Same URL for languages sub-directories
-
Hi All,
I have a main domain and 9 different subdirectories for languages, example:
www.example.com/page.html
www.example.com/uk/page-uk.html
www.example.com/es/page-es.html
we are implementing hreflang tags for the languages, but we are thinking to get rid of the dashes on the languages URL: -uk or -es, so it will be:
www.example.com/page.html
www.example.com/uk/page.html
www.example.com/es/page.hrml
would this be a problem? to have same page names even if they are in different subdirectories?
would we need to add canonical tags, at lease for the main domain URLs? www.kornferry.com/page.html
Thank you,
Rachel
-
Hi Rachel, I think István makes a good point about the translated urls but just as a quick follow-up to your original question - it should not cause technical problems to have the page names the same while they are in different directories, because the total file path should be different, as long as you have hreflang properly set up.
Regarding your question about canonical tags - I would not canonicalise some of these language variants to other language variants, even if you do decide to make the page names the same. Hreflang is saying "these two pages are different language variants of the same thing" whereas canonical tags are saying "this page is just the same as this other thing" - the canonical tag doesn't have the language component so could conflict with your hreflang and cause errors with things like return tags. At the very least it could confuse Google as to which page should rank in which country, for instance, how can the /de/ page rank in Germany if we're telling Google it's not the canonical version of the page, but the other one from root is?
Hope that helps!
-
Hi Rachel,
Regarding the language code in the URL, you can leave it (page**-uk**.html,page**-es**.html, etc.), but maybe it would be an idea of having a translated page url for each language. For example:
This would serve a little bit better than the previous version, where you would have:
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
-
Should we change our URLs for SEO benefit?
Hi, I'm currently covering a maternity marketing role at i-escape and one our main objectives is to increase organic traffic to the website. i-escape has a selection of hand-picked boutique hotels, villas, lodges, guesthouses and apartments for people to discover and book. At the moment each hotel page URL follows this structure: https://www.i-escape.com/hotelname We'd like to change this to include some searchable words in the URL dependent on the type of hotel. For example: https://www.i-escape.com/boutique-hotels/hotelname or https://www.i-escape.com/boutique-apartments/hotelname If we do go ahead, we know we need to make sure all old style URLs canonically redirect to the new style. Is having the keyword in the URL important enough for us to change over 1500 URLs on the website? We have quite a high quality links pointing to these hotel pages URLs. Also, will this help us with navigation/user journeys/crawls as there will be a /boutique-hotels/hotelname rather than just /hotelname? Thanks so much all! Clair
Technical SEO | | iescape0 -
URL structure
Hello Guys, Quick Question regarding URL strucutre One of our client is an hotel chain, thye have a group site www.example.com and each property is located in a subfolder: www.example.com/example-boston.html , www.example.com/example-ny.html etc. My quesion is : where is better to place the language extension at a subfolder level?
Technical SEO | | travelclickseo
Should i go for www.example.com/en/example-ny.html or it is preferable to specify the language after the property name www.example.com/example-ny/en/accommodation.html? Thanks and Regards, Alessio0 -
Redirects on multi language site and language detection
Hello! I have a multi language site in German and English. The site ranked well for the brand name and for German keywords. But after switching to a contend delivery network and changing the language detection method from browser language to IP location the site had indexing and ranking problems. Also in SERP the English homepage is shown for German keywords. On the other hand the language detection method is more accurate now. Current setup: The languages are separated via a folder structure for the languages: www.site.com/**en **and www.site.com/de. If the users IP is in Germany he is redirected via 302 from .com to .com/de. The rest of the world is redirected via 302 to .com/en. So the root www.site.com/ doesn't exist but has the most of the backlinks. Each folder has one sitemap under /de/sitemap.xml and /en/sitemap.xml. Each site and the root (.com, .com/de, .com/en) was added to WMT (no geo targeting) and the sitemaps were added (on the root domain both sitemaps and on the language specific sites just one). The sitemaps have no hreflang tag. Each page has an hreflang tag in the header pointing to itself and the alternate language. hreflang="x-default" is not set anywhere. Also on each page is a link to change language. Goals: From an SEO point of view we primarily target German speaking people. But a lot of international people (US, South America, Europe) search for our brand name so we want to serve them the English site. Therefore we want to: Get all the link juice when someone links to www.site.com to the German site Show Germans the German site in SERP and all others the English one Still serve the language automatically based on the location Do you have any idea how to achieve this? I think our main problem is that we want to push the German site the most but still serve the English site for most people (and therefore the Google Bot). Also does submitting the same sitemap twice (on the domain site and folders) do any harm? Any help oder links to ressources are greatly appreciated. I read a ton of articles but they are mostly for the case that english is the default language. Thanks for you help Moz community! Alex
Technical SEO | | AlexBLN1 -
Page URL Change
We're planning on rolling out a redesign of an existing page, and at the same time, we're looking to possibly changing the URL of the page. Currently, the URL is www.blah.com/phraseword1-phraseword2-phraseword3-phraseword4 and we're ranking top 3 in Google SERP for that 4-word phrase. The keyword phrase is something we have in our Page Title, Site Copy and the URL. Now, we are planning on simplifying the URL to below.. www.blah.com/phraseword1-phraseword2 The plan is to 301 redirect the original URL to this new URL and actually work the exact phrase into the copy a few more times. My understanding is that URL doesn't get as much weight as it does in the past, but it's still important. So my question is... How important is the URL in this case where we will continue to have it in our page title and also we'll be working more copy on to the page with the appropriate keyword? Will 301 redirect from the old URL address the issue of passing SEO value for that keyword phrase? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | JoeLin
Joe0 -
Is there actual risk to having multiple URLs that frame in main url? Or is it just bad form and waste of money?
Client has many urls that just frame in the main site. It seems like a total waste of money, but if they are frames, is there an actual risk?
Technical SEO | | gravityseo0 -
How can i redirect a url that has % in it?
Google webmaster tools shows a 400 eroor for an old link that contains a 30% off in it. The problem is the % I would like to 301 redirect this link : http://www.geographics.com/Graduation-Stationery,-35%-OFF-Printable-Certificates-Blank-Gift-Certificates/c1353_1354_1359/index.html to http://www.geographics.com/Graduation-Stationery-Printable-Certificates-Blank-Gift-Certificates/c1353_1354_1359/index.html We do not know how to do this in httaccess. Can you please advise? Thanks a lot! Madlena
Technical SEO | | Madlena0 -
Sub domain versus sub directory
Hey all, Has Google finally grown up to treat sub-domains as they would sub directory? i.e: http://blog.example.com as opposed to http://example.com/blog I desperately wanted example.com/blog but we were forced to launch with blog.example.com because of WordPress limitations and our DNS and load balancing set up on our end. All searches lead me to old documentation 2010 and earlier. Wondering if anyone has any up to date information around this. Cheers, Croozie,
Technical SEO | | sichristie0 -
Sub Domain SEO
I am thinking to Add Sub Domains to get better rankings for Local Searches. So I will develop City Specific Sites with Specific Language. For Example qatar.wisnetsol.com. IT will be in Arabic. If my Good standing and Ranking on Google for wisnetsol.com will help my subdomain to rank better? if we setup wisnetsol.com/qatar, how it can target Qatar in Google Webmaster tools? Will links for qatar.wisnetsol.com and wisnetsol.com are seprate? What do you think about this strategy? Is it good or bad?
Technical SEO | | Khuram0