Hreflang Tags

What is Hreflang Tags?

In the SEO industry, hreflang tags are essential tools for international SEO. They help search engines understand which language and regional version of a webpage to serve to users based on their location and language preferences. This is particularly important for websites that have multiple language versions or target audiences in different countries. By properly implementing hreflang tags, businesses can improve user experience, reduce bounce rates, and increase the relevance of their content for different audiences. It also helps in avoiding duplicate content issues by indicating to search engines the relationship between different versions of a webpage.

HTML attributes used to specify the language and geographical targeting of a webpage.

Examples

A global e-commerce site like Amazon can use hreflang tags to serve the appropriate language version of their site to users in different countries, such as serving the Spanish version to users in Spain and the French version to users in France.

A news website like BBC might use hreflang tags to show the English version of an article to users in the UK and the Swahili version to users in East Africa, ensuring that content is accessible and relevant to a diverse audience.

Additional Information

Hreflang tags should be placed in the head section of the HTML code of a webpage.

Each language version of a page should reference all other language versions to ensure proper indexing by search engines.

References

Hreflang For Beginners: Getting Started With Multilingual Website Tags

What Are Hreflang Attributes & How Do You Implement Them? - Semrush

hreflang: the ultimate guide • Yoast