Hreflang and multilingual SEO: how to set it up right

What does hreflang actually do?

Hreflang is an attribute, an extra bit of information in your page's code. It tells search engines: this page also exists in English, here it is, and this version is for Dutch speakers. Google uses that to show the right version in the search results.

Worth knowing: hreflang is not a trick to rank higher. It only helps Google choose between versions you already have. It won't make a poor translation any better. Its value lies mainly in:

• The right language version in the search results, so fewer people click straight back.
• Less confusion between near-identical pages, such as Dutch for the Netherlands and Dutch for Belgium.
• A clear signal that translated pages are not copies, but deliberately made variants.

Setting up hreflang: the codes you need

Each hreflang line contains a language code and sometimes a country code. The language is written as two letters following the ISO 639-1 standard, the country as two letters following ISO 3166-1. A few examples:

• nl: Dutch, for everyone who speaks Dutch, anywhere in the world.
• nl-NL: Dutch for the Netherlands.
• nl-BE: Dutch for Belgium.
• en: English, general.
• en-GB: English for the United Kingdom. Note: it's GB, not UK.
• x-default: the page for everyone who doesn't fall into any of your other groups, often a language selection page or your English version.

Start as simply as possible. If you have one Dutch and one English version with no differences per country, nl and en are enough. Only add country codes when the content really differs, for example different prices, delivery times or contact details per country.

Three ways to add hreflang

You can put hreflang in three places. Pick one and stick with it, because mixing methods quickly leads to errors.

• In the head of each page: one link line per language version. This is the most common way and works well for most websites.
• In the HTTP header: useful for files without HTML, such as PDFs.
• In your XML sitemap: easier to manage on large websites, because the code doesn't have to go in every page.

On a well-built website, the CMS or the code handles this automatically. You fill in the translation, and the website creates the right hreflang lines itself. If you have to do this by hand for every page, it will go wrong sooner or later.

Where multilingual SEO often goes wrong

Hreflang looks simple, but one small mistake can invalidate the whole set. These are the mistakes we come across most often:

• No return link. If the Dutch page links to the English one, the English page must also link back to the Dutch one. Otherwise Google ignores the connection.
• No self-reference. Each page also lists its own language version.
• Wrong codes, such as en-UK, nl-NL for Belgium or a country without a language.
• Canonical pointing to another language. The canonical tag, which says which page is the original, should point to the same language version. If the English page has a canonical pointing to the Dutch page, the English page disappears from Google.
• Links to pages that redirect or don't exist. Hreflang must point to the final, working URL.
• Half-translated pages. An English page with Dutch menus and buttons looks messy to Google and to visitors.

More than code: multilingual SEO per market

Hreflang is the technical part. Multilingual SEO goes further: in each language you want to be found for the words people there actually type. Those are often not literal translations. Someone from Flanders sometimes searches with different words than someone from Utrecht, and a German uses very different terms than your translation tool suggests.

• Do keyword research per language and per country, not just in Dutch.
• Write a separate meta title and meta description for each language.
• Translate the URLs, so they are readable in the visitor's language.
• Set the correct lang attribute on the page, so browsers and screen readers know which language they are reading.
• Make each language version link internally to pages in the same language.

Also choose a clear URL structure. Folders such as /en/ and /de/ on your own domain are the easiest for most small and medium-sized businesses, because all your authority stays on one domain.

How do you check that hreflang is correct?

Once it is set up, you want to know whether Google understands it. Here's how:

• Look at the source code of a few pages and check that all language versions, including the page itself, are in the list.
• Click each hreflang URL and check it loads directly, without a redirect.
• Use a crawler, a tool that goes through your whole site, to find missing return links.
• Check in Google Search Console which pages are indexed and which ones Google sees as duplicates.
• Search Google yourself with a different language and country setting and see which version appears.

You'll find more technical points to check in our technical SEO checklist.

How Violexa helps with hreflang and multilingual SEO

On the websites we build, hreflang is part of the code as standard. You manage the translations in the CMS and the website creates the right language codes, return links and sitemaps itself. We did this, for example, for Rijschool Benz, whose site works in Dutch, English and Arabic. You can see that project on our work page.

A custom website, including SEO basics, starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT). If you already have a multilingual site and want someone to handle the SEO per language, that's possible through online marketing from €599 excl. VAT (€725 incl. VAT) per month, cancellable monthly.

Not sure whether your multilingual website is set up correctly? Book a free quickscan. In a 30-minute conversation we look at your situation together, and afterwards you get short written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.

Frequently asked questions