Hreflang: Your Complete Guide to Hreflang & SEO

Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and regional URLs should be served to users based on their language and location. In other words, it helps search engines identify the most relevant version of a webpage to show to users based on their language and location preferences.

Hreflang is important for international websites that have multiple language versions or regional variations. It helps ensure that users are directed to the appropriate version of the website based on their language and location, which can improve user experience and engagement.

To implement hreflang, website owners should include the hreflang attribute in the HTML code of their webpages. The hreflang attribute should be included in the head section of the HTML code and should specify the language and region of each version of the webpage.

Here are some best practices for implementing hreflang:

  1. Use ISO language codes to specify the language of each version of the webpage. For example, “en” for English and “es” for Spanish.
  2. Use ISO country codes to specify the region of each version of the webpage. For example, “us” for the United States and “mx” for Mexico.
  3. Use x-default to specify the default version of the webpage. This is the version that will be shown to users if no other version is specified.
  4. Use self-referencing hreflang tags to indicate that a particular webpage is the canonical version for a specific language and region.
  5. Avoid using machine translation for your content. Instead, provide high-quality, human-translated content for each language version of your website.

Overall, implementing hreflang correctly can help improve the user experience and search engine visibility of international websites. By providing users with the most relevant version of a webpage based on their language and location preferences, website owners can improve engagement and drive more traffic to their website.