[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #6480: Google search for "wordpress themes" returns Nigerian Pidgin as default site

[Making WordPress.org]

#6480: Google search for "wordpress themes" returns Nigerian Pidgin as default
site
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 Reporter:  ben.greeley      |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect (bug)     |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:
Component:  Theme Directory  |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                   |
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Comment (by dd32):

 100% not sure if it was related, but `pcm` is not a valid hreflang
 language, as it doesn't have an ISO 639-1 language code.

 In an attempt to find out if it was related, I've updated the list of
 locales to exclude from the hreflang tags, and corrected a few other
 invalid hreflang tags as part of it.

 In my testing, with a Langauge header of Australian english and a VPN, I
 was able to trigger en-au, en-gb, en-ca, and pcm subdomains, pcm appeared
 to be being returned as the "generic english" response. Looking elsewhere,
 it appeared that Google had correctly identified pcm.w.org as being
 written in "American English" (aka, generic english :() and I suspect had
 as a result linked it to being en_US. There are a few other things that
 may have been playing into it, for example, a lot of links from other
 sites to the `pcm` subdomain perhaps - or a specific large site linking to
 it accidentally.

 If I'm right, the above changes might work as a workaround, purely out of
 it forcing search engines to regenerate their locale mapping..

 I've also observed some interesting results on bing
  - AU VPN: WordPress.org/themes listed as a result with en-
 au.wordpress.org/themes listed as a result
  - US VPN: WordPress.org/themes only listed as some kind of "rich embed"
 not a standard typical search result.

 In both cases, a lot of other companies are ranking higher than us for
 those terms, and they're not necessarily even theme companies / listings.

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6480#comment:8>
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