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Hreflang: 
Is it really still necessary and 
how to use it successfully in 2023

Hreflang: 
Is it really still necessary and 
how to use it successfully in 2023

Learn if hreflang annotations are still necessary in Intenational SEO projects in 2023, in which scenarios and how to effectively implement it while minimizing issues and maximizing success and impact.

Aleyda Solis

February 15, 2023
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  1. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    HREFLANG

    Is it really still necessary and

    how to use it successfully in 2023

    View Slide

  2. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Since long ago hreflang has been considered that
    “necessary headache” when doing international SEO

    View Slide

  3. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    But Google
    deprecated the
    GSC International
    Targeting Report,
    used to show
    hreflang status &
    give geolocation
    feature! Is it really
    necessary
    nowadays?

    View Slide

  4. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Google says they still support hreflang while
    dismissing the need for the geotargeting feature

    View Slide

  5. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    This stance hasn’t changed since last year,

    this tweet is from John just a few days ago

    View Slide

  6. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Because of this, I
    asked for the
    “official” hreflang
    status back: Why not
    show hreflang status
    if it’s used? I didn’t
    get an answer.

    View Slide

  7. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Also, do they really don’t need the geotargeting

    feature anymore? What has changed? Let’s see…

    View Slide

  8. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Google added a note about hreflang used to identify
    alternate content variations but not to detect language
    Oct 2021 Now
    vs

    View Slide

  9. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Google clarifies that to detect language,

    they use their algorithms not hreflang
    Oct 2021 Now
    vs

    View Slide

  10. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Oct 2021 Now
    The International Targeting info to geolocate gTLDs to a
    country was eliminated from many sections too
    vs

    View Slide

  11. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    So maybe there’s no need for that feature bc of hreflang
    and a better language understanding of BERT & MUM?

    View Slide

  12. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    I’ve checked and G has become better at understanding

    & targeting language versions to relevant markets
    vs
    vs
    asana.com/es/
    atlassian.com/fr/

    View Slide

  13. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    What about country-targeted versions,
    especially those w/ the same language tho?
    #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI

    View Slide

  14. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    eBay.com: Steady rankings for relevant US market while
    drastic decrease since July 21 in non-relevant countries

    View Slide

  15. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Amazon.co.uk: Slight decrease for relevant UK market
    while drastic decrease in non-relevant ones (US, CA)

    View Slide

  16. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Pinterest.es: Ups & Downs in relevant Spain market but
    drastic decrease since July 21 in non-relevant ones

    View Slide

  17. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    These sites are geolocating with ccTLDs though!

    Let’s see gTLDs with subdirectories/subdomains

    View Slide

  18. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Samsung.com/es/: Steady rankings for Spain while
    slight decreases in Argentina and a drastic drop in the US

    View Slide

  19. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Nike.com/gb/: Increased rankings for UK market while
    slight decreases in Canada and a drop in France

    View Slide

  20. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    uk.gymshark.com: Increased rankings for UK market
    while mild decreases in AU and a drastic drop in France

    View Slide

  21. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Note how many of
    the drastic decreases
    in non-relevant
    markets coincide
    with Google Core
    and Spam updates

    View Slide

  22. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    So relevant
    country targeting
    has also improved
    although not so
    much for gTLDs as
    for ccTLDs
    #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI

    View Slide

  23. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Also, is better for
    different
    language markets
    than for same
    language ones
    #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI

    View Slide

  24. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    So yes, Hreflang is
    still valuable to avoid
    ranking in

    non-relevant markets
    by specifying
    alternate pages,
    especially when the
    language is the same

    View Slide

  25. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    X
    But should be
    executed with care
    to avoid time-losing
    mistakes, especially
    now without the GSC
    International Report

    View Slide

  26. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    The hreflang challenge is caused by having to specify
    pages lang/country & their alternates, & the same in each
    https://www.site.com/en/
    https://www.site.com/en-us/

    View Slide

  27. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Which can easily become chaotic for large Websites

    with dozens of versions and a highly dynamic inventory

    View Slide

  28. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    The reality is that most errors end up falling into

