Hreflang Checker

Validate your hreflang and international SEO

Hreflang is the most error-prone part of international SEO. We check it the way search engines do — across your whole multilingual site — and flag exactly what's wrong.

Instant, free, no account needed — homepage checked on the spot.

Every hreflang mistake, caught

We run 10+ products in 15+ languages, so we built deep hreflang validation most tools don't bother with.

Missing reciprocal tags

Page A links to B, but B doesn't link back — the #1 hreflang error.

Language mismatches

An hreflang declares a language the target page isn't actually in.

Broken hreflang URLs

Hreflang annotations pointing at dead or redirected pages.

Missing self-reference

Pages that forget to include an hreflang tag for themselves.

Non-canonical hreflang

Hreflang pointing at non-canonical URLs, confusing search engines.

html lang & group coverage

Missing html lang attributes and hreflang groups that aren't fully crawled.

Validate hreflang in 3 steps

1

Add & verify your site

Confirm ownership with DNS, a meta tag, or a file upload.

2

Run a crawl

We collect every hreflang annotation and build your full language graph.

3

Fix the flagged groups

Resolve missing reciprocals, mismatches, and broken targets, then re-run.

The 5 hreflang mistakes that break international SEO

Hreflang is the most error-prone area of technical SEO. Get these right and Google serves the correct language/region version to each user.

1. Missing return (reciprocal) tags

If page A points to page B with hreflang, page B must point back to A. Google ignores one-way hreflang entirely. Every annotated page in a cluster must reference every other version, including itself.

2. No self-referencing hreflang

Each page must include an hreflang tag pointing to its own URL with its own language code. Leaving out the self-reference is one of the most common reasons a whole cluster is silently ignored.

3. Wrong or invalid language/region codes

Use ISO 639-1 language codes and optional ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 region codes — e.g. en, en-GB, pt-BR. Common errors: using en-UK (it's en-GB), or a region code with no valid language. Add x-default for your fallback/selector page.

4. Pointing hreflang at redirects or 404s

Every hreflang URL must return a live 200 — not a redirect, not a 404, and it must be the canonical version of that page. Hreflang pointing at a redirected URL breaks the mapping.

5. html lang attribute mismatch

The page's <html lang="…"> should match the language you claim in hreflang. A mismatch sends conflicting signals to crawlers and assistive tech. Keep the markup, hreflang, and actual page content all in agreement.

Hreflang checker FAQ

What is an hreflang return-tag error?

A return-tag (reciprocal) error happens when page A declares an hreflang link to page B, but B does not link back to A. Search engines require the references to be mutual, so a missing return tag invalidates the relationship. It is the most common hreflang mistake, and we flag every instance.

How do I check hreflang across multiple languages?

Add and verify your site, then run a crawl. We collect the hreflang annotations on every page, build the full language graph, and validate each group the way a search engine does — reporting missing reciprocals, language mismatches, and broken targets across all your locales at once.

Does every page need a self-referencing tag?

Yes. Each page in an hreflang group should include a tag pointing to itself alongside its alternates. Missing self-references are a frequent cause of search engines ignoring the whole group, so we flag pages that omit them.

Why must hreflang point to canonical URLs?

Hreflang must reference canonical, indexable URLs. Pointing it at non-canonical or redirected pages sends conflicting signals and the annotations are discarded. We detect hreflang targeting non-canonical URLs so you can correct them.

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Get international SEO right

Free to start. Validate hreflang across your whole multilingual site.

Check hreflang now