What is hreflang and what does it actually do?

Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and regional version of a page to show which audience. It does not improve rankings. What it does is prevent the wrong-country version appearing in results and stop near-identical translations competing with each other as duplicates. Correct hreflang prevents a problem rather than creating an advantage.

Why do my hreflang tags not work?

In our experience the cause is almost always missing return tags. Hreflang is reciprocal: if page A declares page B as an alternate, page B must declare page A. Google discards any pair that is not confirmed from both sides, silently and with no error anywhere except the International Targeting report. The next most common causes are a missing self-referencing tag, invalid region codes, and a canonical pointing at a different language version.

Does every page need a self-referencing hreflang tag?

Yes. Each page in a cluster must include a tag for its own language and region alongside the tags for its alternates. Omitting the self-reference makes the cluster incomplete and is one of the most common reasons a technically present implementation is ignored.

No. The language part uses ISO 639-1 and the region part uses ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, where the code for the United Kingdom is GB, not UK. So en-GB is correct and en-UK is discarded. The same trap catches en-EN, which is not a country, and es-EU, since there is no country code for a trading bloc.

What is x-default and do I need it?

x-default names the page shown to visitors whose language and region match none of your alternates. It is not mandatory, but without it Google picks one of your versions for unmatched visitors and it may not be the one you would choose. It costs one line, so on any cluster covering more than two locales it is worth including.

Should hreflang go in the HTML head, the sitemap, or HTTP headers?

All three are valid and equivalent, and you should pick exactly one. Head tags are simplest for small clusters. The XML sitemap is usually the best option at scale, because the whole cluster lives in one file rather than requiring template changes on every page type. HTTP headers exist for non-HTML resources such as PDFs. Using two methods at once invites contradictions.

Can I use hreflang for the same language in different countries?

Yes, and it is the most common real use. en-GB, en-US, and en-AU are distinct locales, and hreflang is how you stop them cannibalising each other. The pages should genuinely differ in some respect, such as pricing, currency, spelling, shipping, or legal detail, because near-identical duplicates across markets tend to get consolidated regardless of the tags.

Does hreflang work with canonical tags?

They have to agree. Each page in a cluster canonicals to itself. Pointing a German page's canonical at the English version tells Google not to index the German page, which contradicts your hreflang set and voids the relationship. This combination is one of the more common ways a correct-looking implementation produces nothing.

Do Bing and other engines use hreflang?

Google and Yandex use it. Bing does not, and relies on the content-language meta tag along with geotargeting and hosting signals instead. If Bing matters in your markets you need those signals in addition, since hreflang alone will not serve it.

Free · no signup · runs in your browser

Hreflang tags generator that checks the return links

Almost every broken hreflang implementation fails the same way: the tags are on one page and not on the others. Hreflang is only valid when it is reciprocal. If your German page points at your English page and the English page does not point back, Google discards the pair entirely and you have gained nothing.

Most generators hand you one page’s block and leave the rest to you, which is where it goes wrong. This one builds the whole cluster, validates every language and region code, and shows you the full set each page has to carry.

Open the generator The six ways it breaks

1 Your cluster {{ rowCount }}

Preset

Reciprocity {{ recLabel }}

On page

Every page carries a tag for every locale including itself — the diagonal. A self-referencing tag is required, not optional, and its absence is the second most common reason a cluster is ignored.

2 Output {{ statusLabel }}

Tags for

{{ output }}

Validation {{ issueCount }}

Then do these three things

Saved in this browser only. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Diagnosis

The six ways hreflang breaks

In rough order of how often we find each one. Note that five of the six produce silent failure — nothing errors, the tags simply get ignored.

Mistake What happens The fix

The canonical trap

Hreflang and canonical must agree. If your German page canonicals to the English page, you have told Google the German page should not be indexed at all — and your hreflang cluster is arguing with itself. Every page in a cluster canonicals to itself.

Hreflang is not a ranking tactic

It does not make pages rank higher. It tells Google which version to show which audience, which reduces the wrong-country result and the duplicate-content confusion. Correct hreflang prevents a problem rather than creating an advantage.

Only Google and Yandex

Bing does not use hreflang; it prefers the content-language meta tag and geotargeting signals. If Bing matters to your markets, hreflang alone will not serve it. More on getting the whole setup right in international SEO.

Reference

The rules hreflang actually enforces

Hreflang is not a ranking signal and it does not tell Google which page is better. It swaps one already-ranking page for a more appropriate one, and only when every rule below is satisfied.

Rule What it requires What breaks when you get it wrong

Return tags Every page in a set must point back at every other page, including itself. A one-way tag is ignored entirely, silently

Self-reference Each page must include an hreflang tag pointing at its own URL. Without it, Google discards the whole cluster

Absolute URLs Full URLs with protocol and host. Relative paths are invalid. Tags parse but map to nothing

Language code ISO 639-1, two letters, lowercase. Language is required. en-GB is valid, GB alone is not

Region code ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2, optional, uppercase, after a hyphen. en-UK is a common invalid code; the correct one is en-GB

x-default Optional fallback for users no listed locale matches. Without it, unmatched users land on whichever page ranks

Canonical agreement Each page must self-canonicalise, not canonicalise to another locale. A cross-locale canonical cancels hreflang completely

One method only Head tags, HTTP headers, or the XML sitemap. Pick one. Conflicting methods produce unpredictable results

Worked examples

Three sets you can copy

Replace the domains and locales. Note that every example includes the self-referencing tag, which is where most implementations fail.

Two languages, one region each

The minimum valid set: each page references both itself and its counterpart.

Same language, several markets

English pages for four markets. Each is a distinct URL with its own pricing and shipping.

In the XML sitemap instead

Better for large sites: one place to maintain, and no page weight cost.


  https://example.com/en/

From real audits

Why hreflang usually fails

Almost every international problem we inherit is one of these six, and none of them are translation problems.

Missing return tags Page A points at B, B does not point back. Google discards the relationship without warning, and the tool above will flag it.

No self-referencing tag The most common single failure. Every page in the cluster must list itself alongside its alternates.

Canonical pointing to another locale If /de/ canonicalises to /en/, you have told Google the German page should not exist. Hreflang cannot survive that.

Invalid region codes en-UK, en-EU and zh-CN written as cn are the three we see most. Only ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 codes are valid.

Hreflang used to fix duplication It does not consolidate duplicate content or replace canonicals. Near-identical pages across markets still need genuine differentiation.

Expecting a ranking lift Hreflang swaps which page is shown to an already-qualifying searcher. If none of your pages rank in that market, correct hreflang changes nothing.

Our stack

Billion Game runs your work through the same instruments the best in-house teams use.

Licences are on us, and every export we pull from them is yours to keep.

✎

Be wary of any agency whose reporting is a tool dashboard with their logo on it. Tools measure; they do not decide what matters, and every one of these will happily generate a hundred findings that change nothing. What you are paying for is the judgement about which three of those hundred are worth your developers’ time.

FAQ

Hreflang questions

The ones where the documentation is technically correct and practically unhelpful.

Generating correct tags is the easy half. Getting them onto every template, keeping them accurate as pages are added and retired, and validating after each release is the half that fails — and at scale that is international SEO work rather than a tool problem.

Correct tags on one page fix nothing.

Hreflang at scale is a templating and validation problem, not a generation problem. If your cluster spans thousands of URLs across markets, that is where it breaks.

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