Hreflang Tag Generator

What this tool does

Hreflang Tag Generator turns a list of language or region codes and URLs into the alternate markup search engines use to serve the right version of a page. It validates ISO 639-1 language codes and ISO 3166-1 region codes, catches common mistakes such as UK instead of GB, and outputs HTML link tags, XML sitemap xhtml:link entries or an HTTP Link header for non-HTML files such as PDFs.

When a site publishes the same content in several languages or for several regions, search engines need a way to know those pages are alternates of each other rather than duplicate content. The hreflang annotation does that job, but the codes are easy to get wrong: countries are sometimes used where a language is required, region codes get typed as the everyday abbreviation rather than the ISO standard, and a set of pages that is not fully reciprocal silently stops working.

This generator takes a plain list of “code URL” pairs, normalises the casing of each code and checks the language portion against ISO 639-1 and the optional region against ISO 3166-1, rejecting values such as UK, EU or UN that are not real country codes. It then builds the three forms a site might need: HTML link elements for a page head, xhtml:link entries for an XML sitemap, or a single HTTP Link header for files that have no head element at all, such as a hosted PDF.

How to use Hreflang Tag Generator

1. List each language version as “code URL”, one per line, for example “en-GB https://www.example.com/uk/”.
2. Use a language-only code such as “de” for a version aimed at all speakers of a language, and a language-region code such as “fr-CA” for a specific country.
3. Set an x-default URL for visitors whose language or region is not listed, or leave it empty if every case is covered.
4. Choose the Output format: HTML link tags for a page head, XML sitemap entries, or an HTTP Link header for non-HTML files.
5. Check the preview for languages that have no generic, language-only fallback and for the x-default warning.
6. Copy the result onto every page in the set, since each alternate must list the full set including itself.

Tips for better results

• Add every page in the set to the markup on every page in the set; a one-way link is ignored because hreflang must be reciprocal.
• Use a language-only code such as “en” alongside region codes such as “en-GB” and “en-US” to catch visitors from countries you have not listed individually.
• Set an x-default for a language or country selector page, or for a global version meant for everyone else.
• Put the same hreflang set in the XML sitemap instead of the page head when a site has thousands of translated pages, to avoid repeating the tags on every request.

Common use cases

• Linking the UK, US and generic English versions of a product page together.
• Publishing hreflang entries inside a sitemap for a large multilingual catalogue.
• Adding a Link header to a translated PDF or other non-HTML document that has no head element.
• Checking a drafted set of codes before sending them to a developer to paste into page templates.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Using UK as a region code; the ISO 3166-1 code for the United Kingdom is GB, so the correct pair is en-GB.
• Writing a region code without a language, such as just “GB”; hreflang always needs a language first.
• Forgetting to add the same set of alternate links to every page in the group, breaking the required reciprocity.
• Pointing hreflang at a redirecting or noindexed URL instead of the final, indexable page.