Hreflang Checker

The Hreflang Checker inspects the rel=alternate hreflang annotations on a page, which tell search engines about language and regional variations of the same content. It reads each hreflang tag, parses the language and optional region code (such as en, en-us, or fr-ca), and shows the URL each variant points to. For multilingual and multinational sites, correct hreflang is what makes Google serve the Spanish page to Spanish speakers and the UK-priced page to UK visitors instead of mixing them up.

The tool fetches the page and extracts hreflang declarations from the HTML head (and recognizes that they can also appear in HTTP headers or XML sitemaps), then audits them for the most common failure modes. It checks that the language and region codes are valid ISO formats, that a self-referencing hreflang exists for the current page, and that the cluster is reciprocal — meaning each alternate also points back. It flags missing return tags, conflicting or duplicate codes, and the use of x-default for a global or language-selector fallback page.

Typical use cases include validating a freshly localized site before launch, diagnosing why the wrong-language URL appears in a regional search result, and confirming that adding a new market's pages didn't break the existing reciprocity. SEO teams managing dozens of locale variants use it to spot-check individual pages after template or CMS changes that can silently drop or mangle the annotations.

Practical tips: hreflang annotations must be reciprocal to be trusted — if page A lists page B but B doesn't list A, Google may ignore the set. Always use full absolute URLs, include a self-referencing tag, and use language-only codes (like en) unless you genuinely need region targeting. Add an x-default entry for your language-picker or default page. Pair hreflang validation with the Canonical URL Checker, since a canonical pointing to a different-language URL will undercut your hreflang signals.