Alternate link errors

Here you will see problems with alternate (hreflang) links on your website.

Why alternate links are important for SEO:

If you're using different languages or regionalized content on your website, you should use alternate links to tell search engines which URL version of a page is intended for which languages and regions.

This helps search engines to display the correct version of a page in their different country searches (e.g. Google.co.uk, Google.es or Google.fr).

It also helps them understand if multiple URLs are different language/country versions of the same page, rather than duplicate content. For example, if a website has different versions of a page for the US and the UK, alternate links can ensure that these two pages are not considered duplicates.

Best practices to consider when using alternate links:

• Every page that uses alternate links should also have a link to itself. For example, a page in English should also have a link to itself with hreflang="en".
• Alternate links must always be set in both directions. For example, if an English page links to the French version, the French version should also link back to the English version.
• Language and country information in alternate links should use the ISO standard (e.g. "en", "en-US" or "es-US").

You can find more information on how to use alternate links correctly in our wiki.

What the notes in the "Problems" column mean:

• Self-referential alternate link is missing: The page does not contain an alternate link to the page itself.
• Language specified more than once: The page contains multiple alternate links with the same language specification.
• Link target appears more than once: The page contains multiple alternate links with the same target URL.
• Backlink on target not found: An alternate link on this page points to a URL that does not link back to the page.
• Different language for link pointing to page itself: There is a language conflict on the page itself (for example, if the alternate link to the page itself does not match the lang attribute).

Click "Details" to get more information about the specific problem.

For an overview of possible hreflang tag issues and how to fix them, check out our blog post.