Max Prin from Condé Nast closed Tech SEO Connect with a refreshing admission: “I’m not going to talk about AI or LLMs or AEO or GEO. Well, we’ll talk about GEO, but not that GEO.” His topic was international SEO—a discipline where nothing fundamental has changed in 14 years, but the execution at scale remains genuinely hard.
When Cindy Krum asked him what was new in international SEO, his answer was direct: “Absolutely nothing. Hreflang tags were introduced 14 years ago by Google, and since then, nothing has changed.” The only shift: IP addresses used to matter as a signal, but with CDNs now ubiquitous, that’s no longer relevant.
What followed was a masterclass in managing international SEO across 63 websites, 20 brands, and 11 markets—the kind of complexity most SEOs never encounter.
The Unchanging Goals and Toolbox
The goals remain what they’ve always been: help Google return the right URLs to the right users, avoid duplicate content in the index, and use hreflang tags as a crawling signal for content discovery.
The toolbox is equally static: domain strategy (ccTLDs vs. generic TLDs, subdomains vs. subfolders), hreflang tags, canonical tags, and noindex directives.
But “unchanged” doesn’t mean “easy.” Prin shared a study he ran with Ahrefs: out of nearly 375,000 domains, 67% had hreflang issues. The most common was missing x-default (a best practice but not implementation-breaking). More concerning: 18% were missing self-referencing tags—which breaks the entire implementation and makes hreflang completely useless.
The Condé Nast Challenge
Condé Nast operates 63 owned websites across 20 brands (Vogue, Wired, GQ, Architectural Digest, etc.) in 11 markets, plus franchise websites they don’t directly control. Most sites target countries, not languages—using ccTLDs like .de, .es, .co.uk.
When Prin joined 4.5 years ago, three priorities dominated: migrating 60 websites to a new platform, eliminating AMP (“probably the worst thing that happened to SEO—SEO 101 says don’t duplicate URLs”), and revamping the hreflang logic.
The core challenge is syndication. An article published on Vogue.com might be picked up the next day by Glamour UK or Architectural Digest India. If the story is in English, it creates true duplicate content across sites that all target different markets but share the same language.
Domain Strategy: The French Surfer Problem
Prin introduced the “French surfer” concept—a Canadian study showing that users tend to click more on local TLDs (.ca over .com) for two reasons: local sites are more likely to be in the local language, and e-commerce sites with local TLDs are more likely to ship locally.
This affects domain strategy decisions. He shared SERP composition data: In the UK, 58% of top 10 results were .coms—fine to use a .com. In Mexico and Spain, .coms also outperformed local TLDs. But in Germany, 78% of the SERP was .de domains. “As much as I hated launching a brand new website, we had to go with that.” They launched CNT Traveller Germany on a .de, and it performs well.
The Middle East presented a different pattern: 80% of SERPs in UAE and Qatar are .coms, so they use .com there rather than .me (which is a generic TLD anyway, not specific to Middle East).
His personal preference would be language-first domains (one domain per language with market subfolders), but the reality of user behavior and SERP composition often dictates otherwise.
Hreflang Implementation Decisions
Condé Nast automates hreflang tags through their syndication system called Anchor. When editors pick up a story from another brand, the hreflang tags are added automatically.
Dropping X-Default
Counterintuitively, they removed x-default tags. The problem: when the original story (say, British Vogue) had x-default, it meant someone from Canada would be served the British version—not necessarily the most relevant choice geographically. They decided to let Google pick which version in that language is best to serve. “Turns out it still works.”
Cross-Submitting Sitemaps for Franchise Sites
For franchise websites they don’t control (like Vogue Philippines), they use a documented technique: if you own all websites in Google Search Console, you can cross-submit sitemaps containing hreflang tags for sites you don’t directly manage. This solved cases where franchise sites were copying content and outranking the original in unintended markets.
Brand Priority Over Timing
A key logic decision: brand priority trumps timing. If Glamour UK picks up a Vogue story on Monday, and Vogue UK picks it up on Tuesday, Vogue UK wins. Glamour gets noindex and a canonical pointing to Vogue UK. “Even though we are one company, if you work at Wired, you don’t want Ars Technica to outrank you. Everybody has their own KPIs.”
Noindex + Canonical: Now Acceptable
For same-language, same-market duplicates (like Wired and Ars Technica syndicating from each other), they use both noindex and canonical tags together. This used to be discouraged—Google said it was “confusing” to say both “don’t index this” and “this other URL is more important.”
About two years ago, John Mueller clarified that it depends on context, but in situations like theirs—where you genuinely don’t want the syndicated story competing with the original—it’s perfectly fine.
The Discover Problem and Geo-Redirects
Prin’s current challenge: hreflang tags have no impact on Google Discover. As search traffic declines and Discover traffic grows (at least for publishers), the careful hreflang implementation doesn’t help.
The symptom: Vogue Middle East publishes original content. Vogue India syndicates it. Because Vogue India has more authority and there’s a large Indian population in Dubai, Vogue India outranks Vogue Middle East—with Middle East’s own original content.
His proposed solution (not yet implemented): geo-redirects. Not for Google’s benefit, but for users—redirecting them to the correct regional URL regardless of which version they landed on. The rule: only redirect within the same brand (won’t redirect Vogue.com visitors to Glamour UK just because they’re in the UK), and only if that article exists in the target market.
My Takeaways
Prin’s talk was a reminder that not everything in SEO is being disrupted by AI. International SEO is still about the same fundamentals it was 14 years ago—just with more complexity at scale.
What I’m taking away:
1. Check SERP composition before choosing domain strategy. The “French surfer” effect is real. In some markets, ccTLDs dominate; in others, .com is fine. Let the data decide.
2. 67% of sites have hreflang issues. 18% are missing self-referencing tags, which breaks everything. Audit before assuming implementation is correct.
3. X-default isn’t always necessary. Condé Nast removed it and lets Google decide which language version to serve. It still works.
4. Cross-submit sitemaps for sites you don’t control. If you own both properties in Search Console, you can submit hreflang sitemaps for franchise or partner sites.
5. Noindex + canonical together is now OK. John Mueller confirmed it’s acceptable when you genuinely don’t want duplicate content competing.
6. Hreflang doesn’t affect Discover. As Discover traffic grows, this is a gap. Geo-redirects may be the user-side solution.
7. Brand priority over timing. When the same content appears on multiple owned properties, prioritize the parent brand regardless of publication order.
Prin also mentioned a free hreflang validation tool he built years ago at technicalSEO.com—still works, still useful for the manual review process that international SEO inevitably requires.
