Google: We Ignore The HTML lang Attribute

Nov 10, 2016 - 8:14 am 5 by

Google Hreflang

Google's John Mueller confirmed that they completely ignore the HTML lang attribute for determining the language and region of the page. John said this at the 55:54 mark into the video hangout from last week.

Instead, John said you should use hreflang markup.

The question was:

So how important is it to display in the HTML code, the language of the site, if you already declared it in Google Search Console, for example.

John Mueller replied:

We don't use that at all.

So we use the hreflang links if you have that if you have different language versions. But the language attribute within the HTML markup is something we don't use at all. We've found that this language markup is something that is almost always wrong. So we tend to ignore that.

They go on a bit more about the topic and you can watch it below:

Forum discussion at Google+.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 1, 2024

Nov 1, 2024 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Update Coming Soon, Downgrading Content, AI Overviews Expands, ChatGPT Search, Volatility Continues & Unauthorized Ad Rep Changes

Nov 1, 2024 - 8:01 am
Google Updates

Halloween 2024 Google Search Ranking Update 👻

Nov 1, 2024 - 7:51 am
Other Search Engines

OpenAI Releases ChatGPT Search: Citations, Robots.txt Controls & More

Nov 1, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google AI Answers In Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries & About This Place

Nov 1, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

Google Tests Discover More Places & Explore Places Nearby

Nov 1, 2024 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google Testing New AMP News Carousel Design?