What is hreflang?

Why hreflang matters

Without it, a UK visitor can land on the US page with dollar prices, or a German speaker on the English page. For multi-country e-commerce and SaaS sites that costs conversions even when rankings look fine.

How hreflang works

• Annotations go in HTML link tags, HTTP headers or the XML sitemap.
• Each version lists itself and every alternate, and the links must go both ways or Google ignores them.
• Codes use ISO 639-1 for language, optionally followed by an ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 region, such as en-gb.
• The x-default value names the fallback page for users no other version matches.

How to apply it

1. Map every page to its equivalents before adding any tags.
2. Pick one method and use it consistently; sitemaps are easier to maintain on large sites.
3. Point each annotation at the canonical, indexable version of the page.
4. Set x-default to a language selector or your main market.

Example

A SaaS company with /en-us/, /en-gb/ and /de/ pricing pages links all three to each other with hreflang, sets x-default to /en-us/, and shows each market's own currency.

Common mistake

Adding hreflang on one side only. If the UK page points to the US page but the US page doesn't point back, Google ignores the pair.