Hreflang and canonicalization

[simon_realbuzz]

When using hreflang in order to deliver the relevant version in SERs, should we also make use of a reference to a canonical version to avoid duplication?

Currently, we provide different regional versions of our content where the content is largely the same aside from minor changes due to spelling, units of measurement although occasionally larger amends are required.

We have implemented hreflang referencing all the alternative country Urls, e.g en-us, en-gb, en-aus etc but also specificied the canonical as the en-gb version since we are a UK based website and the majority of the content originated from the UK version of our site.

Recently, our rankings across all countries have been falling markedly and I'm wondering whether the canonical element may be at fault. We have not been engaging in any black hat activities that might have been responsible for any sort of fall.

When we implemented the hreflang and canonical in July 2012 our traffic has actually been increasing significantly until literally 21 Nov when the search traffic is plummeting considerably across all countries. It would be useful to know if you need to specify a canonical version when using hreflang or could there be another reason for our ranking falls.

Many thanks in advance of your assistance.

[wissamdandan]

Google has actually updated their Google webmaster help section of the hreflang and remove the reference of rel canonical because people tend to get confused and implemented incorrectly.

so my question to you are these pages informational pages? are they fully equivalent to the others ? in aus and us ?

[simon_realbuzz]

Hi Wissam, yes indeed all the pages are informative article pages. I want each country specific version to rank highly in it's own country i.e en-us article to rank in US, en-au in Australia etc. Does specifying a canonical strangle your ranking in all the other countries?

[wissamdandan]

Hi Simon

I think the implementation you did on the site is confusing and wrong.

you consolidated ur au to the .com domain without specifying which folder or subdomainis the au section is.

previously because you have the .com.au in the domain Google understood that signal that this website is relevant to au visitors. but when you consolidated to the .com you need now to TELL or HINT to Google (through Google Webmaster Tools) where the whole domain that was targeting this country went.

and HREFLANG is not about Geotargeting but about the Language.

[simon_realbuzz]

Thanks Wissam. I posted the same question in a Google forum and was told that I should remove the canonical reference (but retain the hrelang elements) as some of the content was not entirely identical and had regional differences.

I've asked whether I should do the same (i.e not specify a canonical) when the content is entirely identical but equally relevant to different countries. Would the hreflang be enough to prevent them being considered duplicate?

[wissamdandan]

you can test it out and remove the canonical for the not fully equivalent pages ... and unfortunately there is no other solution than a canonical to fix the pages that have a fully equivalent content.

just test it out and keep a close eye on it and please do update this thread

thank u