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What Is Hreflang and When Should It Be Used for Multilingual Websites?

What hreflang tags are, when to use them on multilingual Newsifier websites, and how they help Google serve the right language version to the right audience.

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Written by Support Newsifier

Introduction

If your website publishes articles in multiple languages or across multiple domains, search engines need to know which version of a page should be shown to each user.

The hreflang attribute helps search engines understand the relationship between translated pages. This allows search engines to show the correct language version of a page in search results.

What is hreflang?

The hreflang attribute is a technical SEO tag used to tell search engines which language or regional version of a page should be shown to users.

It is mainly used when the same article exists in multiple languages.

For example:

https://www.example.com/en/article-title 
https://www.example.com/nl/article-title

In this case:

  • /en/ is the English version

  • /nl/ is the Dutch version

Hreflang tells search engines that these pages contain the same content in different languages, so they can show the correct version depending on the user's language or location.

Examples of hreflang setup 

https://www.example.com/article-title
https://www.example.com/nl/article-title 
https://www.example.de/article-title

Why hreflang is important

Using hreflang helps both search engines and users.

  • Show the correct language in search results
    Search engines can show the version that matches the user’s language or region, so visitors land on content they can read.
    ​

  • Prevent duplicate content issues
    Translated pages can sometimes look like duplicate content to search engines.
    Hreflang clarifies that the pages are translations intended for different audiences, not duplicates.
    ​

  • Improve user experience and SEO
    When users land on the correct language version of a page, they are more likely to stay on the page and engage with the content.

Canonical vs hreflang

It is important to understand the difference between canonical tags and hreflang tags.

Situation

Recommended tag

Identical content duplicated

Canonical

Same content translated into another language

Hreflang

  • Canonical tag
    A canonical tag tells search engines: “This is the original version of the page.”
    Other versions may not appear in search results.
    ​

  • Hreflang tag
    A hreflang tag tells search engines:
    “These pages contain the same content but in different languages.”
    Search engines can then show the correct version depending on the user.

Important

❌ Do not use canonical tags between translated pages
✅ Use hreflang for translated content
​

When NOT to use hreflang

Hreflang works page by page. Two websites don't need to be full translations of each other. Each pair of linked pages, though, must be the same content in another language.

  • ✅ A Dutch news article and its English translation → use hreflang

  • ❌ An article that exists on only one site → no hreflang

  • ❌ Category or tag pages that share a name (e.g. /nieuws ↔ /news) but list different articles on each site → no hreflang

Google only accepts hreflang between pages that really match. See Google's guidance on localized versions.

Where hreflang is implemented in Newsifier

When hreflang is enabled for your website, Newsifier automatically adds hreflang tags to several types of pages. This helps search engines understand which pages belong together across different languages or domains.

Hreflang can be applied to the following page types:

  • Homepage

  • Articles

  • Author pages

  • Static pages (for example: About or Contact pages)

  • Category and Tag pages

  • RSS feeds

Some of these connections are created automatically, while others depend on how content is mapped between connected websites in Newsifier.

  1. Automatically connected pages

    The following page types are typically connected automatically when multiple domains are part of the same Newsifier setup:
    ​

    • Homepages

    • RSS feeds
      ​

    These pages will automatically reference the available language versions across your connected websites.
    ​

  2. Pages connected through resource mapping

    Other page types are connected based on the resource mapping configuration in Newsifier.


    This includes:

    • Articles sent to the other website through multisite publishing with translation (each article links to its own translation). Articles copied manually or published on only one site get no hreflang.

    • Author pages that exist across multiple websites

    • Static pages that exist in different language versions

    • Tag pages representing the same topic across websites

      • Categories are tags in Newsifier, so category pages (for example /news) follow the same rules as tag pages.

Resource mapping allows Newsifier to understand which pages belong together so that the correct hreflang relationships can be generated.

To learn more about how this works, see How to Use Resource Mapping

⚠️ Don't delete resource mappings to remove hreflang. Multisite publishing uses the same category/tag mappings to place sent articles in the right category. Without them, sent articles can arrive with no main category and be saved as unpublished. Use the Disable Hreflang In Pages setting instead.

Disable hreflang for specific page types

If your websites share some translated content (for example short news articles) but run their own categories and tags, you can keep hreflang where it fits and switch it off for other page types.

  • Who: website admins.

  • Where: Settings → Other → Hreflang Alternatives → Disable Hreflang In Pages

    This setting appears only when hreflang is enabled for your website.

  1. Select the page types where hreflang links should not be added:

    • Tag (also covers category pages)

    • Article

    • Author

  2. Save.

  3. Apply the same setting on every connected website. If you only change one site, the other will still point back.

Result: hreflang is removed from the page <head> and from the sitemap for the selected page types.

  • Page types you don't select keep their hreflang as before.

  • To undo, clear the field and save.

How to verify if hreflang is active

You can check if hreflang is active by viewing the page source of your website.

Step 1 — Open a page
Open a page on your website, such as an article or the homepage.

Step 2 — View the page source
Right-click on the page and select View Page Source.

Step 3 — Search for hreflang
Press Ctrl + F and search for: hreflang

If hreflang is active, you will see tags similar to this:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/article" /> 
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="nl" href="https://example.com/nl/article" />

Step 4 — Check the sitemap
Hreflang also appears in the sitemaps. Open yourdomain.com/sitemap/tags.xml and search for xhtml:link to check category and tag pages.

Note: Hreflang tags will only appear when equivalent pages exist in other languages or domains and only for page types where hreflang hasn't been disabled.

Turning hreflang on or off for the whole site

Hreflang configuration depends on your website structure and CMS setup.

If you want to activate or deactivate hreflang, you can contact the Newsifier support team.

Please include the following information:

  • The website domain(s)

  • The languages used

  • Whether the articles are translations of each other

  • Which page types have a real translated equivalent on the other site (for example: articles yes, categories no)

Our support team will review your setup and configure hreflang if needed.

To turn hreflang off only for certain page types, see Disable hreflang for specific page types above.

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