What Is Hreflang and How To Implement It the Right Way
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that specifies the language and regional targeting of a webpage. You use it on international or multilingual websites to signal to search engines—notably Google—the language or regional variation of your content. With hreflang properly implemented on your website, someone making an online search from Germany is more likely to see the German version of your site in their search results. While someone in the United States would most likely see the English version. How Hreflang Works The hreflang attribute is added to a webpage’s link element (<link>) in the <head> section or HTTP header. To implement hreflang, you should include a separate link element for each language or regional version of your page. And include a reference to the current page. Hreflang attributes follow a specific structure: Let’s break that down. link rel=”alternate”: Signals that there are multiple versions of the page href= “https://www.yourwebsite.de”: Specifies the absolute URL for the alternate version hreflang=”de-DE”: Indicates the hreflang attribute specifying the content is for German speakers in Germany Here’s an example of hreflang tags used by HubSpot on their website: As you can see, HubSpot includes seven hreflang attributes—a hreflang cluster—in its website code. Each attribute corresponds to one of the primary markets it serves. Plus an additional x-default hreflang attribute for users whose preferences do not match any of the specified languages or regions. How to Properly Implement Hreflang in HTML To effectively implement hreflang attributes and help search engines identify the right version of your site, follow these steps: Identify which languages and countries your website is targeting Decide where to put your hreflang attributes Set up your hreflang tags the right way Step 1: Identify Target Languages and Regions Your hreflang attributes need to match the language and regional versions available on your website….
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