The year 2011 was a good year for search engine marketing. As content became the king, some real impressive search engine optimized websites were developed. Many small and big players around the globe also poured into the domain of search [...]]]> The year 2011 was a good year for search engine marketing. As content became the king, some real impressive search engine optimized websites were developed. Many small and big players around the globe also poured into the domain of search engine marketing. Then in August 2011, the search engine giant Google came up with a new algorithm update and rolled out Panda internationally. This proved to be quite a challenge for websites that had a .com extension with either a sub domain or subdirectory structure. The problem was naturally more intense for companies that had presence in more than one country.

Multilingual and multi-country websites have similar content or translated similar content with perhaps some variations in terms of currency signs and title tags. So the combination of duplicate content and a directory/sub directory structure caused websites to get stuck in the Panda filter.

Google rolled out a solution for the problem that multiple language sites started facing due to Panda filter. This key was in the form of ‘hreflang’ and ‘canonical’ tags. This is Google’s way of telling site owners that they should use a regional subtag in their head tag for the website URL. This will help Google search crawlers to figure out the nature of content on each page and its relevance to a search performed. With these tags on websites, Google will comprehend that content on the site is truly intended for that region.

So how do the Hreflang and Canonical tags help?

Hreflang Tag

The hreflang attribute (hreflang: rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”) is very helpful for website owners in different parts of the world who need content translated in native languages to target a particular region. It can be easily used for multilingual websites using substantially the same content on all web pages with some differences in spellings – for instance pages in English for Canada, USA and Australia.

Hreflang can also be used by multiregional websites using fully translated content or substantially monolingual content that targets different regions – pages in English, French, German, Spanish, and other languages.

To use the hreflang tag for multiple language versions of a website, each language must use rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”. So, a page in German needs to have a rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” link to the English and Spanish version and the English and Spanish version must include a link pointing to the German site.

Google has expanded its support of the rel=”alternate” hreflang link element to take care of content that is translated or offered for more than one geographic region. The hreflang attribute mentions the language, optionally the country, and URLs of equivalent content. By stating these alternate URLs, Google’s goal is to be able to consolidate signals for such web pages, and to serve the appropriate URL to users in search. Alternative URLs may be on the same website or on another domain.

Canonical Tag

The multilingual canonical tag (rel=”canonical”) tells Google that a certain URL is the preferred location and the most significant translated version of the content of the primary or general URL.

So multilingual canonical tag:

• Is used in tandem with hreflang
• May be used when web pages have the same content in same language but target multiple countries
• Designate the translation of content that gets indexed and returned to users

With canonical tag on web pages, when users enter content into search results, they are likely to see the URL that has relevant content in their preferred language. In other words, Google will use “canonical” signal to focus on preferred version of web pages in each search, while displaying the local URLs to users where appropriate. To quote an example, you can use the tag if you have the same product page in Spanish, but want to target it separately to users searching on the Google properties for Spain, United Kingdom, and Germany.

To explain how the tags would work, here is an illustration for a hypothetical site abc.com

http://www.abc.com/ – contains the general homepage of a website, in Spanish

http://es-es.abc.com/ – is the version for users in Spain, in Spanish

http://es-uk.abc.com/ – is the version for users in United Kingdom, in Spanish

http://en.abc.com/ -     is the generic English language version

For all of these pages, the website owner can use the following markup to specify language and optionally the region:

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es” href=”http://www.abc.com/” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es-ES” href=”http://es-es.abc.com/” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es-UK” href=”http://es-uk.abc.com/” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”http://en.abc.com/” />

When a regional sub tag is specified, Google assumes that the website owner wants to target that region. Website owners need to remember that all of these annotations are to be used on a per-URL basis. They need to use the specific URL, not the homepage, for both of these link elements.

You can employ:

• Hreflang tags to segregate same language, different content or different languages on different URLs
• Canonical tags to bring together same language and same content under one URL

While canonical acknowledges that this is the same content, the Hreflang tag identifies which URL should be displayed in different sets of results.

