What is Hreflang? A Digital Marketing Guide for Beginners

Hreflang is an HTML tag or attribute that signals to search engines which language and regional version of a page to show to users based on their location and language settings. Here’s what to know, what’s changing, and how to make them work for you.

Have you ever been shopping online or visiting an ecommerce website and seen a pop-up asking if you’re based in your current country?

Or, for example, let’s say you’re an American visiting France. If you Google “Sephora sunscreen” in France, you’ll get results from the French version of Sephora’s website, Sephora.fr.

If you were in the U.S., you’d get results for the American website, Sephora.com.

That’s where hreflang comes in. Pronounced like “h-ref-lang,” the hreflang HTML attribute helps search engines determine which version of a web page to show visitors based on things like their language and region.

While using these tags can be super beneficial for showing similar content in the user’s language, it can also be implemented improperly, which can lead to issues.

To help us break it all down, we talked to Alex Abad, senior SEO and SEM manager at HawkSEM. Read on for his helpful explanation, expert advice, and where he sees hreflang headed.

What is hreflang?

The hreflang attribute tells search engines which language and regional version of the page to show users based on their regional location and language settings.

“It’s super necessary when you have similar or duplicate content targeted at users in different countries or languages,” Abad explains.

Let’s revisit the example above. There may be items that Sephora sells in France but not in the U.S., and vice versa, due to everything from availability to laws about ingredients. Surfacing the alternative versions of the same homepage to the proper person ensures a better user experience (UX), not to mention a higher likelihood of conversion.

How does hreflang factor into SEO?

For search engine optimization (SEO) in general, “the hreflang helps prevent duplicate content issues,” says Abad. “It helps Google understand the intended audience for each version of a page.”

Under the technical SEO category, hreflang also helps SEO by directing people to the most relevant version of the website in the correct language. This often results in boosted click-through rates, time on page, and on-site engagement along with a reduced bounce rate.

Fun fact: Along with Google, the search engine Yandex also leverages hreflang tags to decipher web pages. While Bing also recommends using these attributes, they refer to hreflang as a “weak signal.”

Hreflang and international SEO

As for international SEO, hreflang tags offer several benefits in addition to the ones mentioned previously.

However, “its core value lies in helping Google accurately index and rank localized content, such as pages tailored to local dialects, cultural references, and regional preferences,” Abad adds.

Further reading: What is International SEO? 6 Easy Steps + Examples That Work

Expert tips for implementing hreflang

Abad has no shortage of advice for digital marketers looking to implement hreflang properly. Here are his top tips:

1. Use ISO standards
2. Implement self-referencing tags
3. Ensure return tags exist
4. Avoid mixing up canonical tags
5. Use x-default to catch unspecified users
6. Consider implementing and managing hreflang on the sitemap

1. Use ISO standards

Language codes (e.g., en, es) and regional codes (e.g., us, mx) must follow ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 standards. You can learn more about these standards and country codes from the International Organization for Standardization.

Fun fact: The language code for U.S.-based English speakers is “en-us.” This is a combination of the ISO 639-1 language code “en” (for English) and the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 country code “US” (for the United States). The United Kingdom, on the other hand, is coded as “en-gb.” Same language, different region.

2. Implement self-referencing tags

Every page must include an hreflang tag for itself for the attribute to function properly. Basically, each language version needs to list itself along with all other different language versions.

3. Ensure return tags exist

Each referenced page needs to have a bidirectional relationship. That means Page A references Page B, so Page B must reference Page A too. This reciprocity is required.

4. Avoid mixing up canonical tags

Use canonicals within language variants, not across them. Cross-domain canonicals can cancel out hreflang signals.

5. Use x-default to catch unspecified users

The x-default hreflang value is used to indicate the default version of your page that should be served to users who don’t match any of your specified language/region codes.

6. Consider implementing and managing hreflang on the sitemap

You can implement hreflang in your XML sitemaps instead of HTML headers. This is ideal for large, CMS-driven or ecommerce sites. It’s much more efficient and provides centralized control so your team can easily update, audit, and troubleshoot mappings.

“In my opinion,” says Abad, “this also makes it easier for crawlers to read the entire site and each version in one single file rather than skimming the HTML headers of each page.”

How to implement hreflang tags

Ready to move forward with hreflang implementation? Here’s how to get started.

Let’s say you have an American and a French version of your website. Here’s what the hreflang annotations might look like:

If you have a sitemap, you can include the proper markup via the xhtml:link attribute, which would look something like this:

Pro tip: If you don’t have a sitemap or the ability to specify HTTP header responses for your site, Google Search Central recommends adding this link element to your page header to tell Google all of the language and region variants of a page: <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”lang_code”… >.

Common hreflang issues

Often, hreflang mistakes arise from neglecting to follow the steps above. However, Ahrefs reports that you can run into common mistakes such as:

• Hreflang tags that reference broken or redirected pages
• Pages with incorrect hreflang values
• No self-referencing hreflang notation
• Inconsistent language attributes on pages
• More than one page referenced for the same language
• Having the same page reference more than one language

The future of hreflang

In the spring of 2025, Search Engine Journal reported that “Google domains are consolidating to Google.com,” meaning Google is redirecting all country domains to its website URL while still surfacing local results to users on the search engine results pages (SERPS).

So, what does this mean for referral traffic patterns, international SEO, and marketers who use hreflang?

“[It’s] fairly recent that all Google domains like google.fr and google.ca will redirect to google.com,” explains Abad. “This underscores the importance of maintaining clear and properly implemented hreflang tags, especially for international websites.”

He adds that, while Google continues to evolve and improve its ability to detect language and region automatically, it’s still critical to continue managing these tags effectively to maintain control over which version of a page appears for each audience.

The takeaway

“Hreflang is often misunderstood or overlooked,” says Abad. “Hreflang doesn’t boost rankings — it ensures the right version of a page shows up for the right audience.”

Want more help getting your digital marketing in tip-top shape? We’d love to chat.