hreflang & International SEO Auditor
The hreflang Checker crawls up to 300 pages and validates every tag for the errors that break international targeting: missing return tags, invalid ISO codes, x-default problems and canonical conflicts. Enter your site or sitemap URL below - full cluster report, free.
What the hreflang Checker validates
It crawls up to 300 pages of your site or reads your sitemap directly, then checks every hreflang annotation for the errors that actually break international targeting: missing return tags, invalid ISO language and country codes, missing or duplicated x-default, canonical conflicts, missing self-referential tags, and duplicate locale targets.
Why hreflang fails silently
hreflang is the only major SEO annotation with no error report. Search Console won't warn you that a return tag is missing - Google just ignores the whole cluster, and your German page quietly ranks in Austria while your UK page shows in the US. The failure modes are consistent, which is why they can be checked mechanically. This tool is the first step in every international SEO engagement I run.
Fixing what it finds
Return-tag and code errors are template fixes - usually one change in the layer that generates your alternates. Canonical conflicts need more care: the canonical always wins, so a canonicalised URL in an hreflang cluster invalidates its entry. Work through errors before warnings, re-run to verify, and if the cluster logic itself is the problem, that's what I do.
What the audit covers
Questions about the hreflang & International SEO Auditor
What is hreflang and why does it matter?
hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which version of a page to show based on a user's language and region. A broken hreflang implementation causes the wrong language version to rank, cannibalizes your own pages, or blocks international pages from indexing entirely.
What hreflang errors does this tool detect?
Missing reciprocal tags (the most common error), broken return tags, missing x-default, invalid ISO language/region codes, self-referential hreflang, multiple hreflang for the same locale, and conflicts between hreflang and canonical tags.
How many URLs will the hreflang auditor check?
The free version checks up to 50 URLs with their full hreflang networks. For large international sites with thousands of language variants, the full audit is available through consulting.
Tools find issues. I fix them.
If the hreflang & International SEO Auditor flags something you don't know how to act on, send me the report - the first look is free.