What are Hreflang Attributes?
Hreflang attributes help search engines understand what language a web page is in and what country or region it is meant for.
Why are Hreflang Attributes Important?
Hreflang attributes are key for improving a website's SEO and localization. Websites that have different language versions need hreflang so that users see the right language page for their area.
How Do Hreflang Attributes Work?
The main goal of hreflang is to help search engines like Google, Bing and Yandex tell the difference between translations and regional variations of a web page. This allows the search engine to showcase the most fitting version of a page based on what language the user is searching in and what country they live in.
Does Every Search Engine Use Hreflang?
Bing suggests using hreflang attributes but does not depend on them as much as Google. The Chinese search engine Baidu does not actually use hreflang at all. Instead, Baidu focuses on the content-language HTML tag to determine language and region.
What Does the Hreflang Code Look Like?
A basic hreflang attribute looks like this:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x" href="https://yourwebsite.com/alternate-page">It has 3 main parts:
link rel="alternate": This part informs search engines that the link is an alternate version of the current page.
hreflang="x": The "x" is a 2-letter language/region code like "en" or "es" to specify the language of the alternate page
href="https://yourwebsite.com/alternate-page": This URL shows the alternate language page location