Hreflang Tag Checker
Validate hreflang tags for international SEO — ensure your multilingual site serves the right content to the right users.
What is Hreflang Tag Checker?
Hreflang tags are HTML attributes that tell Google which language and regional version of a page to show to users in different countries and languages. When you have content in multiple languages (e.g. English, French, German) or multiple regional variants (e.g. English for US, UK, and Australia), hreflang signals tell Google: "for French-speaking users, show the French version; for US English users, show the US English version." Without hreflang, Google may show French users the English version of your site, or show the wrong regional variant to users — leading to poor user experience, higher bounce rates, and lost conversions. Hreflang is notoriously tricky to implement correctly: every page in a language group must include references to all other pages in the group (it's bidirectional), and errors like incorrect language codes, broken URLs, or missing x-default tags silently cause Google to ignore your annotations entirely.
How to Use Hreflang Tag Checker
- 1
Enter a URL to Check
Paste any URL. The tool reads all hreflang annotations from the HTML <head> and HTTP Link headers, then fetches each referenced URL to verify the reciprocal annotations exist.
- 2
Review Language Mapping
See all detected hreflang tags displayed as a matrix of language/region codes and URLs, making it easy to spot gaps where a language variant is missing from the annotation set.
- 3
Fix Validation Errors
All hreflang issues — missing reciprocal links, invalid language codes, broken URLs, missing x-default — are listed with specific fix instructions for each error.
Use Cases
Multilingual E-Commerce Site Audit
International e-commerce sites often have hundreds of language/region combinations. A missing hreflang reciprocal on even one page causes Google to ignore the entire hreflang set for that page. This tool validates that every page in your product catalog has correctly implemented bidirectional hreflang annotations across all language versions.
Post-Launch International SEO Verification
After launching a new language version of your site, verify that all hreflang implementation is correct before submitting to Google Search Console. Common post-launch issues: staging URLs accidentally included in hreflang annotations, HTTP instead of HTTPS in hreflang URLs, and missing x-default on the homepage.
Diagnosing Wrong-Language Search Results
If your Spanish website is appearing in English search results, or your UK site is ranking in US searches instead of UK searches, hreflang misconfiguration is a primary cause. Run your homepage and key landing pages through the hreflang checker to find the annotations Google is ignoring and why.
Features
Reciprocal Link Validation
Verifies that each hreflang URL's target page also includes a reference back to the source page — the bidirectional requirement that Google mandates for valid hreflang implementation.
Language Code Validation
Checks all hreflang attribute values against the ISO 639-1 language code and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 region code standards, flagging invalid codes like "en-UK" (should be "en-GB").
x-default Detection
Verifies the presence of an x-default hreflang annotation, which tells Google which page to show to users who don't match any other language/region — usually a language selector or the default language page.
URL Accessibility Check
Verifies that all URLs referenced in hreflang tags are accessible (return 200), not blocked by robots.txt, and not noindexed — since hreflang on inaccessible pages is ignored by Google.
Frequently Asked Questions
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that specifies the language and optional geographic region of a page. You need it when: (1) you have pages in multiple languages (en, fr, de, es), (2) you have the same language targeting different regions (en-US, en-GB, en-AU), or (3) both. You don't need hreflang if your entire site is in one language targeting one region. Common misconception: hreflang is not needed just because you have international visitors — it's needed when you have alternate language/region versions of the same content that you want served to different users.
The x-default hreflang value (<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="URL">) tells Google which URL to show to users who don't match any specific language or region annotation. Typical use cases: point x-default to your main English page (for users browsing in languages you don't support), to a language selector/redirect page, or to your default regional variant. Without x-default, Google must guess which page to show users who don't match a specific hreflang — which often results in the wrong language being served to users in smaller markets.
Google requires that if page A includes a hreflang pointing to page B, then page B must also include a hreflang pointing back to page A. This bidirectionality requirement allows Google to verify that both pages are intentionally linked and that neither is unilaterally claiming a relationship the other doesn't acknowledge. If the reciprocal link is missing, Google ignores the entire hreflang set for that page — your international targeting silently fails with no error reported in Search Console. This is why systematic validation of all reciprocal links is essential.
Google supports all three methods and they are equivalent in effectiveness. HTML implementation (<link rel="alternate"> tags in <head>) is the most common and easiest to implement in most CMSs. HTTP header implementation (Link: response headers from the server) is useful for non-HTML files like PDFs. Sitemap implementation (adding hreflang entries to your XML sitemap) is best for large sites where maintaining HTML tags across thousands of pages is impractical. Only use one method per page — do not duplicate hreflang annotations across multiple implementations on the same page.
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