Free Hreflang Checker

It tests the hreflang set on one page and whether every page in that set agrees. Google accepts hreflang in three places: link tags in the HTML head, the HTTP Link header, and xhtml:link entries in a sitemap. The checker reads the first two from the page and the third from a sitemap you name, and shows where each annotation came from.

• Every code, checked against the ISO 639-1 language list and the ISO 3166-1 region list, the two Google supports, with a script such as zh-Hant allowed.
• Whether the page lists itself, which Google says each version must do.
• Whether there is an x-default, which Google recommends for the fallback page.
• Whether one language points at two different URLs, and whether any alternate URL is written without http or https.
• Each alternate page, up to 20: whether it answers, redirects, is marked noindex, names another canonical, and lists every version back.

It is an alternate that does not point back. If the English page lists the German page, the German page must list the English page too. Google says that if two pages don't both point to each other, the tags will be ignored, so a one-way annotation does nothing.

The matrix shows this directly. Each row is a page in the set and each column a language this page lists. A cell marked missing means that row's page does not list that column's version at the same URL. Fix the cells in the column for this page's own language first: those are the return links Google needs before it uses the pair.

Return links must match exactly. A link back to http:// when the page answers on https://, or to a version without the trailing slash, points at a different URL, so the checker counts it as missing.

Google supports language codes from ISO 639-1 and region codes from ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2, with the language first: en, en-US, de-AT, fr-CA. A region on its own is not valid, so gb or us alone is flagged. You can name a script with ISO 15924, as in zh-Hant or zh-Hans.

Common mistakes the checker names: an underscore instead of a hyphen (en_US), a region code that does not exist (UK is not a valid region code; the United Kingdom is GB, so en-GB), and old language codes such as iw for Hebrew. Google also says that EU, UN or UK in an hreflang value has no effect in Google Search.

Google recommends it, and it is not required. x-default names the page for visitors whose language or region the set does not list, such as a language picker or your main international page. The checker notes a missing x-default as a suggestion, not an error.

x-default must follow the same rules as any other annotation: it should point at a page that answers 200 and lists the rest of the set, and every page in the set should list it. It appears as its own column in the matrix, so you can see which pages leave it out.

Yes. Add the sitemap's address and the checker reads the xhtml:link entries in the url entry for this page, then those for each alternate, so return links declared only in the sitemap count. A sitemap index lists other sitemaps rather than pages, so enter the file that lists the page itself.

The HTTP Link header lets a file without an HTML head, such as a PDF, declare alternates, and some sites send it for pages too. The checker reads it on the page and on every alternate. When the same annotation appears in more than one place, the set lists it once with each source named.

Each alternate is fetched once without following redirects, so a redirect is reported where it starts instead of hidden. The checker reads the HTML each server sends and does not run JavaScript: annotations added by a script are not seen.

Every rule this checker applies comes from Google's hreflang documentation, checked on the date shown. The language and region lists are the ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code sets Google names.

• Google: Tell Google about localized versions of your page

  Source · Checked Oct 29, 2026