Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to interlink 16 different language versions of site?
-
I remember that Matt Cutts recommended against interlinking many language versions of a site.
Considering that google now also crawls javascript links, what is best way to implement interlinking?I still see otherwhise extremely well optimized large sites interlinking to more than 10 different language versions e.g. zalando.de, but also booking.com (even though here on same domain).
Currently we have an expandable css dropdown in the footer interlinking 16 different language versions with different TLD. Would you be concerned?
What would you suggest how to interlink domains (for user link would be useful)?
-
Gianluca. that is excellent news. Just curious since this is quite an important issue for us.
Do you speak from own experience with a similar case?
I did not find anywhere other references that contextual links should be fine. Do you remember anybody who wrote about it in the past?Just noticed that tripadvisor actually removed now all their contextual links to alternative language versions that they used to have in their footer. Instead they now implemented a flag drodpown where contextual links are not showing up anymore in the sourcecode.
-
If they are contextual links, then you should not have any problem and can maintain them as they are.
No need "to hide" them to Google.
-
Gianluca, thanks.
The footer links are currently contextual deep links.
Since I am interlinking here 16 TLD, I was just concerned that google may penalize this and that I better hide the links from google. -
There are two good ways to do interlinking between different country sites:
-
The first one is offering somehow similar to the one you described, but not making it sitewide (as saying, not having the footer links always linking to the home pages), but contextual linking, which means that domain.com/page-a will link in the footer to domain.co.uk/page-a, domain.it/pagina-a, domain.es/pagina-a et al.
-
Doing like Apple does. Having in the footer a link to a country selector page, where you can find all the link to all the different websites. This option is conservative, in the sense that you have just one page linking to all the international sites, hence you don't have to fear Google deciding to penalize sitewide interlinking.
-
-
Hi there
The most natural way I can think to do this from a linking perspective - I would have a URL that is the "main" URL of the website. I would have on this page a way for users to select their country or language for the most optimal experience.
Otherwise, I would read the following:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)You should read these anyway. The resources above will tell you how to properly tag your websites for regional targeting, and also how to let Google know in WMT which regions should see what version of your site.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Baidu Webmaster Tools: How to setup in "Site Properties" the field "Affiliate subject"?
Hi ,
International SEO | | lcourse
finally I managed to setup my site in Baidu Webmaster Tools with the help of a freelance staff member in China. Site is verified and sitemap submitted. In section "Site Properties", field "Affiliate subject" I can't figure out after extensive search what I need to setup here for a foreign company without any presence and without company registration in China. Anybody can help? When I click on this field, it indicates "Site association subject is a necessary link for mobile resources to enter search." so my site will not show up in mobile results without it? Grateful for any tips on how to resolve this piece of puzzle of the baidu setup.
Thanks0 -
Multilang site: Auto redirect 301 or 302?
We need to establish if 301 or 302 response code is to be used for our auto redirects based on Accept-Language header. https://domain.com
International SEO | | fJ66doneOIdDpj
30x > https://domain.com/en
30x > https://domain.com/ru
30x > https://domain.com/de The site architecture is set up with proper inline HREFLANG.
We have read different opinions about this, Ahrefs says 302 is the correct one:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
302 redirect:
"You want to redirect users to the right version of the site for them (based on location/language)." You could argue that the root redirect is never permanent as it varies based on user language settings (302)
On the other hand, the lang specific redirects are permanent per language: IF Accept-Language header = en
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/en
IF Accept-Language header = ru
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/ru So each of these is 'permanent'. So which is the correct?0 -
Setting up international site subdirectories in GSC as separate properties for better geotargeting?
My client has an international website with a subdirectory structure for each country and language version - eg. /en-US. At present, there is a single property set up for the domain in Google Search Console but there are currently various geotargeting issues I’m trying to correct with hreflang tags. My question is, is it still recommended practise and helpful to add each international subdirectory to Google Search Console as an individual property to help with correct language and region tagging? I know there used to be properly sets for this but haven’t found any up to date guidance on whether setting up all the different versions as their own properties might help with targeting. Many thanks in advance!
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
Redirect to 'default' or English (/en) version of site?
