Hreflang explained: the right page for each country

A site that sells in several countries usually has several versions of the same page. Hreflang lists those versions and labels each with a language and, optionally, a country. When someone searches, the search engine shows the version labelled for them.

Hreflang is needed in three cases.

• The same content is translated into different languages.
• The same language is aimed at different countries, such as British and American English with different prices or spelling.
• The site mixes both.

A site with one version for everyone does not need it.

Each label is a language code, optionally followed by a country code.

• en is English, anywhere.
• en-GB is English in the United Kingdom.
• fr-CA is French in Canada.

The language part comes from the ISO 639-1 list and the country part from ISO 3166-1. A country cannot stand alone: GB with no language is not a valid label.

One further value, x-default, names the page for everyone the other labels do not cover. It is often a language chooser or the main international version.

The labels can live in three places, and one is enough: link elements in the head of each page, the XML sitemap, or HTTP headers for files such as PDFs. On a large site the sitemap is the easiest to keep correct.

Most hreflang that fails does so for one of five reasons.

1. No return link. If the British page names the American page, the American page must name the British one. A one-way label is ignored.
2. No self-reference. Each page’s list of versions should include the page itself.
3. Wrong codes, such as en-UK for en-GB, or a country with no language.
4. Labels that point at addresses which redirect, are blocked or carry a noindex instruction. Each address must be the final, indexable one.
5. Canonical tags that disagree. If every version names one master page as its canonical, the search engine treats the others as copies and discards the labels. Each version’s canonical should be itself.

Open a page that has other-country versions, view its source and search for hreflang. Each address listed should load without redirecting, and its own source should list the first page in return.

Then read Search Console’s Performance report with the country filter set to one of your markets and look at the Pages tab. The addresses shown are the versions Google is serving there. An American page appearing for searches from the United Kingdom means the labels are missing or being ignored.