A site with multiple language versions risks a silent problem: Google can show the Italian page to someone searching from an English browser, or the other way around, simply because it doesn’t know which version to offer. The hreflang tag solves exactly this: it tells search engines which language (and optionally which country) each version of a page serves.
How it works
Each page declares, through a tag in the <head>, the addresses of its versions in other languages. An example for a page with an Italian and an English version:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it" href="https://yoursite.com/it/page/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://yoursite.com/en/page/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://yoursite.com/en/page/" />The code follows the ISO standard: two letters for the language (it, en), with an optional country code (en-US, en-GB) added when different variants of the same language need to be distinguished.
The x-default field
x-default points to the version to show visitors searching in a language the site doesn’t cover, for example someone searching in French on an Italian/English-only site. It isn’t required, but it stops those visitors from landing on a randomly chosen version.
The most common mistakes
- Missing reciprocity If the Italian page points to the English one, the English one must point back to the Italian one too. A one-way link gets ignored by Google.
- Missing absolute addresses The tag always needs the full address (
https://...), never a relative path. - Confusing language and country
hreflang="it"covers Italian wherever it’s spoken;hreflang="it-IT"limits it to Italy. Using the latter by mistake excludes other Italian-speaking countries. - Missing self-reference Every page must also include an hreflang tag pointing to itself, not only to the other versions.
FAQ
Does hreflang affect rankings?
Not directly: it isn’t a ranking factor. It’s there to show the right version of a page to the right searcher, not to move it up in results.
There’s an indirect effect though: showing the wrong language to a visitor increases immediate bounce, a signal that can weigh on a page’s performance over time.
Can hreflang and canonical coexist on the same page?
Yes, and they must. Each version’s canonical tag should point to itself (self-referencing), never to one of the other languages, a common mistake is putting every version’s canonical on the main page only.
If canonical and hreflang contradict each other (for example, the English version’s canonical points to the Italian one), Google tends to trust the canonical, ignoring the hreflang.
Do I need hreflang if my site is one language but different countries (e.g. US and UK)?
Yes, it makes sense if content differs between the two countries (pricing, currency, local rules), even while staying in the same language. In that case codes like en-US and en-GB are used.
If the content is identical and only the domain or little else changes, it’s often not worth the complexity of managing hreflang: it’s worth evaluating case by case.
How do I check that my hreflang is set up correctly?
The most direct way is the “Hreflang” report inside Search Console, which flags missing reciprocity and other common errors. Free online validators also exist that analyze one page at a time.
A useful manual check: open the page source of each language version and verify by hand that it correctly points to the others, including itself.
Does hreflang need to go in the XML sitemap too?
It’s an alternative to the tag in the <head>, not an addition: hreflang can be declared either in the page’s code or inside the XML sitemap, never both for the same page.
The sitemap is often more practical on sites with many pages and many languages, since it centralizes all the declarations in one file instead of repeating them on every page.
This article is for informational purposes. SEO results depend on many factors and timelines vary by site.