    3 buckets that we should avoid at all costs
    Featuring URLs in
    hreflang that don’t
    exist in certain
    markets
    Featuring
    URLs that are not
    indexable
    (redirected,
    noindexed,
    canonicalized)
    Generating
    hreflang tags with
    syntax or value
    errors

    View Slide

  29. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    1) Including as alternates pages that don’t exist in a market,
    don’t make sense and would generate “no return” errors





    Page A for US
    Page A for UK
    Page A for AU










    Page A doesn’t exist in
    Australia, shouldn’t be
    tagged as alternate
    X
    https://domain.com/us/page-a
    https://domain.com/gb/page-a
    https://domain.com/au/page-a

    View Slide

  30. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI





    Page A for US
    Page A for UK
    Page A for AU










    In Australia, Page A is redirected
    to another URL, so that’s the one
    that should be included instead
    2) Including as alternates pages that exist but are not
    indexable (redirected, noindexed, canonicalized URLs)
    -
    https://domain.com/au/page-a-new
    https://domain.com/us/page-a
    https://domain.com/gb/page-a
    https://domain.com/au/page-a

    View Slide

  31. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI





    Page A for US
    Page A for UK
    Page A for AU










    There’s a space left after
    the “en-au” value!
    3) Including hreflang annotations with errors in syntax or
    featured language or country values, careful with spaces!
    https://domain.com/us/page-a
    https://domain.com/gb/page-a
    https://domain.com/au/page-a

    View Slide

  32. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    This is why it’s fundamental to follow some do’s and dont’s
    when implementing hreflang in your site pages

    View Slide

  33. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Don’t include
    hreflang on pages
    that don’t actually
    need it, only do it in
    those suffering from
    overlay issues with
    indexable alternates

    View Slide

  34. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    This is the reason why large & dynamic sites, like
    eCommerce, will tag categories but not/few products

    View Slide

  35. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    If you’re using popular CMS like WP this can be done with
    plugins (like WPML) automatically, but what if you’re not?
    Adding a self-referring hreflang is
    unnecessary if you don’t have alternates,
    but at least won’t generate errors either

    View Slide

  36. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Semrush & Google Search Console
    1. For your different
    country Web versions:
    Identify which pages
    are getting traffic/
    rankings from non-
    relevant markets. Eg.
    The pages from your
    Spain version getting
    traffic from Mexico
    Which of these have a Mexican
    indexable version that should be
    getting this traffic instead?

    View Slide

  37. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    2. Check which of
    these pages getting
    traffic from non-
    relevant markets
    have an indexable
    alternate version in
    the relevant ones
    Check for alternate .co.uk URLS and check their
    indexability and relevance, to verify they’re
    really featuring the same content
    .com URLs ranking in the UK
    attracting the highest traffic
    share

    View Slide

  38. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    3. Select only those that are actual alternate pages in the
    relevant market that are also indexable & create a sheet

    View Slide

  39. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    4. Once you have all
    of the pages with
    international
    misalignment issues
    and indexable
    alternates, identify
    the relevant values
    using Google
    documentation
    linking the ISO values
    https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/
    international/localized-versions#language-codes

    View Slide

  40. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    You can also get
    them, as well as the
    correct hreflang
    tags patterns for
    both HTML and
    XML sitemap
    implementation via
    my free hreflang
    tool
    https://www.aleydasolis.com/english/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/

    View Slide

  41. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Assign their relevant values

    to each URL in the sheet

    View Slide

  42. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Careful when
    trying to automate
    hreflang
    generation by
    using GPTChat,
    the values might
    be incorrect
    depending on the
    prompt
    Correct
    Incorrect

    View Slide

  43. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Wait! But, should you use x-default too? Only if you want to
    refer non-targeted users to a specific “fallback” page
    https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/
    international/localized-versions#language-codes
    For main
    branded terms
    Terms in the
    same language

    View Slide

  44. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    It’s ok to assign as an x-default a page that already

    has its own language/country value as target too








    View Slide

  45. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    It’s also ok to assign different values to the same URL

    in general, as long as they make sense for its targeting








    View Slide

  46. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    What doesn’t make sense and you shouldn’t do is

    assign the same value to different URLs!





    View Slide

  47. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    5. Now it’s time to decide the method of hreflang
    implementation, following this simple criteria
    BETTER FOR SMALL
    NUMBER OF VERSIONS
    TO TAG AND WHEN
    USING A PLATFORM
    THAT ALLOWS TO EASILY
    EDIT THE HTML HEAD
    HTML Head
    BETTER FOR BIGGER
    SITES WITH A HIGH
    NUMBER OF VERSIONS
    (+3 VERSIONS OR +1K
    PAGES) AND/OR WHEN
    YOU CAN’T EDIT YOUR
    HTML HEAD
    XML Sitemap
    WHEN SPECIFYING
    HREFLANG FOR
    NON-HTML
    DOCUMENTS LIKE
    PDFS, DOCS, ETC.
    HTTP Header

    View Slide

  48. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    BETTER FOR SMALL
    NUMBER OF VERSIONS
    TO TAG AND WHEN
    USING A PLATFORM
    THAT ALLOWS TO EASILY
    EDIT THE HTML HEAD
    HTML Head
    BETTER FOR BIGGER
    SITES WITH A HIGH
    NUMBER OF VERSIONS
    (+3 VERSIONS OR +1K
    PAGES) AND/OR WHEN
    YOU CAN’T EDIT YOUR
    HTML HEAD
    XML Sitemap
    WHEN SPECIFYING
    HREFLANG FOR
    NON-HTML
    DOCUMENTS LIKE
    PDFS, DOCS, ETC.
    HTTP Header
    My preferred one, for flexibility, especially if there are no
    dev resources, is the XML sitemap to tag static pages

    View Slide

  49. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    For this, I like to use TechnicalSEO.com's XML sitemap
    generator, that uses a CSV for which they give a template
    https://technicalseo.com/tools/xml-sitemap/

    View Slide

  50. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    You can replicate the template format by just adding the

    loc for each URL included and lastmod in your own sheet

    View Slide

  51. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    6. Export the sheet as a CSV and generate the

    XML sitemap with the technicalseo.com generator

    View Slide

  52. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    7. Validate if the XML sitemap is correctly generated by
    using an SEO crawler supporting hreflang validation
    Screaming Frog

    View Slide

  53. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    8. Troubleshoot any remaining errors and once ready,
    upload via the Google Search Console

    View Slide

  54. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    9. Monitor that the tagged pages start ranking in their
    relevant markets for their top targeted queries
    Advanced Web Ranking

    View Slide

  55. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    10. Profit! You should see the increase in traffic and
    conversions in those markets from relevant audience
    GSC & GA

    View Slide

  56. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    ● ccTLDs


    ● Country in metadata


    ● Country, Address and
    Phone numbers in pages
    copy


    ● Local language &
    currency


    ● Backlinks from local sites


    ● Connected Business
    Profile


    ● Hreflang specifying
    alternates from stronger
    same language country
    version
    Well aligned ccTLD Not Well aligned ccTLD
    Finally, remember that good geolocation is a matter

    of aligned signals not only hreflang, the more the better

    View Slide

  57. #HREFLANGSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI
    Well aligned gTLDs
    This is also true for subdirectories and subdomains too
    ● Country in metadata


    ● Country, Address and
    Phone numbers in pages
    copy


    ● Local language &
    currency


    ● Backlinks from local sites


    ● Connected Business
    Profile


    ● Hreflang specifying
    alternates from stronger
    same language country
    version

    View Slide

  58. #SEOReporting by @aleyda from @orainti
    orainti.com
    I’m Aleyda Solis


    * SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti


    * SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries


    * Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”


    * Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host


    * #SEOFOMO Newsletter Wrangler


    * Maker LearningSEO.io


    * European Search Personality of the Year in 2018


    * remoters.net Co-Founder
    Thanks

    View Slide