Problem
I've been looking through questions on this forum (mostly old) but found conflicting information.
I have a bilingual website (Thai and English) with some pages having untranslated content (let's say in Thai). The only things that are different are the template and the article's author's name (in respective languages)... something like, https://www.example.com/th/untranslated-content/
and https://www.example.com/en/untranslated-content/
.
hreflang
This Google article tells me that I should have hreflang
pointing to one another.
Some example scenarios where indicating alternate pages is recommended:
- If you keep the main content in a single language and translate only the template, such as the navigation and footer. Pages that feature user-generated content, like forums, typically do this.
So in the Thai version I'd have
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://www.example.com/en/untranslated-content/" />
and in the English version I'd have
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="th" href="https://www.example.com/th/untranslated-content/" />
canonical
That's all good. But then this article says that the two pages are considered duplicate:
Different language versions of a single page are considered duplicates only if the main content is in the same language (that is, if only the header, footer, and other non-critical text is translated, but the body remains the same, then the pages are considered to be duplicates).
I take it that this implies that I should have canonical URL in the English version pointing to the Thai version (and, Thai version pointing to itself).
Thai version:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/th/untranslated-content/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://www.example.com/en/untranslated-content/" />
English version:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/th/untranslated-content/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="th" href="https://www.example.com/th/untranslated-content/" />
Interaction of the two
But then this article that I've seen cited quite a bit says that Google would have trouble with the English version, since canonical
tells Google not to index it, but hreflang
tells Google to index it... although having both canonical
pointing to another page and hreflang
is okay in mobile settings.
Is it okay to do this?