How do hreflang and canonical fit together?

If you introduce hreflang, your website often already has canonical tags. Then the interplay matters. If a URL asks at the same time not to be indexed and to be shown as a language version, Google has to decide for itself. This guide shows how the two fit together.

What does a URL tell Google?

A family picture helps. Duplicates in the same language are twins, versions in other languages or countries are cousins. A canonical chooses between twins, hreflang introduces the cousins.

With conflicting signals, Google decides for itself which URL goes into the index. Clear signals avoid this situation.

The rule in practice

1. Every language or country version gets a canonical pointing to itself.
2. Only these canonical URLs carry hreflang. Each lists itself and all other versions.
3. Duplicates within one language, such as parameter or color variants, point to their main version by canonical and get no hreflang.
4. hreflang only points to canonical URLs with status 200. Redirecting URLs or URLs blocked by robots.txt do not belong in it.
5. No canonical from one language or country version to another if both should appear in search.

What it looks like when it is right

The German page references itself and the English version. The color variant only points to the main page by canonical.

How the conflict arises

The English page points to the German one by canonical and at the same time declares itself the English version by hreflang.

Google states that with hreflang, the canonical should point to a page in the same language. If there is none, use the best possible substitute language. Canonical basics are in the guide Canonical tags, codes and x-default in the guide hreflang.

Same language, several countries

Pages for Germany, Austria and Switzerland are often almost identical. Google may treat them as duplicates and choose one of them as canonical. According to Google's documentation, search still shows the matching regional URL via hreflang. A self-referencing canonical per version therefore remains correct. A canonical from de-AT to de-DE, on the other hand, deliberately takes the Austrian version out of the index, and the hreflang on it contradicts this.

If you need one version for several countries, you can also give a URL several hreflang values. How that works is explained in the guide Multiple hreflang values on one URL.

Exception: separate mobile URLs

Websites with their own mobile URLs, for example on m.example.com, follow a rule of their own. The mobile URL points to the desktop URL by canonical, and the desktop URL is always the canonical one. You still set hreflang on both. Mobile URLs reference mobile URLs by hreflang, desktop URLs reference desktop URLs. That is what Google's documentation on mobile-first indexing says today. On new websites, this case is rare.

What has changed since?

The core rule is now part of Google's own documentation. The canonical belongs in the same language, and Google prefers URLs that are part of an hreflang cluster. Google has retired the International Targeting report in Search Console but continues to support hreflang. Today you check for errors with URL Inspection and a crawl.

How to check your website

A crawl reads the canonical and all hreflang tags for every URL. From this you filter three lists.

If a script only sets canonical or hreflang in the browser, compare the raw source with the rendered HTML. How hreflang works via Google Tag Manager is shown in the guide hreflang with Google Tag Manager.

Common mistakes

• All country versions point to the main version by canonical, yet hreflang is still set.
• Parameter or filter URLs carry hreflang even though they canonicalize to another URL.
• hreflang points to the non-canonical variant of a page, such as the one without a slash.
• A redirecting homepage carries hreflang. x-default is meant for selector or redirect pages.
• A single-language website gets hreflang without a second version.

FAQ