What is Hreflang?

Hreflang is an HTML attribute (or HTTP header / sitemap signal) that tells search engines which language or regional version of a page is intended for which audience. It helps Google show the right URL in the right country or language and reduces duplicate-content confusion across multi-language or multi-region sites.

How hreflang works

• You add <link rel="alternate" hreflang="xx" href="https://..." /> (or equivalent in sitemaps/headers) for each language or region variant.
• The hreflang value is usually a language code (e.g. en, es) or a region code (e.g. en-GB, en-US).
• An x-default hreflang often points to the fallback URL when no specific variant matches.

Common issues

• Invalid codes — Using non-standard or typo’d codes (e.g. eng instead of en) so search engines ignore or misapply the signal.
• Mismatched or broken hrefs — The href points to a wrong domain, 404, or doesn’t match the reciprocal link on the other version.
• Missing reciprocation — Each variant should reference the others (and itself); missing links can weaken or invalidate the set.

How BearAudit checks them

BearAudit validates hreflang on each crawled page: we check that codes are valid, that href targets are reachable, and that reciprocal links are present where expected. We report errors and warnings so you can fix hreflang before it affects international or multi-language SEO.