Conflicting hreflang and rel=canonical

[Clickman]

Hello there, our e-commerce /seo Tool SEMRush notified us that several of our products are have Conflicting hreflang tags and rel=canonical tags i.e. https://www.qonqer.nl/collections/accessoires/products/charger I noticed that this is the case for all our ebike  accessories. 

I am wondering if it is: 

1. It has a href lang tag but perhaps the region tag is missing, and this should be added.
2. rel alternate dutch should be removed since dutch is the default  and not the alternate a weglot setting that is not right?
3. something else entirely

Kind regards, 

Clickman

[KieranR]

The idea of hreflang is that you have entirely different page URL's for different language content.

From what I can tell you are dynamically (JS) replacing content on-page on the same URL. Google won't see any of the alt languages in your existing site & the entire setup really needs a change.

You can either use Shopifys built in multi-lingual approach (examples) or you can setup separate Shopify instances on subdomains (examples) or on gTLD domains (examples)

Personally I'm a fan of using completely separate stores for each country with gTLDs for relevancy & trust benefits to SEO & search ads in each of those locations.

[Josh_Uebergang]

It looks like you're using Weglot to manage the hreflang tags.

@KieranR URLs are generated through the app with language-specific pages, though the URL on the user-front remains the same. If you append /a/l/fr/ to URLs (more info) you can see this in the french language.

I'm guessing you're not using the weglot hreflang tags. Is weglot_hreftags.liquid file include in your theme.liquid file? If it is, what's in your weglot_hreftags.liquid file?

[KieranR]

Ahh right that makes sense! Not too famil with Shopify multi language apps. Would you say Weglot is a good one @Josh_Uebergang?

[Josh_Uebergang]

Weglot has been the go-to multi-lingual solution Shopify expert developers have relied on. However, Shopify in their cross-borders growth, have recently rolled out a new language feature in your store's settings. You'll still need a language app to go with it. Sherpas Design is also a good free one. For more information, go to https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/cross-border/multilingual-online-store

[Josh_Uebergang]

After hearing and seeing many headaches with hreflang tags in Shopify over the years, I decided to solve it. If you have multiple stores, you can now have different pages and different handles in any content type, and have your hreflang tags correctly setup. See the Multi-Store Hreflang Tags app.

[KieranR]

@Josh_Uebergang that looks awesome!

Is there a detailed technical explanation of how the app works with screenshots, diagrams videos etc? Does it maintain an external database of site product SKU's and match rules and sync down into metafields and implement via liquid?

Imagine a case where there are 3x Shopify stores with nearly identical product catalogs. But one SKU in particular is live on two stores, not the third (404). How does the app handle this case?

[Josh_Uebergang]

@KieranR No videos yet, but I will do that eventually.

Basically, yes. You get a visual mapping interface like a spreadsheet. It syncs into meta fields and pushes through liquid. 

Products not live, like any other page type, are not included in the hreflang tags. Like you say, 404s would otherwise pop up all over the place.

[mettrodev]

Hi @Josh_Uebergang I have the same issue on our shopify website. I'm trying to install the Multi-Store Hreflang Tags app. But I've got the error invalid request.

[Josh_Uebergang]

Thanks for spotting that and sharing. Will get this fixed asap.

[Josh_Uebergang]

@mettrodev The issue is resolved now so you can install it. The forums are not a good place to seek support (lucky I checked it today) so if you need anything in the future, see our FAQ and support section.