CODEWITHSUNDEEP
seohreflang
Andrew Bullock
Andrew Bullock

Reputation: 37378

Google not detecting link hreflang tags

We have a single TLD.

We vary content for different regions and languages using paths, e.g.:

example.com/CA/fr-CA (French Canadian for Canada)## Heading ##
example.com/AT/de-AT (Austrian German for Austria)

These pages link to each other using rel="alternate" hreflang="xx-YY", as described here:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

There is a link with hreflang="x-default" which points to example.com/

Here's a snippet of the tags

<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.example.com/" hreflang="x-default" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.example.com/AE/en-GB" hreflang="en-AE" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.example.com/GB/en-GB" hreflang="en-GB" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.example.com/US/en-US" hreflang="en-US" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://m.example.com/" media="only screen and (max-width: 754px)" hreflang="x-default" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://m.example.com/AU/en-AU" media="only screen and (max-width: 754px)" hreflang="en-AU" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://m.example.com/AT/de-AT" media="only screen and (max-width: 754px)" hreflang="de-AT" />

Because we have a separate mobile site, we are also linking to the equivalent mobile url, using a rel="alternate" and media="only screen and (max-width: 754px)"

Google Webmaster Tools reports

Your site has no hreflang tags

It's unclear why, because they are present.

My thoughts/suspicions/questions:

Do we just need to be patient for these hreflang tags to be recognised? How long do we wait?

Does Google not like combining the mobile and internationalisation linking? We can drop mobile if so.

Does Google require default languages, e.g. hreflang="en"? This doesn't make sense for us because all our content is regionalised. if this is true, what do I do?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 679

Answers (1)

tinkerr
tinkerr

Reputation: 1064

The mobile version of each page is treated as an alternate version of the desktop page. On the mobile version, you use canonical links to point to the desktop version. Use only 1 canonical link on mobile and use it to point to the desktop version of the same language/region. No need to use hreflang on the mobile version of the page.

Similarly, on the desktop page, use hreflang to link to all other desktop pages. No need to link to mobile pages (except the mobile version of the same lang/region).

You can use my hreflang testing tool at hreflang dot org to validate your tags.

Upvotes: 1

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