seo-hreflang

Run the hreflang audit against a URL to check self-referencing tags, bidirectional return tags, x-default presence, and ISO code validity. The output is a validation report table showing per-language status with severity-ranked issues and fixes.

The most common mistakes are missing self-referencing tags, missing return tags between language versions, invalid codes like `eng` or `en-uk`, and hreflang placed on non-canonical URLs. Missing self-references and return tags are critical because Google ignores the entire hreflang set.

HTML link tags suit small sites with under 50 variants, HTTP headers work for non-HTML files like PDFs, and XML sitemaps are recommended for large or cross-domain sites. Sitemaps centralize management and avoid bloating the page head.

Yes, hreflang supports cross-domain setups such as example.com and example.de, but return tags must exist on both domains. Both domains should be verified in Google Search Console, and sitemap-based implementation is recommended.

Google ignores hreflang sets with missing self-referencing tags, broken bidirectional return tags, or tags placed on non-canonical URLs. Mixed HTTP/HTTPS URLs and trailing-slash mismatches with the canonical URL also cause failures.

Unreviewed machine translation is treated as scaled content abuse under Google's January 2025 Quality Rater Guidelines. The audit flags signals like identical body content across hreflang alternates, mismatched html lang attributes, and missing schema inLanguage fields.