International SEO and Hreflang
If you serve audiences in different countries or languages, international SEO makes sure each visitor lands on the right version of your site. The hreflang tag is the mechanism that tells Google which language and region each page is intended for.
Get it right and a French visitor sees French pages while a UK visitor sees UK pricing — without your versions competing against one another in the results.
Choosing a Structure
There are three common ways to organise an international site, each with trade-offs in cost and clarity.
- Country-specific domains, such as
.co.ukand.fr. - Subdirectories, such as
/uk/and/fr/. - Subdomains, such as
uk.andfr..
The Role of Hreflang
Hreflang annotations link the equivalent pages together so Google serves the correct one and does not treat them as duplicates. They must be reciprocal and accurate, which is why we generate and validate them carefully.
Avoiding Common Errors
Most hreflang problems come from missing return tags, wrong language or region codes, or pointing to URLs that redirect. Even small mistakes can stop the whole setup working, so we test the implementation and monitor the International Targeting reports for warnings.
If you need a hand with any of this, your Progressive Robot delivery team is ready to help. Raise a ticket from the Support area of your client portal or speak to your account manager and we will guide you through the next steps.