The hreflang declaration tells search engines and browsers about the language you’re using on a specific page. It helps the search engine deliver results that match the user’s language or location if a relevant website version is available. For example, a search engine will redirect users from China to the simplified Chinese version of your web pages instead of bringing them to the English website.
Follow the video link below for audio-visual help on learning how to fix pages referenced for more than one language in hreflang:
You can also follow this guide to learn how to let Google know about the versions of your web pages designed for different languages or regions.
What Does “Duplicate Page in Hreflang” Mean?
We understand that the work of a website developer isn’t easy. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that you’ve already used the same URL as a reference for a language in hreflang tags. You may miss the fact that you’ve already used it as a reference in another hreflang annotation.
What Triggers This Issue?
When you encounter this error, it means you have used duplicate URLs for more than one language in the hreflang annotations.
How To Check the Issue
The best and only way to check the issue is to review all the pages listed in the report referenced with more than one dialect in hreflang annotations. You may also notice this when users complain about seeing language errors when they attempt to visit your website.
Page referenced for more than one language in hreflang analysis is not enough to optimize your site for search engines!
Make a full audit to find out and fix your technical SEO in order to improve your SERP results.
Why Is This Important?
Using URLs for more than one language in hreflang creates contradicting instructions. It confuses the search engines that are crawling the page. They don’t know which version of the page or content to show the user visiting the page.
How To Fix the Issue
The first step to fixing the problem is to review all the pages listed in the report. Look for pages with references for two or more languages in hreflang annotations. Next, edit the hreflang annotations. Make sure you choose only one language per page version. However, this doesn’t limit you to referencing it for different locations. The essential factor is that it still uses one language. For example, if you reference a page for the English language, you can use it for US, UK, Australian, or Canadian English.
