What Tools Can Be Used To Validate Hreflang Implementation?

Story Based Question

Imagine you’re managing a multinational e-commerce website that caters to customers in several countries and languages. Recently, your company expanded into new markets, and your team implemented hreflang tags to serve the correct language version of your site to users worldwide. After a month, you notice traffic from certain regions isn’t improving as expected, and you suspect something might be wrong with the hreflang implementation.

How would you validate that the hreflang tags are set up correctly to avoid traffic loss?

Exact Answer

You can validate hreflang implementation using tools like Google Search Console’s International Targeting Report, the Ahrefs Site Audit tool, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Ryte Hreflang Validator, and SEMrush.

Explanation

The hreflang attribute tells search engines which language and regional version of your site to serve users. When it’s implemented incorrectly—like pointing to the wrong URLs, missing reciprocals, or having conflicting tags—it can confuse search engines and hurt your international SEO strategy.

Here’s where tools step in:

• Google Search Console offers the International Targeting Report. It highlights common hreflang issues like incorrect language-region codes or missing reciprocal links.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider scans your site for hreflang errors, including incomplete implementations and incorrect tag formats.
• Ahrefs Site Audit checks for advanced issues, such as conflicting language-region codes, and shows their impact on rankings.
• Ryte Hreflang Validator specializes in deep analysis of hreflang setups, checking for broken links and misconfigurations.
• SEMrush gives an overview of hreflang status during a site audit, flagging missing or incorrect tags.

Using these tools together gives you a thorough understanding of your site’s international targeting health.

Example

In the story, your team suspects an issue with the hreflang tags on your newly launched French version of the website. You use Google Search Console’s International Targeting Report and find that some hreflang annotations are pointing to a 404 page. Next, you run Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify additional misconfigurations and notice that reciprocal tags (e.g., English to French and French to English) are missing.

After fixing these errors, you test again using Ryte Hreflang Validator. This tool confirms that all annotations are now correctly implemented, and within a few weeks, you see improved organic traffic from France.