New Solution for Localised Templates

Here are steps to improve websites having localised template but with duplicate contents across different language or country.

First you have to apply the following before going into the steps.

• Avoid using same URL for multiple languages. Have one URL for every language.

• It is also best to include the country or language indicator in the URL such as example.com/en/welcome.html and example.com/fr/accueil.html, that specifies “en” and “fr”.

And the Steps are:

1. Select proper Canonical which is the version that you would like to get indexed and returned to users. Once you have chosen the canonical URL, then you can either use the 301 (permanent redirect) where different languages are 301 redirected to the canonical OR make use of rel=”canonical” in pages of different languages with canonical tag pointing to the selected canonical URL.

2. In the canonical URL, specify the different language version through rel=”alternate” link tag with the use of hreflang attribute. This will help Google in displaying the correct localised URL to the desired audience.

Appearance of rel=”alternate” link tag:

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”a-different-language” href=”http://url-of-the-different-language-page” />

For more information and helpful examples, refer to this article:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/unifying-content-under-multilingual.html