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Hreflang Tags - Brighton SEO April 2018 - Emily Mace

The document discusses diagnosing issues with hreflang tags in sitemaps and on web pages for multilingual and localized websites. It outlines some common problems with hreflang tags such as conflicts in tags, broken or redirecting links, incorrect language and country codes, and issues around the European Union. The document then provides guidance on how to diagnose hreflang tag issues through tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and Excel to identify missing, non-canonical, or incorrectly coded tags. It emphasizes using data to identify and correct hreflang tag problems.

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Emily Mace OBAN INTERNATIONAL Diagnosing issues with Hreflang tags in sitemaps and on page @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanIntl http://www.slideshare.net/Oban-IDForum
Hreflang tags – when it all goes terribly wrong! 2
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com3 Targeting content by country
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com4 You aren’t the only one’s asking Rand Fishkin @randfish
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com5 Or finding it hard… John Mueller @johnmu
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com6 And we’ve all seen it go wrong… Your UK site ranks EVERYWHERE But…. Your German site ranks in Norway…
What could possibly go wrong? 7
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com8 So what might go wrong? There’s really only a few things to get wrong But they can go wrong quickly…
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com9 Conflicts in your tags Canonicals must match And messages on each language site must be the same too
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com10 Return to sender… URLs must reciprocally link for fear of No Return errors from Google
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com11 Broken, redirecting, wrong Links in Hreflang tags should be live Avoid redirects on translated URLS
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com12 Having communication issues There’s so many ways this can happen Incorrect combinations of languages and countries and made up codes are the most common….
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com13 The Star Wars error * Targeting Austria with the combination AT-AT Austrian being a language *It’s the Emily LEGO slide!
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com14 Same, same but different… Japan has different language and country codes (JA-JP) So does Sweden (SV-SE)….
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com15 I’m not sure so I’ll make it up… I don’t know how to target my Global English site I know: EN-WW Worldwide is a country, right?
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com16 The EU issue
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com17 The EU issue No, not that one!
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com18 The EU issue Targeting your EU site in English to EVERY EU country individually….
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com19 Remember! Each individual URL can only be targeted to ONE language and country – multiple targets for the same page look fake!
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com20 The other EU issue
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com21 Code reminder: on page <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ie" hreflang="en-ie" /> <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" /> <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" /> <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en" hreflang="en" />
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com22 Code reminder: sitemap <url> <loc>http://www.example.com/english/ </loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="http://www.example.com/deutsch /" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="http://www.example.com/sch weiz-deutsch/" />
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com23 One final place errors occur The Emily rant:
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com The Emily rant: IP SERVING: JUST SAY NO!!! 24 One final place errors occur
Sitemaps or on page? How do I choose? 25
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com26 Simple guideline… Sitemap •Ecommerce •Large sites •Regularly updated sites On page •Everyone else
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com27 But this is SEO…. There’s no silver bullet here… Consider how your site set up works and talk to your devs
How the hell do I diagnose the issues though? 28
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com29 But wait… do I even need to do this? Google says it fixes things for me, so why bother?
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com30 Where are issues occurring? Use ranking information to see which site is competing against which is awesome for this
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com31 Check domains in each country
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com32 Where are issues occurring? Traffic from the wrong country in Analytics
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com33 Let’s spot check code Sense check those language and country codes – ensure there’s no made up combinations… Make sure the self referencing link is there too
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com34 Let’s spot check code, again… Does the link agree with the canonical tag? Are the Hreflang tags in the right place?
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com35 Let’s spot check our sitemap Does every page have Hreflang tags In all sitemaps Including self referencing tag? Check all the same elements here too
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com36 Sitemap 101 – the refresh I don’t need to say this but…. Live pages? No redirects? Nothing blocked by robots.txt You know the drill…
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com37 What do your tools show? Errors from Google Search Console Download data…we’ll need it later…
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com38 Don’t forget Screaming Frog… Easily pull off data about missing, non canonical, incorrect language codes etc… Missing Non Canonical Wrong Country
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com39 We’re SEOs – let’s Excel!!! Because data Vlookup or Match are your friends, cross checking what works and what doesn’t…
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com40 Setting up your Excel playground Crawl all the sites and set up a tab for each crawl – copy internal All for each site here Download Hreflang tag tab from Screaming Frog and create a new tag for the hreflangs for each country Add data from GSC and Hreflang tag errors in SF
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com41 Excel playground fun
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com42 Let data comparison commence Check to see if all pages have a Hreflang tag – highlight what’s missing Are all Hreflang tags the same? Highlight what’s different
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com43 Correcting issues Easiest fix is one which gets your devs on board We find simple code examples work best Take our your datacrunching… Just show the result!
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com44 Simple mapping If you are ecommerce, mapping can be simple – URLs with SKUs in are your friend
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com45 Less simple mapping Sadly, it’s manual!
@IAmTheLaserHawk | obaninternational.com46 Get it right for great things
Thanks! @IAmTheLaserHawk 47