hreflang is not right

Why it matters

Google only uses a set of hreflang links when every page in the set confirms it. One missing return link, one dead target or one wrong code and Google ignores the set. Visitors in another country then see the wrong language, or the language versions compete with each other in the results.

How Snaglist checks it

Snaglist reads every link rel="alternate" hreflang on every indexable page and follows the targets, also on other domains. A page is listed when a target does not answer with 200 or redirects, when a target is not indexable (noindex or canonical elsewhere), when a target does not point back to the page, when the x-default is missing, when the page does not name itself, or when a code is not a valid language (optionally with a region, such as en-gb). Snaglist skips this check when the crawl stopped at the page limit, because the return links were not seen.

Snaglist reports this as a warning. It costs 15 percent of the page in the health score. Fix it before your next crawl.

Common causes

• A language version that was removed or moved without updating the other versions
• A plugin that writes hreflang on one language but not on the other
• A target page that got noindex or a canonical to another page
• Codes such as en-uk or en-eu that Google does not know
• A set without x-default, so Google does not know what to show to other countries

How to fix it

1. For each listed page, open the target that fails and fix it: restore it, remove noindex, or correct the canonical.
2. Make sure every language version lists all versions, including itself.
3. Add an x-default that points to the version for visitors from other countries.
4. Use ISO 639-1 language codes, with an ISO 3166-1 region if needed: nl, en-gb, de-at.
5. Crawl again to confirm that no page is listed any more.

How it shows in the report

In the report for your client this appears under the heading "Language versions Google cannot link together". When everything is in order, the report says: "The language versions point to each other correctly".