International SEO hinges on correct hreflang implementation and market‑appropriate content. Use ISO language and region codes, stable URLs, and reciprocal annotations across alternates.
The hreflang value format follows ______.
any custom site code, e.g., ENGLISH‑UK
IETF time zone rules
language (ISO 639‑1) plus optional region (ISO 3166‑1), e.g., en‑GB
country code only, e.g., GB
Which page set is valid for hreflang annotations?
Pages should canonicalize to a single market page
Only sitemaps may carry hreflang without HTML or headers
Each language/region page references itself and all alternates reciprocally
Only the homepage uses hreflang
When is x‑default appropriate?
For a generic fallback or selector page that isn’t targeted to a specific language/region
For pages that block indexing
For product pages with dynamic pricing
For the primary English page in every market
Which practice avoids cloaking and preserves correct indexing across markets?
Rewrite content in place per IP without changing URLs
Use cookie‑only routing with identical URLs
302 redirect every visitor to a market guess
Serve stable URLs and let users switch markets, avoiding forced geo‑IP redirects
What is the safest canonical strategy with hreflang?
Canonical all alternates to a single global page
Use no canonical tags anywhere
Keep self‑referencing canonicals on each alternate version
Canonicalize to the x‑default page
Which codes are invalid in hreflang attributes?
es‑MX
fr‑CA
Non‑standard language tags like en‑UK (use en‑GB instead)
en‑US
A good QA step after deploying hreflang is to ______.
increase keyword density to 5%
remove language switchers
validate reciprocity and count alternate references per page
disable XML sitemaps
Which placement methods can carry hreflang?
HTML link tags, HTTP headers, or XML sitemaps
robots.txt only
JSON‑LD only
Open Graph tags only
What’s a common signal problem that undermines hreflang?
Mismatched language‑region targeting between content and hreflang codes
Using HTTPS
Having a sitemap index
Serving WebP images
For multi‑market stores, which KPI pair helps align with business outcomes?
Average font count per page and favicon size
Total CSS kilobytes only
Email open rate
Correct market impressions and click‑through rate by locale
Starter
Starter: Fix code formats and ensure self‑canonicals with reciprocal hreflang.
Solid
Solid: Add x‑default where needed and stabilize URLs without forced geo‑redirects.
Expert!
Expert: Locale performance aligns with market goals and user choice flows.
