Loading…
Fetch any URL and extract every hreflang tag. Validate x-default, check for duplicate locales, missing self-references, and invalid language codes. Catch international SEO errors before they cause ranking problems in multiple markets.
🌍 Try the free Hreflang Checker →A hreflang checker fetches a webpage and extracts all <link rel="alternate" hreflang="..."> tags, then validates them against Google's hreflang implementation requirements. Hreflang tags are HTML annotations that tell Google which language and regional version of a page to show users in different locales — for example, directing French users to /fr/ pages and US English users to /en-us/ pages.
Hreflang errors are one of the most common and consequential international SEO mistakes. A missing x-default tag causes Google to show the wrong language version to users with no region preference. Broken reciprocal links (where the English page points to the French page but the French page doesn't link back) cause Google to ignore the entire hreflang implementation. A hreflang checker surfaces these issues in seconds.
Try the free Hreflang Checker
No login required. Results in seconds.
The x-default hreflang tag is a fallback for users whose language or region doesn't match any of your specific locale tags. Without it, Google picks arbitrarily which language version to show users who don't match a specific locale — typically choosing the version that appears first in the sitemap or most linked internally.
Google requires all hreflang tags to be reciprocal. If your /en/ page has a hreflang pointing to /fr/, the /fr/ page must have a hreflang pointing back to /en/. Without this bidirectional linking, Google ignores the hreflang implementation entirely and falls back to its own language detection logic.
Google only recognizes properly formatted BCP 47 language codes (e.g., en, en-US, fr-FR, zh-Hans). Common mistakes include using underscore instead of hyphen (en_US), using the wrong region code (UK instead of GB for British English), or using a non-ISO language code. These silent errors mean Google ignores affected hreflang tags.
If a page has two hreflang tags with the same language-region code (e.g., two hreflang="en-US" tags pointing to different URLs), Google receives conflicting signals and typically ignores both. This is often caused by CMS plugins or templates that merge tags from multiple sources without deduplication.
Paste any URL you want to check. The tool fetches the page and extracts all hreflang link elements from the HTML head section.
All hreflang tags are displayed in a table showing the language/region code, the target URL, and any validation errors. The x-default tag is highlighted separately.
The checker flags: missing x-default, duplicate locale codes, self-reference missing (your page should hreflang-point to itself), and invalid or malformed BCP 47 language codes.
After fixing errors on this page, check all related language/region variants to ensure reciprocal linking is in place across the entire hreflang cluster.
No account needed · Instant results
Both options are valid. You can implement hreflang tags in the HTML <head> section (using <link rel="alternate" hreflang="...">) or in your XML sitemap (using <xhtml:link> elements). Large sites often prefer the sitemap approach since it centralizes the hreflang data and avoids inflating page HTML. The HTML approach is easier to implement and debug for smaller sites. Both must be reciprocal and consistent.
The correct code is en-GB (not en-UK). The region part uses ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes, where Great Britain is GB. Other common correct codes: en-US (US English), fr-FR (French in France), es-ES (Spanish in Spain), es-MX (Spanish in Mexico), zh-Hans (Simplified Chinese), zh-Hant (Traditional Chinese). Remember to use a hyphen, not an underscore.
Yes, hreflang is still recommended even with country-code top-level domains. ccTLDs give Google strong geotargeting signals, but hreflang ensures the correct language version is shown to multilingual users and prevents ranking overlap between similar-content regional sites. Omitting hreflang on a ccTLD strategy leaves Google to figure out language targeting on its own.
Yes. Every page in your hreflang cluster must have a complete set of hreflang tags pointing to all other language versions plus the x-default. A 50-language site requires 51 hreflang tags per page (50 locales + x-default). This is why most large multilingual sites implement hreflang via the XML sitemap rather than in HTML — it's easier to manage centrally and doesn't bloat page weight.
No account required. Works on any public URL. Results in seconds.
Open free Hreflang Checker →