Question about hreflang tags

[WhoKnows111]

I'm bit confused what exactly should I do

I have x posts, for example

www.domain.com/best-uk/ (call it 1)
www.domain.com/best-au/ (call it 2)
www.domain.com/best-us/ (call it 3)
www.domain.com/best-ge/ (call it 4)
www.domain.com/best-be/ (call it 5)

these have majority of identical content

when I place the hreflang tags all of them should link eatch other?

ie:

1: hreflang to 2/3/4/5
2: hreflang to 1/3/4/5
3: hreflang to 1/2/4/5

and so on.... Is that correct?

Also when using <wordpress hreflang plugin>, it always automatically adds the x-default to every post... So all US/AU/UK/GE/BE are flagged to their language/country and default at the same time - isn't that weird? Shouldn't there be just one detaut (primary) post?

Thank you

[edited by: aakk9999 at 1:43 pm (utc) on Jun 24, 2016]
[edit reason] No specifics please - removed wordpress plugin URL [/edit]

[lucy24]

Shouldn't there be just one default (primary) post?

Yes, there should, otherwise there's no point to specifying a default at all. So either take a closer look at the plugin's settings, or get a different one.

1: hreflang to 2/3/4/5

In fact it should be
1: to 1/2/3/4/5
assuming you're talking about the "link rel='alt'" meta. This is the rare case where a page should link to itself as part of the "alt" package. (It means, loosely: "Here are all the options, of which the present page is just one.")

[rainborick]

Google's documentation for hreflang [support.google.com] covers this scenario - (ie.. where you have pages targeted at different regions). Above all else, though, you want to be sure to use the proper settings for this site in the "International Targeting" section of the Google Search Console. Google does a reasonable job at determining the language with or without hreflang, but you need to get the geo-targeting set to be in with a chance in the first place if you haven't done so already.

[WhoKnows111]

In fact it should be
1: to 1/2/3/4/5

I see so

1: hreflang to 1/2/3/4/5
2: hreflang to 1/2/3/4/5
3: hreflang to 1/2/3/4/5

Thanks... although few minutes ago I've found this article[searchenginejournal.com ] where they use also canonical?

in Spanish independent of region (http://www.example.com/es/ )
in English targeted towards Aussie users (http://www.example.com/au/ )
page in English independent of region (http://www.example.com/ )
So the head section of the Spanish page will have

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/es/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es” href=”http://www.example.com/es/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-AU” href=”http://www.example.com/au/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”http://www.example.com/” />

The English page targeted towards Aussie users will have

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/au/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es” href=”http://www.example.com/es/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-AU” href=”http://www.example.com/au/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”http://www.example.com/” />

This isn't neccessary, right?

rainborick - I read the documentation from Google but still don't feel to fully understand

[WhoKnows111]

Also, all the posts are actually in English - even if it's modified for Germany, France, Italy whatever

[rainborick]

I think you should only be including links to the alternates for the real English variants. Your original example uses "-be" and "-ge" in the directory names, but while there is apparently and English variant for Belieze, I don't think that's your intent, so using "en-be" and "en-ge" don't make sense here. On the whole, however, it is my experience that geo-location/targeting is a far more important factor. Again, it's vital that you set geographic targets for these subirectories in the Google Search Console (and the equivalent in Bing). Get that right and 'hreflang' will rarely matter to your site.

[lucy24]

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/au/” />
<link rel=”alternate”

Ah, there's the confusion. The word "alternate" doesn't mean "non-canonical", it means "alternatives to each other". The word "canonical" is for when the identical or near-identical content can occur at more than one URL; it's got nothing to do with "alternate".

If it helps, think of each "rel" attribute as a completely separate meta: for example there's "link rel = 'stylesheet'" which obviously has nothing to do with "alternate" or "canonical" or "shortcut icon" or any of the other things that might be attached to a <link>.

[WhoKnows111]

Hey lucy24

I understand it this way

- canonical is for duplicate content across urls/domains
- hreflang for duplicate content adjusted for certain country/language

so if using hreflang there shouldn't be necessary to use canonical too...

The thing about subdirectories targeting is - while some content (like these articles) are only useful for the specific country then there is some content people from other countries search for too... so not sure whether I should really geo target the whole directory

[aakk9999]

As Lucy said - think of each "rel" attribute as a completely separate meta.

I output both, canonical and hreflang.
What is important though is that the hreflang points to the canonical version of the page in the other language.