Google definitely uses these meta tags. I tested a page here and when added, the tool picked up the data….. so the og (Open Graph) tags are very important for Google search.
Therefore we need to understand them thoroughly. However, visiting ogp.me and loading their specification page produces a blank page (whats going on there I wonder)?
Their single info webpage tells us:
The following properties are optional for any object and are generally recommended:
og:locale - The locale these tags are marked up in.
Of the format language_TERRITORY. Default is en_US.
og:locale:alternate - An array of other locales this page is available in.
They give us an example:
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_GB" />
<meta property="og:locale:alternate" content="fr_FR" />
<meta property="og:locale:alternate" content="es_ES" />
The theory on the web is that ‘locale’ determines the region the document is applicable to (available in), and ‘alternate’ provides additional document applicable regions.
However, for a great number of sites, this seems to be a disaster in waiting.
One chap on Bing SEO claimed that for ‘locale’ anything other than en_US would kill your doc distribution (globally), yet what then of French, Spanish, German, Japanese etc.
My site has translation enabled and its content is genuinely applicable to a global audience.
Am I to list the entire array of languages…. and by doing so, risk accusation of ‘spamming regions’?
We have no in depth explanation of these tags, yet they seem too important to guess at.
Does anybody have knowledge of the fundamentals, so that we can code our sites correctly?
These tags are for Facebook only. This has no effect on Google. They have their own recommended was for handling locale and languages.