Can multiple geotargeting hreflang tags be set in one URL? International SEO question

[Onedirect_uk]

​Hi All,

Thank you for this great post!

I have a question please.

If i target www.onedirect.co.nl/en/ in English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, are the tags below correct?

English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg:

http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-nl" />

http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-be" />

http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-lu" />

AND Targeting Holland and Belgium in Dutch:

Pour la page www.onedirect.co.nl on peut inclure ce tag:

http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-nl" />

http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-be" />

thanks a lot for your help!

[katemorris]

Hi!

This is where I think the misunderstanding of hreflang shows itself. There are others that disagree with me, but the following is my opinion.

You have one page in one general language. hreflang markup is for identifying language changes on multiple pages not for geo-targeting. What you have here is content in two general languages and attempting to mark it up for 5 regional dialects.

If this is all the content you are going to make and you are keeping it on .co.nl, you will be telling the search engines that you are targeting the Netherlands with the content in English and Dutch.

If you want your English and Dutch content without any geo-targeting, you will need to have it on some kind of general TLD like .net, .com or something like that. Then you can use hreflang between the languages for English and Dutch.

If you want to target those countries as well, that gets a little more complicated. You'll need to determine the best structure, how you are targeting the content to those regions (this means changing the content somehow), and then implement something with multiple ccTLDs or on a gTLD with regional subfolders. Then we can talk about translations of that regional content.

I'm assuming that your best route is going to be transitioning to a more general TLD and offering the two translated content sites as you have that right now, but I can't promise that is what is best for your audience. Take a look at this tool and see what works best for your business and go from there: http://outspokenmedia.com/international-seo-strategy/