Hreflang strategy

Build a multilingual page set with <link rel="alternate" hreflang>.

What is hreflang?

You run a multilingual site: Turkish, English and Arabic versions live on separate pages. To help search engines find each version and serve the right user, you use <link rel="alternate" hreflang="...">.

In each page's <head> you list the sibling pages in other languages. The hreflang value is a language code (e.g. tr, en, ar) or a language-region code (e.g. en-GB). x-default points to the default page for users whose language is not targeted.

The reciprocal rule

hreflang does not work one way; it must be reciprocal. If the Turkish page links to the Arabic page, the Arabic page must link back to the Turkish page. This is called reciprocal hreflang.

Each page must also list itself. In a three-language site the Turkish page's <head> holds three hreflang entries: tr, en and ar. Adding x-default makes it four links.

Exercise Three-language hreflang set

Add three <link rel="alternate"> tags to head. The first has hreflang="tr", href="https://magazine.com/tr/"; the second has hreflang="en", href="https://magazine.com/en/"; the third has hreflang="x-default", href="https://magazine.com/tr/".

Show example solution

<head>
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="tr" href="https://magazine.com/tr/">
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://magazine.com/en/">
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://magazine.com/tr/">
</head>

Test yourself

What does x-default point to?
- The main language page
- The browser language
- The default page
- A backup page
Show answer

The default page — Correct. x-default points to the default page for users whose language is not targeted.

Complete the hreflang link

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="____" href="https://magazine.com/tr/">

Show answer

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="tr" href="https://magazine.com/tr/">

Match the hreflang value

hreflang="tr"

Turkish version
hreflang="en"

English version
hreflang="ar"

Arabic version
hreflang="x-default"

Default version

Next lesson: Bidi and bdo

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