Glossary
What is hreflang?
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and country a page is written for, and where the versions for other markets are.
Why it matters
A company with pages for the US, the UK and Germany wants each reader to land on their own version. Without hreflang, search engines may show the US page in UK results, or treat near-identical English pages as duplicates.
How we handle it
Each version of a page lists all the other versions and itself. Every link has to be returned: if the US page points to the German page, the German page must point back. A single missing return link can make search engines ignore the whole set, so we validate the tags after every release.
Related service: International SEO services
Related terms
Keep reading
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Canonical tag
A canonical tag is a line in the HTML of a page that tells search engines which URL is the main version when several URLs show the same or very similar content.
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Indexation
Indexation is the step in which a search engine stores a page in its database, called the index.
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