hreflang entries repeat or share an address across languages

Why it matters

Google's guide to localized versions asks each language version to list every version once, and allows a general language address to be one of the regional pages. A repeated entry adds nothing, and one address under two different languages calls one page two versions.

What to do

1. Look at the finding: it shows the repeated entries and the addresses declared under more than one language.
2. Remove repeated entries.
3. Give each address one language; a page serving several regions of one language can keep those regional codes, such as en-GB and en-US.

When to leave it as it is: if the repeats come from a plugin and cause no other finding, you can leave them; they are a maintenance notice.

What we read

We read the three places where a page can list its language versions: <link rel="alternate" hreflang> tags anywhere in its HTML, an hreflang Link header in its response, and the xhtml:link entries for its address in your sitemaps, each sitemap file on its own. This rule makes no additional request and does not run JavaScript.

A page is reported when, within one list, an entry repeats with the same language value ignoring case, the same address exactly as written and the same presence of a media attribute, or one normalized address is declared under two or more distinct base languages; x-default is left out of the second case, and en, en-GB and en-US on one address are fine. Any hreflang value that is not a valid language code, such as en_US, marks the page as not checked.

A page is not checked if a required channel is incomplete: its HTML contains unsupported SVG markup, a <noscript>, <select> or <math> element, or exceeds 2 MiB; it returns a response other than 200 HTML (except 404 or 410), or no response; its Link header contains a relation we cannot parse, such as one written as an address; or a sitemap file could not be read in full. An incomplete sitemap channel blocks every page. An annotation with an empty, relative or non-web address also blocks its page until fixed. A 404 or 410 response makes this check not applicable.

Example & evidence

Illustrative example — one page's list, not a live audit.

https://bakery.example/en/ has:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://bakery.example/fr/">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://bakery.example/fr/">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="https://bakery.example/fr/">

The French entry repeats, and the French page is also listed as German, so the page is reported with both.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://bakery.example/fr/">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="https://bakery.example/de/">

A possible correction: one entry per language, each with its own address.

Confirm & check again

Check for yourself: view the page source and look for the same hreflang tag twice, or one address under two languages.

Check again: Full audit — run a new audit of the site. The finding closes when the page is crawled again, the places this check reads are read in full, and no entry repeats and no address sits under two languages. Removing the page's hreflang also closes it; a page that cannot be read, or answers 404, keeps the finding open.

Limits & sources

Repeats are matched on the address as written, so two spellings of one address are not counted as a repeat, and the same entry in the HTML and in the sitemap is not one either.

Confidence: High because the lists are read directly.

Sources

• Google, Tell Google about localized versions of your page — asks each language version to list itself and all other versions, and allows a generic language address to be one of the specific regional pages. Checked 28 September 2026.

Editorial review: 29 October 2026

Related

• One hreflang value points to two different addresses — the reverse case: one value points to two addresses.
• A page's language list leaves the page itself out — the list leaves out the page itself.