And, Canonical + Hreflang = same content + different URL

Google understands that the content is the same, but displays the correct URL as per the Google domain search. The use of Hreflang and canonical tags applies to local domains as well as dot coms, though the examples stated by Google are based on dot coms. The canonical and Hreflang tags do not have any direct impact on ranking – canonicals do not share the link equity of the domestic market with the new markets targeted.

The obvious benefits of Hreflang –

• It helps Google to comprehend your site better and know that pages are related to each other.
• It helps Google discover new URLs that could be the ones that it missed before in searches.
• It creates more targeted URL for searchers: Different users can see a suitable, localized URL.

So start using the Hreflang tag – there are no reasons to be scared!

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Since November last year it has been possible to use characters that were not formerly part of the Latin character set used for creating web addresses and URLs. For example, the German umlaut – a character with two dots [...]]]> Since November last year it has been possible to use characters that were not formerly part of the Latin character set used for creating web addresses and URLs. For example, the German umlaut – a character with two dots above it such as the “ü” which should normally appear in my name – could not be used in the URL address until the changes in the Autumn. Yesterday, ICANN turned on the newest three domain names and the first to use a script other than Latin – namely Arabic – to provide local script domains for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arabic Emirates.

The new domains (which you will only see if you have Arabic script enabled on your PC) are:-

• Egypt مصر
• Saudi Arabia السعودية
• United Arab Emirates امارات

These new local domains – or ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domains) will prove highly useful for international SEO purposes and once these domains are fully available to buy it is highly recommended that you acquire your brand names, trademarks and country names in these domains to protect and use them in the Middle East. Of course, as these are Arabic which is a right-to-left language – they will actually appear on the left in the browser address bar before the actual site name!

Oddly missing from this launch is the рф Russian domain name for the Russian Federation which was ‘delegated’ ie approved at the same time as the Arabic versions. This domain will no doubt be the very next to go live.

In the first instance, ICANN is processing 21 local domains which span 11 different languages including Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Sinhalese, Tamil and Thai. Initially, domains that are approved must match country or territory names – but ICANN has plans to go much further including launching new generic top level domains which use the new character set. Domainers watch out, the dot com may soon be available in Russian, Chinese and Arabic in a transliterated form.

ICANN believes that these new local script variant domains and URLs will create new ways for end users to find and produce information online, provide more choices to registrants and provide new opportunities for investment and new businesses. ICANN also says that international domain names or IDNs will reach out to wider parts of the globe and be more ‘inclusive’. Some systems and applications will need to be updated in order to work with them.

The BBC also reported this story – but omitted to clarifty that these scripts have been usable since November and that it is just the domain endings which have gone live today.

See also John Yunker’s piece on the first full length non-Latin URL:
http://www.globalbydesign.com/blog/2010/05/06/the-dawn-of-a-new-url/

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As of 16th November, it is now possible to register non-Latin domain names, using characters including Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic. This development also affects certain languages such as Swedish, which use the Latin alphabet but have additional special characters, [...]]]> As of 16th November, it is now possible to register non-Latin domain names, using characters including Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic. This development also affects certain languages such as Swedish, which use the Latin alphabet but have additional special characters, which have previously not been represented in domains. It will also be possible to mix character sets in a domain name, and for example have the domain name in non-Latin characters, with a .com extension.

This change will dramatically increase the number of available of domains containing trademark terms, and businesses will have to react quickly to ensure they protect those terms online. It is also likely that they will have to spend significantly to do, as prices for the new domains will be higher than they are at present. Trademark owners will have a sunrise period which will enable them to buy their trademarked domains before they are made available to all, however requirements such as holding the registered trademark in that specific country are likely to be applied.

This is a major step in the globalisation of the web and is expected to encourage more and more people to join the online community. However, it could cause a few headaches for marketers and trademark owners.

Read more at Search Engine Land 

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