Ideally, pages should first be directed to just one language,
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:47 am
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This is a contribution from Sara Grzybek and Vanessa Nguetsop .
The hreflang tag can be used to specify which pages on a website should be directed to which language and which country.
Many search engines read this information and then sort the pages into the index of the respective language or country.
For example, you can control that English-language rcs data france pages should be shown to search engine users in England, the USA and Australia and German-language pages should be shown to users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Pages can also be directed to specific countries, for example to French-speaking people in Switzerland ("fr-ch") . In response to a general question from a webmaster on Twitter about the topic of "hreflang", John Müller now made a recommendation for using the tag.
without specifying a country. Only when the pages not only differ in terms of language, but there are also country-specific differences, does specifying a specific country make sense.
A possible example: If you offer products in the DA-CH region, your pages could differ in terms of currency (in Germany and Austria the euro is the main means of payment, in Switzerland it is Swiss francs) .
If there are different pages stating the respective currency, you should align them to the corresponding country ("de-de", "de-at" and "de-ch") .
Conclusion
John Müller's tip is sound. By restricting pages to a specific country, you may unintentionally exclude users who then cannot find the pages when searching.
The English language in particular is widespread far beyond the UK and the USA. If you want to appeal to a particularly broad audience, you should not use country-based targeting or should only do so with caution.
Do users enjoy using your website and find it easy to achieve the desired conversion?
Thank you for letting us be part of the OMT 2019 in Wiesbaden!
This is a contribution from Sara Grzybek and Vanessa Nguetsop .The hreflang tag can be used to specify which pages on a website should be directed to which language and which country.
Many search engines read this information and then sort the pages into the index of the respective language or country.
For example, you can control that English-language rcs data france pages should be shown to search engine users in England, the USA and Australia and German-language pages should be shown to users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Pages can also be directed to specific countries, for example to French-speaking people in Switzerland ("fr-ch") . In response to a general question from a webmaster on Twitter about the topic of "hreflang", John Müller now made a recommendation for using the tag.
without specifying a country. Only when the pages not only differ in terms of language, but there are also country-specific differences, does specifying a specific country make sense.
A possible example: If you offer products in the DA-CH region, your pages could differ in terms of currency (in Germany and Austria the euro is the main means of payment, in Switzerland it is Swiss francs) .
If there are different pages stating the respective currency, you should align them to the corresponding country ("de-de", "de-at" and "de-ch") .
Conclusion
John Müller's tip is sound. By restricting pages to a specific country, you may unintentionally exclude users who then cannot find the pages when searching.
The English language in particular is widespread far beyond the UK and the USA. If you want to appeal to a particularly broad audience, you should not use country-based targeting or should only do so with caution.