Hreflang Implementation

[buiserik]

Hello All,

I'm currently working on a website with different folders for different country. For now I have defined the href lang implementation as below:

http://www.homepage.com/en/default.html"/>
Language: English - Country: United Kingdom

http://www.homepage.com/enus/default.html"/>
Language: English - Country: United States

http://www.homepage.com/nl/default.html"/>
Language: Dutch - Country: Netherlands

http://www.homepage.com/nlbe/default.html"/>
Language: Dutch - Country: Belgium

http://www.homepage.com/fr/default.html"/>
Language: French - Country: All french speaking countries

http://www.homepage.com/de/default.html"/>
Language: German - Country: All german speaking countries

http://www.homepage.com/es/camisa-a-medida.html"/>
Language: Spanish - Country: Spain

http://www.homepage.com/enen/default.html" />
Language: English - Country: All other countries

Does this make any sense?

Furthermore, how do I implement this on underlying pages. Do I fill out the URL dynamically according to the URL the tags are found on? Or do I use these tags mentioning the homepage on all underlying pages? If so, how do I avoid duplicate content issues between NL and NL-BE and EN-GB, EN-US and EN? Canonicals?

Besides the whole hreflang implementation I was wondering if it's worthwhile or advisable to implement lang="en" xml:lang="en_"_ in the HTML tag and http-equiv="content-language" content="en_"_ in the META tags?

[MattAntonino]

Assuming you're on an Apache server, this works for internal pages:

" hreflang="x-default" />
" hreflang="en-au" />
" hreflang="en-ca" />

The REQUEST_URI will pull the internal page you're on (so if you're /about, then it will add /about to all 3 hreflang tags. I don't know if (but I think) this won't work on IIS servers. Just a thought if it doesn't seem to work.

Assuming your folder structure stays the same, you should be all set.

And once you're done, test it using Flang.

[buiserik]

Great, thanks. I'm afraid I'm on ISS though so have to see how to get that working. I understand from your answer the correct way of doing this is by implementing a dynamic URL in the hreflang tag and not just the homepage.

Besides the technical implementation you explained above, I'm assuming the way I segmented the site is okay right?

After that I still have this part unsolved: Besides the whole hreflang implementation I was wondering if it's worthwhile or advisable to implement lang="en"xml:lang="en" in the HTML tag and http-equiv="content-language" content="en" in the META tags?

[buiserik]

No one able to help me out on this one?

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Bulserik

regarding those two questions, if we look just at Google, they are not taken into consideration by Google for International SEO.

On the other:

1. because they don't harm a site;
2. because they are used by Bing for geolocalization and geotargeting (Bing does not use the hreflang)

then, it is a good idea using them.

Check this old but still valid post on Bing about how to geotarget for them: http://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2011/03/01/how-to-tell-bing-your-websites-country-and-language/

Finally, just to be sure:

remember to create Google Webmaster Tools profile for each subfolder and geotarget them for their corresponding countries.