Gary Illyes from Google stated on Mastodon this morning that you need to 301 redirect URLs when there’s a “close-to 1:1 match” for that URL. We all know that, however what he added was that is even true for when the “language of the content material would not match.”
Gary wrote, “301s are nice when you may have a minimum of a close-to 1:1 match for the URL and also you need to consolidate them, maybe even when the language of the content material would not match. 404s for every thing else. However that could possibly be simply me; I really like deleting stuff.”
So you probably have an in depth 1:1 match on URL A and URL B, even when URL A is in French and URL B is in English, you possibly can 301 redirect them. I believe this typically occurs if you determine to tug out of a area and not must translate particular pages.
For those who consider how localization works and hreflang works, this recommendation from Gary is sensible. I imply, hreflang is not a rating factor, Google stated quite a few occasions. It simply helps Google perceive that this web page in English is similar web page as this French web page however simply in a special language.
So it might make sense to 301 redirect these pages even when they don’t seem to be in the identical language if these pages are going away.
Discussion board dialogue at Mastodon.
