Google didn't show my correct language-version homepage.
-
I have a website which serves two languages - English and Chinese. My English homepage can be indexed by Google. But when I search the brand term in English, Google returns my Chinese homepage. I already added the hreflang attributes. And I'm working on building the XML sitemap for three languages.
What other things I can work on to fix the issue? Thanks!
-
@jsteimle In addition to the steps you've already taken, there are a few more things you can do:
Language-specific URLs: Ensure that your English and Chinese homepages have different URLs. This will help search engines understand that they are distinct pages targeting different languages.
Canonical Tags: Implement canonical tags on each version of your homepage. This will indicate the preferred version of the page to search engines, reducing the chances of indexing the wrong language version.
Content Optimization: Optimize your English homepage's content for relevant keywords and ensure it aligns with the brand term you want to rank for. This can improve the English page's visibility in search results.
Backlinks: Focus on obtaining high-quality backlinks from authoritative English-language websites. This can enhance the English homepage's authority and improve its chances of ranking higher in search results.
Consistent Language Usage: Ensure consistent usage of the targeted language across the page's metadata, headings, and content. This will help search engines understand the language and context of your content.
User Experience: Provide clear language selection options on your website. This can help users navigate to the desired language version easily, reducing confusion for search engines as well. -
It's hard to know everything which could be affecting this without a link to both pages.
1) It's possible that the Chinese version is just so much more popular (links) that it still gets returned instead of the EN page despite Hreflangs (which Google can overrule in extreme circumstances).
**2) **It's possible that Google still thinks users will get the 'best deal' on the Chinese version of your site, even when ordering products or services from abroad (look at your currency-normalised price points).
3) It could be that the English version of the page has other technical issues which prevents it from being indexed, which forces Google to list one version only (a common one is if, you have regional redirects implemented for Google - but you forgot to 'exempt' Google from those redirects, and thus it crawls from a particular data centre and can only see one version of your site which it keeps being redirected back to).
4) It could be that the brand term originated in China and thus Google considers the brand term to be part of the Chinese language, not part of the English language (and thus you get keyword targeting problems all over the place). If the brand term looks and sounds Chinese and was originally created in (or for) the Chinese market, if most of the links around the web which mention the brand term are Chinese - you can see how Google could get confused.
5) It could just be a Google glitch which you could post about here (but there's no guarantee of a reply).
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
-
Review rich snippet isn't appearing anymore
Hi, We have recently lost the review rich snippet for product that used to consistently show it for a long time. On top of that we have also lost the breadcrumb. The markup hasn't changed on these pages and gwt data tool tester doesn't show any anomalies. A few weeks back we have deployed a new property that list reviews from the first site without actually being under the same domain. Would that be an issue, review may have been considered as plagiarism somehow? Is there a way for us to confirm this theory? What are others factors that may have lead us to lose those rich snippet? Thanks
Technical SEO | | mattam0 -
Finding websites that don't have meta descriptions
Hi everyone, as a way to find new business leads I thought about targeting websites that have poor meta descriptions or where they are simply missing. A quick look at SERPs shows this is still a major issue for many businesses. Is there any way I can quickly find pages for which meta description is lacking? Thank you! Best regards, Florian
Technical SEO | | agencepicnic0 -
301 redirects don't work properly
Hello all, I've been working on 301 redirects for a bit and normally it's no problem but some seem to be going wrong. Redirect 301 /3-zits.html http://www.bankstellenshop.com/banken/3-zits.html This one works properly but the following one gives a very strange result as it goes to http://www.bankstellenshop.com/bankstellen.html/u (no idea where the .html comes from) Redirect 301 /bankstellen/u http://www.bankstellenshop.com/bankstellen/u.html Any idea what I'm doing wrong or what should change? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | Kapottefietsband0 -
We can't figure out why competitors have better position(s) in Google
We are using MOZ analytics for some days now, and it really helps us with important information about our rankings.
Technical SEO | | wilcoXXL
I hope you guys can help us out with the following particular case; In google.nl (dutch) we rank position #18 with the following searchterm 'sphinx 345' one of our competitors rank position #3.
We used the MOZ On Page Grade tool to find out some details about the two pages:
Our page #18: http://goo.gl/cTsbmI
Competitor page #3: http://goo.gl/qk21sM Our page hits an A and Keyword usage for "sphinx 345" = 52
The competitors page hits an A too and Keyword usage for "sphinx 345" = 45 About the link structure; for our page there is no link data found in Open Site Explorer. The url exists about a year and a half now.
I'm also very sure we have many internal links to this url.
Does Google and other crawlers have a hard time to crawl our site?(it's a Magento site, our competitors do have custom-made e-commerce systems, maybe that has something to do with it?) As i were saying;we can't figure this out. I hope you guys can help to get us any further. Regards, Wilco0 -
Why am I seeing %%name%% showing in the duplicate titles report when it shows the name correctly in the source code?
Crawl diagnostics is picking up all the Wordpress variable tags including and not limited to %%name%% instead of what is actually showing in the source code. Shouldn't it show what is rendered in the browser? I don't think these need to be fixed because they show in Google ok. Search Google for: site:blog.sandiego.org "About Aki"
Technical SEO | | SDConvis0 -
Internet Explorer and Chrome showing different SERP's
Well the title says it all really. Same query, different browsers, same computer and different search results. I thought at first it may have differed because I was logged into my google profile on chrome but I logged out and tested and still different results. Is this normal ?
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
Tags showing up in Google
Yesterday a user pointed out to me that Tags were being indexed in Google search results and that was not a good idea. I went into my Yoast settings and checked the "nofollow, index" in my Taxanomies, but when checking the source code for no follow, I found nothing. So instead, I went into the robot.txt and disallowed /tag/ Is that ok? or is that a bad idea? The site is The Tech Block for anyone interested in looking.
Technical SEO | | ttb0 -
What does it mean by 'blocked by Meta Robot'? How do I fix this?
When i get my crawl diagnostics, I am getting a blocked by Meta Robot, which means that my page is not being indexed in the search engines... obviously this is a major issue for organic traffic!!! What does it actually mean, and how can i fix it?
Technical SEO | | rolls1230