Rel=alternate to help localize sites
-
I am wondering about the efficiency of the rel=alternate tag and how well it works at specifically localizing content.
Example:
I have a website on a few ccTLD's but for some reason my .com shows up on Google.co.uk before my .co.uk version of my page. Some people have mentioned using rel=alternate but in my research this only seems to be applicable for duplicate content in another language. If I am wrong here can somebody please help me better understand this application of the rel=alternate tag. All my research leads me to rel=alternate hreflang= and I am not sure that is what I want.
Thanks,
Chris Birkholm -
Not really so. In fact you need to use also the rel="canonical".
In order to not get you confused, I really suggest you to follow the implementations steps presented by Tim Grice in this post published on SEOWizz:
-
Gianluca,
Really appreciate the feedback here. So the one thing I have a question of then is how this rel=alternate tag would look on my .com as this is where I am apparently getting a little confused. I would basically list my other English versions there correct and the same for my co.uk, etc...?
-
Hi Thomas,
actually the rel="alternate" "hreflang" can be used also to define the region, apart the language.
That means that in your specific case you could use en-US (English version for USA users) - en-GB (English version for British users) - en-AU (English version for Australian users) and so on.
Then, in order to not have the .com site I suggest you to use the rel="alternate". More over, if the .com site is meant specifically for USA market, it would be also better to specify to Google that USA is the market in Google Webmaster Tools, because the contrary will mean that you are asking to it rank also in every regional Google, the .co.uk one too.
Others things that help search engines understand what site to present first in case like yours are the use of the local currency, address and phone numbers, but I don't know if it's your case. Also, your UK site maybe need a stronger link profile, especially rich in links by local authoritative sites.
Another "add on" is sometimes the use of the rel="canonical", but your doesn't seem the case where to use it
Finally, I give you a few links that could be helpful for you:
http://www.rimmkaufman.com/blog/advanced-international-seo-rel-alternate-hreflang-x/13122011/ << A post by Adam Audette, of which I suggest you read also the comments;
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2137882/Newest-International-SEO-Challenge-Hreflang-Canonical-Tags << An interesting overview done in Search Engine Watch
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Indexed Site A's Content On Site B, Site C etc
Hi All, I have an issue where the content (pages and images) of Site A (www.ericreynolds.photography) are showing up in Google under different domains Site B (www.fastphonerepair.com), Site C (www.quarryhillvet.com), Site D (www.spacasey.com). I believe this happened because I installed an SSL cert on Site A but didn't have the default SSL domain set on the server. You were able to access Site B and any page from Site A and it would pull up properly. I have since fixed that SSL issue and am now doing a 301 redirect from Sites B, C and D to Site A for anything https since Sites B, C, D are not using an SSL cert. My question is, how can I trigger google to re-index all of the sites to remove the wrong listings in the index. I have a screen shot attached so you can see the issue clearer. I have resubmitted my site map but I'm not seeing much of a change in the index for my site. Any help on what I could do would be great. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cwscontent
Eric TeVM49b.png qPtXvME.png1 -
SEO and former site
Hi, my client had a site built and hosted with Avvo but we now shut it down and are using a new server. My concern is that Avvo's internal link structure is causing SEO issues. For example, his site will list for "San Diego Criminal Defense Attorney", but is then removed for no reason. Far worse, while he had the AVVO site, it would never rank at all on Google. He's got great content, and no spammy links. This is the site: www.thesandiegocriminallawyer.com. Any thoughts of what I could do to disavow the AVVO pages that Google still has indexed? Does it matter? Or, is it simply a function of time? Thank you for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Site not progressing at all....
We relaunched our site almost a year ago after our old site dropped out of ranking due to what we think was overused anchor text.... We transferred over the content to the new site, but started fresh in terms of links etc. And did not redirect the old site. Since the launch we have focused on producing good content and social, but the site has made no progress at all. The only factor I can think off is that one site linked to us from all of their pages, which we asked them to remove which they did over 3 months ago, but still showing in Webmaster tools.... Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jj34340 -
Redirecting Pages from site A to site B
Hi, I have a client who have a solid, high ranking content based site (site A). They have now created an ecommerce site in addition (site B). To give site B a boost in terms of search engine visibility upon launch, they now wish to redirect approx 90% of site As pages to site B. What would be the implications of this? Apart from customers being automatically redirected from the page they thought they where landing on, how would google now view site A? What are your thoughts to thier idea. I am trying to talk them out of it as I think its a poor one.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Temporarily shut down a site
What would be the best way to temporarily shut down a site the right way and not have a negative impact on SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LibertyTax1 -
Sitemaps: Alternate hreflang
Hi, some time ago I have read that there is a limit of 50.000 URLs per sitemap file (So, you need to create a sitemap index and separate files with 50.000 urls each). [Source]. Now we are about to implement the link hreflang in the sitemap [Source], and we dont know if we have to count each alternate as a different url. We have 21 different well positioned domains (Same name, different cctlds, a little different content [varies in currencies, taxes, some labels, etc] depending in the target country) so the amount of links per url would be high. A) Shall we count each link alternate as a separate url, or just the original ones? For example, if we have to count the link alternates, that would make us have 2380pages per sitemap, each with one original url and 20 alternate links. (Always being aware of the 50mb maximum filesize) B) Actually we have one sitemap per domain. Using this, shall we generate one per domain using the matching domain as original url? Or it would be the same if we upload to every domain the same sitemap? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marianoSoler980 -
Charity project for local women's shelter - need help: will Google notice if you alter the document title with Javascript after the page loads?
I am doing some pro-bono work with a local shelter for female victims of domestic abuse. I am trying to help visitors to the site cover their tracks by employing a document.title change when the page loads using JavaScript. This shelter receives a lot of traffic from Google. I worry that the Google bots will see this javascript change and somehow penalize this site or modify the title in the SERPs. Has anyone had any experience with this kind of javascript maneuver? All help would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jkonowitch0 -
Badges For a B2b site
love this seo tactic but it seems hard to get people to adopt it Has anyone seen a successful badge campaign for a b2b site? please provide examples if you can.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidKonigsberg0