Hreflang Checker
Collects the hreflang tags on the page and flags the classic mistakes: invalid language or region codes, a missing x-default and clusters that never reference themselves.
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What does this tool look at?
Everything that decides whether Google can crawl and index your page: tags, redirects, robots, sitemaps and server responses.
- Invalid language and region codes
- Missing self-reference in the cluster
- Whether x-default is declared
- Relative URLs and duplicate declarations
What this tool measures
If the same page exists in Turkish, English and German, Google needs to know which version to show to whom. hreflang tags say exactly that: “the German equivalent of this page lives at that address.” Without them the three versions look like copies of each other and Google picks one while suppressing the rest.
The hard part of hreflang is that it has to be reciprocal. If page A points at B, then B must point back at A and also list itself. A single missing line anywhere in the cluster can invalidate the whole cluster.
The tool collects the <link rel="alternate" hreflang="…"> tags on the page and checks the five classic mistakes: an invalid language code, the same code written twice, a missing x-default, a cluster with no self-reference, and relative addresses.
How to use it
- 1
Enter the address of a multilingual page
Pick a real content page rather than the homepage; the faults usually show up on template-generated pages.
- 2
Read the declared languages table
Each row says whether the code is valid. An invalid code makes that row meaningless to Google.
- 3
Confirm the self-reference row
The page you entered must appear in its own list. Without it, Google treats the cluster as incomplete.
- 4
Repeat the check on the other languages
Reciprocity only holds if every version checks out. One missing line in one version breaks the cluster.
When to use it
- After adding a second language to the site, to confirm the tags were wired correctly.
- When Search Console's International Targeting report shows “no return tags”.
- When visitors in Germany keep getting served the Turkish page and you need the reason.
- When you separated country versions of the same language (en-GB, en-US) and want the codes verified.
Reading the result
Invalid language code
The format must follow the ISO standard: “tr”, “en-US”, “de-DE”. “turkish”, “tr_TR” and “en-UK” are all invalid; the UK is GB.
No x-default
When a visitor matches none of the languages in the cluster, it is unclear where they should land. The main language version usually becomes x-default.
Self-reference missing
Every page must also declare its own hreflang row. That is the rule that lets Google assemble the full cluster.
Relative address
hreflang requires an absolute URL, starting with https. A relative row is silently discarded.
Duplicate code
The same language points at two different addresses. Google cannot resolve the contradiction and drops the cluster.
Questions about the Hreflang Checker
No. hreflang is only needed when the same content exists in more than one language or country version. On a single-language site the only thing to get right is the lang attribute on the html element.
Both are valid, but pick one. Putting them in the HTML is easy on small sites, with every language listed in each page's head. On sites with thousands of pages the sitemap approach scales better because it keeps the page template lean.
It can. Each language version's canonical must point at ITSELF. If you set the German page's canonical to the Turkish one, you cancel your own hreflang cluster.
Only if the content genuinely differs. If price, currency, shipping or legal text changes by country, separating en-GB and en-US pays off. If the copy is word for word identical, one “en” row is enough.
Use it alongside these
The other tools in the same category. Run them together and you see the whole picture.
The tool found the problem. Now for the fix
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