/" /> </url>
For bigger implementations
Crawl
en en-gb es-mx http://www.themediaflow.com http://www.themediaflow.com/uk
http://mx.themediaflow.com
http://www.themediaflow.com/1
http://www.themediaflow.com/uk/1
http://mx.themediaflow.com/1
http://www.themediaflow.com/2
http://www.themediaflow.com/uk/2
http://mx.themediaflow.com/2
All sites, sub-domains, folders
Sitemap Tool: themediaflow
See: https://www.themediaflow.com/tools/
Upload each sitemap to the root
• Consolidated only – single site • Specific file to each <loc> • Combination if combination of
architectures • Submit in Search console for each site
MOST COMMON HREFLANG MISTAKES
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en-GB" >
1. It IS Not your language declaration
2. Must link to self!
3. Can’t Target Country/Region oNLY
4. Not using Iso Codes
5. Non-canonical URLS
6. No return tags
7. No Blank cells
8. No protocol reference
9. German CSV – Comma = semi colon
10. UPLOADING Consolidated only
TIPS to manage & Maintain. You won’t Believe No. 3!
Process
1. Benchmark, measure and quantify. Take a sample of markets most impacted.
@NicholaStott
2. Split Each Region Sitemap Into Thematic Sitemaps
3. Create a sitemap/Megazord of sitemaps.
@NicholaStott
HREFLANG Thanks for Listening!