Validate Hreflang Using the Audisto Crawler
Check your hreflang implementation for inconsistencies
With our crawler we offer a full-featured hreflang tag tester / checker / validator capable of validating hreflang across all possible data sources even in multi domain environments.
For multilingual and multi-region websites it is desirable to tell search engines which is the preferred version of a page. This can be achieved through the hreflang attribute in the HTML <head>, the HTTP header or as hreflang extension within XML sitemaps.
A detailed explanation on hreflang can be found in our in depth hreflang guide.
Enable Hreflang Validation
The Audisto Crawler automatically validates all hreflang related links it encounters, if including <link> elements and links from XML sitemaps is enabled.
The setting can be found in the "Links" section of the project settings, and the crawl settings dialog.
Note: Hava a look at our detailed information about crawling of XML sitemaps.
Hreflang Report
The hreflang report can be found within the "On-page" section within the "Current Crawl" menu. The report shows all Hreflang Groups. An Hreflang Group consists of all pages that are connected by hreflang links.
For each group, the report shows:
- Title: The group's title
- Status: The overall status
- Members: The number of pages in this group
- Top Pages: Some exemplary pages that are members of this group
- Hints: All hints that were triggered for this group
Clicking on a title brings up a detailed report for a group.
Hreflang Status
Hreflang groups have a status. This is one of these values:
- OK: No problems detected
- Uncertain: The crawler does not have enough information, e.g. because pages are known but not crawled
- Problem: We detected problems, that might need fixing
- Error: We detected errors, that require fixing
Hints
To point out specific problems, we provide a set of hints. These are:
- Document has invalid language
- Document has no language
- Document linked twice or more
- HTTP status not 200 - OK
- Hreflang < document language
- Hreflang > document language
- Hreflang and document language differ
- Invalid language
- Languages are not unique
- Links outside
<head>discarded - Malformed links discarded
- Partially Unknown: Not all URLs are crawled
- Redirect only allowed for x-default
- Self link missing
- URL has no incoming hreflang links
- URL not crawled
- Unbalanced: Not all documents are linked evenly
See detailed information on hints here.
Hreflang Group Report
The group reports shows status information for the group and lists all hints and pages that are members of this group. Since each page has its own status and hints, it is easy to track down problems caused by individual pages.
Fore each page, the report shows:
- URL: The URL of the page
- HTTP Status: The HTTP status code - should be "200 - OK"
- Document Language: The language of the page, as stated in the
<html lang>attribute - Status: The status of the page
- Hreflang Language: The languages used in the hreflang attribute
- Links Incoming: The number of hreflang links pointing to this page
- Links Outgoing: The number of hreflang links pointing from this page to other pages
- Hints: Hints on possible problems of this page
Validating Hreflang Across Several Domains
Localized content often is split across several language related domains, e.g.
- .com for English content
- .de for German content
- .fr for French content
To crawl and analyze all these different domains, the Audisto Crawler can be configured to crawl across domain boundaries.
There is a detailed help on configuring domains, but basically the steps are the following:
- Open "Account/Sites" in the menu and add all your domains
- Verify all domains - this is important!
- Edit your project settings, and add all your domains as "Additional Domains"
- Check which additional domains should be crawled in project or crawl settings
The crawler will now detect and analyze links between all these domains.