Hi Moz Community! I'm trying to work through a thorny internationalization issue with the 'default' and English versions of our site. We have an international set-up of: www.domain.com (in english) www.domain.com/en www.domain.com/en-gb www.domain.com/fr-fr www.domain.com/de-de and so on... All the canonicals and HREFLANGs are set up, except the English language version is giving me pause. If you visit www.domain.com, all of the internal links on that page (due to the current way our cms works) point to www.domain.com/en/ versions of the pages. Content is identical between the two versions. The canonical on, say, www.domain.com/en/products points to www.domain.com/products. Feels like we're pulling in two different directions with our internationalization signals. Links go one way, canonical goes another. Three options I can see: Remove the /en/ version of the site. 301 all the /en versions of pages to /. Update the hreflangs to point the EN language users to the / version. **Redirect the / version of the site to /en. **The reverse of the above. **Keep both the /en and the / versions, update the links on / version. **Make it so that visitors to the / version of the site follow links that don't take them to the /en site. It feels like the /en version of the site is redundant and potentially sending confusing signals to search engines (it's currently a bit of a toss-up as to which version of a page ranks). I'm leaning toward removing the /en version and redirecting to the / version. It would be a big step as currently - due to the internal linking - about 40% of our traffic goes through the /en path. Anything to be aware of? Any recommendations or advice would be much appreciated.
International SEO | | MaxSydenham0 -
Auto-Redirecting Homepage on Multilingual Site
The website has an auto-redirecting homepage on a multilingual site. Here is some background: User visits the site for first time > sent to javascript age verification page with country of origin selector. If selects "France" then served French page (.com/fr-fr/). If selects any other country, then served English page (.com/en-int/). A cookie is set, and next time the user visits the site, they are automatically served the appropriate language URL. 1st Question: .com/ essentially does not exist. It is being redirected to .com/en-int/ as this is the default page. Should this be a 301 redirect since I want this to serve as the new homepage? 2nd Question:. In the multilingual sitemap, should I still set .com/ as the hreflang="x-default" even though the user is automatically redirected to a language directory? According to Google, as just released here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/05/creating-right-homepage-for-your.html "automatically serve the appropriate HTML content to your users depending on their location and language settings. You will either do that by using server-side 302 redirects or by dynamically serving the right HTML content. Remember to use x-default rel-alternate-hreflang annotation on the homepage / generic page even if the latter is a redirect page that is not accessible directly for users." So, this is where I am not clear. If use a 302 redirect of .com/ to either .com/en-int/ or .com/fr-fr/, won't I then lose the inbound link value and DA/PA of .com/ if I just use a 302? Note: there is no .com/ at this moment. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks,Alex
International SEO | | Alex.Weintraub0 -
If I redirect based on IP will Google still crawl my international sites if I implement Hreflang
We are setting up several international sites. Ideally, we wouldn't set up any redirects, but if we have to (for merchandising reasons etc) I'd like to assess what the next best option would be. A secondary option could be that we implement the redirects based on IP. However, Google then wouldn't be able to access the content for all the international sites (we're setting up 6 in total) and would only index the .com site. I'm wondering whether the Hreflang annotations would still allow Google to find the International sites? If not, that's a lot of content we are not fully benefiting from. Another option could be that we treat the Googlebot user agent differently, but this would probably be considered as cloaking by the G-Man. If there are any other options, please let me know.
International SEO | | Ben.JD0 -
Two versions of a website with different languages - Best way to do it?
I'm working on a website for a Swedish artist and her page is in Swedish, everything is in Swedish on the site, even though it's not a lot of text on the site. We would like to have the site in English too, or another version of the site in English on a separate domain, what's the best way to proceed from here? The domain name is a .se (swedish domain), would it be better to create a another domain and host the english version of the site on a .com domain? Or will we bump into problems with duplicate content if we create a replica of the swedish site in english. We're using wordpress and I know that there's translation plugins out there, is that a good option? I'm a bit clueless on how to proceed and would love some help or guidance here.
International SEO | | Fisken0 -
Should product-pages with different currencies have different URLs?
Here is a question that should be of interest for small online merchants selling internationally in multiple currencies. When, based on geolocation, a product-page is served with different currencies, should a product-page have a different URL for each currency? Thanks.
International SEO | | AdrienOLeary0