As I covered yesterday, Google is going to redirect its ccTLDs to Google.com. And as I reported yesterday, Google also said "it won’t affect the way Search works." Despite Google saying that, there are tons of people in our industry thinking that international SEO has changed with this announcement - it has not.
John Mueller from Google confirmed this on LinkedIn and on Bluesky - for those who missed it in the original announcement.
He said, "Nothing has changed with regards to international SEO."
He then was asked if everyone else should redirect all their ccTLDs to their .com address. In which John responded, no, don't. He said:
And I wouldn't recommend using Google's domains as a model that everyone / anyone else should copy for SEO purposes. Big companies have very unique quirks, which usually aren't SEO tricks.
John also said on Bluesky that "Nothing with hreflang changes."
So, no, hreflang is not going away and no, you shouldn't redirect your ccTLDs to your .com just because Google Search is doing that. Google still needs to understand your international and regional content and often hreflang and ccTLDs do a great job communicating that to Google Search.
And also on Mastodon:
