1 / 40

HREFLANG for International SEO: Lessons from 3,000 Implementations

In 2012 we pioneered the use of hreflang sitemaps within the SEO industry, and in being first found there was a lack of tools and process... so we made our own! Now our hreflang sitemap generator has contributed to our supporting or working directly on over 3,000 unique implementations globally. Here's a few tips on what we learned along the way.

theMediaFlow
Download Presentation

HREFLANG for International SEO: Lessons from 3,000 Implementations

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. HREFLANG Learnings from Over 3,000 Implementations

  2. 2012 Technical SEO agency, working in global ecommerce. Publically documented our adventures in HREFLANG sitemaps… @NicholaStott

  3. Pioneering Stuff is Hard @NicholaStott

  4. So we built a thing!

  5. Today • What HREFLANG can do What it can’t do Ways to implement HREFLANG sitemaps Most common errors Tips to manage and maintain • • • • • @NicholaStott

  6. Hreflang HTML tag to describe the language OR language AND intended region; of a web page, and alternate versions of said page in different language OR language AND region settings. @NicholaStott

  7. Language OR LANGUAGE/location Right (intended) index Right (intended) customer Right (intended) URL @NicholaStott

  8. Grow Accuracy, CTR and Conversion Propensity @NicholaStott

  9. NOT • The answer to your thin content problems Help you rank in new markets Syphon/copy PageRank from one location to another Replace canonical (orthogonal concepts) • • • @NicholaStott

  10. Ways to Implement Manage and Maintain your Set-up

  11. In HTTP Headers For non-HTML content Link: <http://es.example.com/faq.pdf>; rel=“alternate”; hreflang=“es”, <http://mx.example.com/faq.pdf>; rel=“alternate”; hreflang=“es-mx”,

  12. Link elements in <head> HTML pages < link rel=“alternate”; href=: http://es.example.com/” hreflang=“es”/> < link rel=“alternate”; href=: http://mx.example.com/” hreflang=“es- mx”/>

  13. Pros and cons For headers and head • Solution for non-html  • Server configuration access not easy  • Really simple for small suites  • Not for large implementations  • Impact to speed  • Freq. updates - development resource 

  14. Tag Generator: Aleyda Solis See: http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/

  15. XML Sitemaps For bigger implementations <url> <loc>http://example.com/</loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es" href="http://es.example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-mx" href="http://mx.example.com/" /> </url>

  16. RULES, EXCEPTIONS AND OTHER QUIRKS

  17. X-default • ELSE statement at the end of IF • Language selector • Can be used for generic “catch-all” language • Or not at all IF prefer to use language

  18. Each <loc> Must have Self referential REL Alternate

  19. Use ISO Codes LANG = ISO 639-1 REGION = ISO 3166-1 But… you may get away with some common errors! (en-uk)

  20. XML Sitemaps For bigger implementations <url> <loc>http://example.com/</loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es" href="http://es.example.com/" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-mx" href="http://mx.example.com/" /> </url>

  21. Crawl All sites, sub-domains, folders en en-gb es-mx http://www.themediaflow.com http://www.themediaflow.com/uk http://mx.themediaflow.com http://www.themediaflow.com/1 http://www.themediaflow.com/uk/1 http://mx.themediaflow.com/1 http://www.themediaflow.com/2 http://www.themediaflow.com/uk/2 http://mx.themediaflow.com/2

  22. Sitemap Tool: themediaflow See: https://www.themediaflow.com/tools/

  23. Upload each sitemap to the root • Consolidated only – single site • Specific file to each <loc> • Combination if combination of architectures • Submit in Search console for each site

  24. MOST COMMON HREFLANG MISTAKES

  25. 1. It IS Not your language declaration <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en-GB" >

  26. 2. Must link to self!

  27. 3. Can’t Target Country/Region oNLY

  28. 4. Not using Iso Codes

  29. 5. Non-canonical URLS

  30. 6. No return tags

  31. 7. No Blank cells

  32. 8. No protocol reference

  33. 9. German CSV – Comma = semi colon

  34. 10. UPLOADING Consolidated only

  35. TIPS to manage & Maintain. You won’t Believe No. 3!

  36. Process 1. Benchmark, measure and quantify. Take a sample of markets most impacted. @NicholaStott

  37. 2. Split Each Region Sitemap Into Thematic Sitemaps

  38. 3. Create a sitemap/Megazord of sitemaps. @NicholaStott

  39. HREFLANG Thanks for Listening!

More Related