Several hreflang links pointing to same URL

[dimitrihuyghe]

Hi,

Does anyone know whether hreflang links can be used using the following markup?

I can't seem to find any info on this particular usage, but it "feels" incorrect to me. (duplicate content issues)
Our development team tells me this is the way the markup should be, since languages are initially set using a cookie and all different languages are using the same URL.

Thanks!

<link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">nl</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">x-default</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">fr</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">en</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" href="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.littlethingz.be</a>" hreflang="<a class="attribute-value">de</a>"/>

[TukTown]

Hi Dimitri,

You're most definitely right in your assumption that this is incorrect. Those are not even properly written hreflang tags, and are therefore useless.

The purpose of hreflang is to help search engines determine which language version of an otherwise duplicate webpage should be served to a user in a particular geographical area. Therefore, each individual hreflang tag includes both a country and a language. For instance, if you want users finding you through search in the US to be served the English language version of a webpage, the hreflang tag would be as follows:

However, if you wanted your users in Canada to be served the French version of a webpage (if it's targeted at a Quebecoi audience for instance), the hreflang tag would be as follows:

I don't think your current hreflang tags are damaging you as they're incorrectly formatted and probably therefore disregarded, but you should at the very least remove them until they've constructed an accurate hreflang set. How many languages is your site in?

Hope this helps!

[dimitrihuyghe]

Thanks for your reply TukTown.

The website is in 4 languages. English, French, Dutch and German.
Google support states you can target a language only, without specifying a region:
"
Supported language/region codes

The value of the hreflang attribute identifies the language (in ISO 639-1 format) and optionally a region (in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format) of an alternate URL. (The language need not be related to the region.) For example:

de: German language content, independent of region
    en-GB: English language content, for GB users
    de-ES: German language content, for users in Spain
"

We are targeting the Dutch language in two different countries. (Belgium and The Netherlands)

The issue I'm raising is that all hreflang-tags, plus the canonical tag, are pointing to the same URL.

Will bots be able to identify the correct language with this mark-up?

Supported language/region codes

The value of the hreflang attribute identifies the language (in ISO 639-1 format) and optionally a region (in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format) of an alternate URL. (The language need not be related to the region.) For example:

• de: German language content, independent of region
• en-GB: English language content, for GB users
• de-ES: German language content, for users in Spain

[effectdigital]

Yeah you can do language only hreflangs. But it's pure nonsense to direct Google to the very same URL and state that it is the URL for all of those different languages. At the end of the day, Google will crawl from one data centre at once which may be from one of many countries. It will see one version of the page, and assume that 'this is what the page is'

If the site structure is that you have one URL only and the contents are modified based on the user's origin, then the structure is wrong as Google will have a very hard time ranking one URL as many different URLs. People who have such a structure always end up here, always argue why it's ok and then end up 'doing it properly' later on as it just doesn't work

Also note that, if you have one version of a page served to people in different regions (e.g: an EN page which is stated in the hreflangs to be for both Canadians and Americans), Google may see that as a 'minimum effort' deployment with no value proposition. Different audiences need tailored content to suit them, so a re-write of some of the content is still expected if you want to see an increased international footprint (and you're not a giant like Santander or Coca-Cola)

The number of times I see people clone their EN site into a US folder and just 'expect it to rank' with no extra effort, just with hreflangs - is staggering. Google expect to see a value proposition when you build out your site. Value-prop ('value add'), the #1 yet never talked about ranking factor

I don't think your current implementation will work very well, if at all. You may have lots of human-brain reasons why it should - but crawlers are robots