Hreflang Checker
Hreflang only pays off when your language versions point back at each other, and Google ignores the ones that do not. This free hreflang checker reads the tags on a page or in your sitemap and tells you in seconds which alternates link back and which have quietly dropped out of the set.
This checked one URL, once.
VitalSentinel Indexing Monitoring keeps watching this around the clock, so you never have to run the check again. You hear about it the moment something changes.
Free plan, no credit cardWhat it checks
- Finds your hreflang tags in the page HTML, in the Link response header, and inside an XML sitemap when you give it a sitemap URL instead of a page
- Checks two-letter language codes against the official ISO 639-1 list and countries against ISO 3166-1, so en-UK is reported as the error it is
- Fetches up to 15 of the alternates and looks for a link back on each, including the near misses that point at a www or trailing-slash version of your URL
- Flags a page that does not list itself, a missing x-default, and a canonical that contradicts the set
What it does not
- It reads the HTML your server sends, so hreflang tags added by JavaScript are invisible here. Google renders pages, so it may still see them
- Hreflang in a sitemap needs the sitemap URL, and there the pairing is judged inside that one file: an alternate listed in a different sitemap reads as unpaired
- It checks return links one step out, not whether your alternates agree with each other
- We fetch from one location as VitalSentinel Free Tools Bot. A site that redirects or swaps its HTML by visitor location may show us a different page than it shows Googlebot
Questions
- What is a return link, and why does hreflang need one?
- It is the matching tag on the other page. If your English page names the German one, the German page has to name the English one back. Google treats a one-sided tag as unconfirmed and can ignore the pair. Each page also has to list itself, so five languages means five tags on each of the five pages.
- Should I use en-US or just en?
- Use en unless you genuinely publish a separate page for visitors in the United States. Adding a country narrows the match rather than widening it: en-US aims at English speakers Google places in the US, so anyone else reaches it only when no other version fits. Naming an x-default is what covers those visitors.
- What does x-default do, and do I need one?
- x-default names the version to show a visitor whose language matches none of the ones you offer. It is optional, and a set without one still works, but every unmatched visitor then lands on whichever version Google picks. A language selector, a global landing page, or your most widely understood version are the usual choices.
- My hreflang is valid but Google shows the wrong language version. Why?
- Hreflang does not force a result. It cannot override a canonical pointing somewhere else, or rescue a version that is blocked from indexing. Check the canonical on each version, then confirm every version can be indexed.
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