The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. SEO and Digital Marketing Q&A Forum
    2. Categories
    3. International Issues
    4. Are my hreflang and canonical link tags set correctly?

    Are my hreflang and canonical link tags set correctly?

    International Issues
    2 2 675
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • ddspg
      ddspg last edited by

      Currently we have a website in english but over time we will roll out parts of the whole site in different languages for different countries which will also result in country specific English versions of the website.

      The goal is that Google shows the country specific version of a page in a native language or English if available or falls back to the default English version of the same page otherwise.

      I listed below how we plan to use hreflang and canonical link tags to achieve this and was hoping to get some feedback from the Moz community if this will work as expected.

      (1) A page (www.mysite.com/page1) exists only in English as default. Users should be able to find it in every country unless there is an English version specifically for this country. We would use the following tags:

      (2) A page exists in English (www.mysite.com/id/en/page2) and Bahasa (www.mysite.com/id/id/page2) for a specific country (Indonesia in this case). Users in Indonesia searching in English should find the country specific English page. Indonesians searching in Bahasa should find the Bahasa version of that page. We would use the following tags on the English version:

      and therefor the following tags on the Bahasa version:

      In this case there wouldn't be a default English version available for the page.

      (3) If a page exists in English global, English for Indonesians and Bahasa for Indonesians we would use:

      on www.mysite.com/id/en/page3

      on www.mysite.com/id/id/page3

      on www.mysite.com/page3

      If www.mysite.com/id/en/page3 and www.mysite.com/page3 are very similar we would risk google picking the page they want to rank for an english keyword searched in Indonesia, correct?

      (4) If a page in (1) and (2) can be reached with a different URL, we would only use a canonical and don't specify any hreflang tags e.g.:

      www.mysite.com/en/other-url-to-page1

      or
      www.mysite.com/id/en/other-url-to-page2-english-indonesia

      (5) If a page that exists as global English page becomes available in English for a specific country as e.g. www.mysite.com/uk/en/page1 we would use the following tags:

      and also add one more hreflang to www.mysite.com/page1:

      The assumption here is that Google would rank the localized page instead of the global page after crawling our site again. But since this will be a new page, are we going to lose traffic because www.mysite.com/uk/en/page1 won't rank as well in the beginning (e.g. no offsite optimization)?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Stramark
        Stramark last edited by

        You did not realy ask a question... so no resonses.

        But we are 6 months ahead. so you must have tested it!? What did you find? Did it work?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post
        • Hreflang implementation via sitemap - don’t need canonical tags?
          victor.celer
          victor.celer
          0
          4
          44

        • Correct Hreflang & Canonical Tags for Multi-Regional Website English Language Only having URL Parameters
          effectdigital
          effectdigital
          0
          2
          412

        • Is It valuable to use hreflang tags for blog posts?
          davebuts
          davebuts
          0
          3
          65

        • Search Console Hreflang-Tag Error "missing return tag": No explanation
          StudentSEO
          StudentSEO
          0
          4
          6.9k

        • Hreflang no return tags error in GWT
          0
          1
          300

        • Hreflang link is always going to the homepage
          WesleySmits
          WesleySmits
          0
          6
          464

        • Multiple hreflang tags
          SEOBirmingham81
          SEOBirmingham81
          0
          6
          2.7k

        • Correct Hreflang & Canonical Implementation for Multilingual Site
          KaneJamison
          KaneJamison
          1
          8
          20.0k

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        • Digital Marketers
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy