What does hreflang identify?
Use it for translated content or meaningful regional variants, such as separate English pages with different shipping information. It describes relationships between pages; it does not translate content, redirect visitors, or guarantee a particular result. Google explains the intended use.
Check the localized content first
Start with the page someone should actually read. Does the French version cover the same product and task as its English alternative? Does regional delivery information match the intended market?
Annotations cannot repair an unfinished translation or a misleading offer. Build the correct page relationships before adding attributes. Treat changes in enquiries or clicks as measurements to investigate, not promised consequences of the markup.
Choose a maintainable implementation
HTML links, HTTP response headers and sitemap annotations are equivalent implementation methods for Google. Using several adds no Search benefit. Google documents all three. Choose a method your publishing system can maintain.
The following example belongs in the HTML head of both illustrative page variants. The domains are placeholders, not working translations of this article.
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/guide/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://example.com/fr/guide/" />Each version should include itself and its alternatives, using fully qualified URLs. Missing reciprocal references cause the affected relationship to be ignored; they do not necessarily invalidate every other reciprocal pair.
Language and region codes
| Value | Intended audience |
|---|---|
en | English-language audience without a specified region. |
en-US | English-language audience in the United States. |
en-GB | English-language audience in the United Kingdom. |
fr | French-language audience without a specified region. |
Google accepts case-insensitive values. Use supported language codes, with an optional supported region after a hyphen. A region alone is insufficient. Check Google’s supported code rules.
Illustrative localization review
Imagine a retailer publishing English and French versions of a fitting guide. Pair those two guides. Do not make every product page point to the French homepage merely because that homepage is translated.
Record the source URL, intended alternative, language and actual page subject. Have someone fluent in the language check the content relationship. This example demonstrates the decision; it supplies no traffic uplift or customer results.
Hreflang and canonicalization address different decisions
Hreflang maps localized alternatives. A canonical URL identifies a preferred representative among duplicates. Review the selected canonical and the intended translation together rather than declaring every translated page a duplicate.
Google notes that localized pages are considered duplicates when their main content remains untranslated. Its localized-versions guidance explains this distinction. The attributes should reflect the actual page architecture.
Review a localized pair
- Open the final URLs and confirm they contain corresponding content.
- Inspect the chosen head, header or sitemap annotations.
- Check absolute destination URLs, supported codes, self-reference and the reciprocal relationship.
- Review indexability and canonical choices as separate checks.
- Repeat the review after a translation, route or publishing-system change.
Avoid obsolete reports and assumed fallbacks
The Search Console International Targeting report is deprecated. The official retirement notice also confirms that hreflang remains supported. Use a crawl and direct annotation checks rather than relying on that retired screen or an invented reporting deadline.
x-default can identify an unmatched-language fallback, especially a language selector. It is not a required English page on every site. Check the intended fallback experience with the team responsible for localization.
Questions readers ask
Can equivalent versions be hosted on different domains?
Yes. Google permits alternate URLs on different domains. Check the corresponding content and reciprocal references rather than assuming shared hosting is required.
Does hreflang determine the language Google detects?
Google says it detects page language algorithmically rather than from hreflang or the HTML lang attribute. Hreflang identifies localized alternatives; review the actual page language separately.
Related concepts
canonical URLs, duplicate content, XML sitemaps, geotargeting.
Primary references
Source guidance checked on October 12, 2026. Examples are illustrative; no customer outcome or human expert review is claimed.
Explore this topic: Hreflang Tags: The Complete International SEO Guide.