What does hreflang do, and why does it cost leads when it's wrong?
Hreflang is a set of tags that tells Google which pages are language or regional versions of each other, so it can show each searcher the right one. When it breaks, a buyer in Brazil lands on the Spanish page, or a US prospect gets the Portuguese one, and leaves.
The damage is quiet. Traffic still arrives, but from the wrong markets to the wrong pages, so the leads don't come. Few site owners connect a drop in international inquiries to a few lines of code in the page head.
Mistake 1: why are my hreflang tags being ignored?
Usually because the return links are missing. Google says that if two pages don't both point to each other, the tags are ignored.
If your English page lists the Spanish version, the Spanish page has to list the English one too. This breaks often when one language gets a new page and the others aren't updated, or when a plugin only writes tags on some templates.
Mistake 2: are my language and region codes valid?
They need to be a language code, optionally followed by a region code: en, es, pt-BR, en-GB. A region code on its own is not valid, because Google doesn't derive the language from a country.
Codes that don't work
- uk for the United Kingdom
- br for Brazil
- es-LA for Latin America
- en-EU for Europe
Codes that work
- en-GB for English in the United Kingdom
- pt-BR for Portuguese in Brazil
- es or es-419 for Spanish in Latin America
- en for English everywhere
If you only have one Spanish version, use es and let it serve every Spanish speaker. Add region codes only when the content really differs between countries, for example in prices, shipping or spelling.
Mistake 3: does each page list itself?
It must. Google's guidelines say each language version has to list itself as well as all the other versions.
A page that lists only its translations is missing half the set. Alternate URLs also need to be complete, including https and the domain, not relative paths.
Mistake 4: is my canonical pointing to another language?
It shouldn't. Language versions are not duplicates, so each one keeps a canonical to itself, or to a page in the same language.
A common error is setting every translation's canonical to the English page. That tells Google the translations are copies to be dropped, which defeats the hreflang tags on the same pages. Google's canonical guidance says that when you use hreflang, the canonical should be a page in the same language.
Mistake 5: what happens to visitors whose language I don't support?
Without an x-default, Google has to guess. The x-default value marks the fallback page for anyone whose language or region doesn't match one of your versions.
Point x-default at the version that serves the widest audience, often English, or at a language selector page. On a site that targets Argentina, Brazil and the rest of the world, x-default usually points to the English version.
Mistake 6: should I redirect visitors to their language automatically?
No. Google advises against redirecting people to a language version based on what you think their language or location is, and against using IP analysis to adapt content.
Automatic redirects can stop Google from crawling every version, and they frustrate a German buyer browsing from a hotel in Madrid. Show a clear language switcher on every page instead, and let people choose.
How do I check my site for these mistakes?
Open a few key pages, view the source and check the hreflang set on each one. Then confirm that every URL in the set loads, is indexable and returns the same set.
Hreflang audit for a multilingual site
- Every version lists itself and every other version.
- Every pair of pages points to each other.
- Codes are language or language-region, never region alone.
- URLs are absolute, use https and return 200, not a redirect or a 404.
- Each page's canonical points to itself or to the same language.
- There is one x-default per set.
- No automatic language redirects; a visible switcher on every page.
- The sitemap, if it carries hreflang too, matches the HTML.
Getting this right is part of multilingual web design from the first day, and it's much cheaper than fixing it after launch. Our SEO agency work includes this audit for every multilingual site we take on. If you're comparing providers abroad, our guide to hiring an agency in Argentina from Europe or the US covers what to ask.
What we see in our diagnostics
In our diagnostics of multilingual sites, the most frequent issue is a partial set: the homepage has correct hreflang, but inner pages, blog posts or products only have it in one direction, so Google ignores them.
We also find translated pages whose canonical points to the original language, and sites that redirect by IP so that some versions are hard to reach at all.