Google's New hreflang For Multilingual & Multinational Sites

Apr 10, 2013 - 8:31 am 3 — by

google multilingualHonestly, I thought I covered this on Friday based on a post by Google's Pierre Far but he went again and posted a new post on Google+ referencing a blog post he published this morning on the Google Webmaster Blog on a new hreflang tag. The post on Friday was about using the rel-alternate-hreflang across domains. Today's post is about different home pages that use the Accept-Language HTTP header.

In short, Google and Yandex support a new tag for sites that are multinational and multilingual websites and redirect or change the content of the pages for those users. This new tag helps Google and Yandex understand those redirects and content.

How does this work? Well, the example Pierre gave includes the following URL scenario:

  • http://example.com/en-gb: For English-speaking users in the UK
  • http://example.com/en-us: For English-speaking users in the USA
  • http://example.com/en-au: For English-speaking users in Australia
  • http://example.com/: The homepage shows users a country selector and is the default page for users worldwide

The code you would use on these pages include:

Code Sample

For more details see the Google blog post.

Forum discussion at Google+ and WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Google Search Volatility

More Details

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Ads

Google Ads API Version 25.2 Now Available

Sep 23, 2026 - 7:42 pm
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: September 23, 2026

Sep 23, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google News

CMA: Google Should Make It Easier To Choose Other Search Engine On Android & Chrome

Sep 23, 2026 - 7:55 am
Google Ads

Test Google Ads AI Max Against Dynamic Search Ads

Sep 23, 2026 - 7:51 am
Bing Ads

Bing Tests Favicons On Shopping Ads Carousel

Sep 23, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Hreflang Examples To Uppercase Codes - But It Doesn't Matter

Sep 23, 2026 - 7:31 am
Previous Story: Google AdWords Enhanced Ad Group Mobile Bid Adjustments