Hreflang Checker

What the Hreflang Checker checks

hreflang tells search engines which language or regional version of a page to show to which searchers. Each version lists all the others, and itself, with a <link rel="alternate" hreflang="…" href="…"> tag in its head. The value is an ISO 639-1 language code such as de, optionally followed by an ISO 3166-1 region such as de-AT, or x-default for the page shown when no version matches.

This checker requests the URL you enter and reads its hreflang tags. It reports codes that are not valid language or language-region codes, the same code listed twice, relative URLs, and a page that does not list itself. It also checks that <html lang> is present and valid and that its language matches the page’s own hreflang entry, and it reads the canonical tag, because a canonical that points to another URL works against the annotations.

Two limits are worth knowing. hreflang can also be declared in HTTP Link headers or in the XML sitemap; this tool reads only the HTML tags. And it does not fetch the alternate pages, so it cannot confirm that each of them links back.

Why it matters

Without hreflang, a search engine may show your English page to readers in Germany, or treat near-identical regional versions such as en-US and en-GB as duplicates and pick one for everyone. Google uses hreflang as a hint, not a directive, and it is strict about consistency: if page A names page B as an alternate but B does not name A, the pair may be ignored.

Small mistakes are common and silent. en-UK is not a valid region (the code is GB), jp is not a language (Japanese is ja), and a relative URL or a missing self-reference can invalidate the set without any visible symptom on the page. The hreflang guide covers the rules in more detail.

How to fix common problems

Give every language version the same complete set of tags, including one pointing to itself, with absolute URLs to the canonical address of each version. Add x-default for a language selector or a fallback page. Use a region only when the content really differs by country; es alone is fine for Spanish content meant for every Spanish speaker.

Make each page canonical to itself, not to the main language version: a canonical pointing elsewhere tells Google this page is a duplicate, and the hreflang annotations on it are then disregarded. Set <html lang> to the language of the content, as described in the html lang guide.

Then run this check on each language version, not just one, since return links are only confirmed by looking at every page in the set. Search Console no longer has an international targeting report, so a crawler that fetches all versions is the way to verify a large site.

Questions

Does this tool check the return links?

No. It reads the tags on the page you enter and does not fetch the alternate pages. To confirm the return links, run it on each language version or use a crawler that fetches them all.

Do I need x-default?

It is recommended, not required. Use it for a language selector or the version to show when no other matches the searcher. Its absence is reported, but it is not counted as an error.

Is en-UK a valid hreflang value?

No. The region code for the United Kingdom is GB, so the value is en-GB. Region codes come from ISO 3166-1 and language codes from ISO 639-1.

My hreflang is in the sitemap. Why does the tool find nothing?

It reads only the link tags in the HTML. Annotations in an XML sitemap or in HTTP headers are valid but outside what this tool checks.