` and `<meta description>` not translated (same across language variants) | ⚠️ WARN | | Images with alt text not translated | ⚠️ WARN | ## 6. Regional targeting - Check for `<meta name="geo.region">`, `<meta name="geo.placename">`, `<meta name="geo.position">` → ✅ PASS if present - Google Search Console geographic targeting hint: check for `<link rel="canonical">` pointing to regional variant ## Edge cases - A monolingual site with no internationalisation signals → skip all checks, report "Not applicable" - A site with `hreflang` on some pages but not others → flag inconsistency - Right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew) → check for `dir="rtl"` attribute on `<html>` or `<body>`

--- name: international-seo description: > Validates hreflang tags, multi-language configuration, regional targeting, and internationalisation best practices. Use when auditing sites with multiple languages, regions, or localised content. license: MIT metadata: author: Muhammad Ahsan Iqbal (https://muhammadahsaniqbal.com) linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahsan-iqbal-digitalmarketingexpert/ version: "1.0" --- # International SEO Audit the page for multi-language and regional targeting issues. > **When to activate**: Only relevant if the site serves multiple languages, regions, or has localised content. If a page is monolingual with no internationalisation signals, report ✅ PASS "No internationalisation issues (single-language site)". ## 1. Hreflang tags Look for `` in ``: | Check | Status | |---|---| | No hreflang tags on a multi-language site | ❌ FAIL "Add hreflang tags to indicate language/region variants" | | Hreflang tags present | ✅ PASS — list all language-region codes found | ### Hreflang validation rules | Rule | Violation = | |---|---| | Self-referencing hreflang missing (page must include itself) | ❌ FAIL | | `x-default` fallback missing | ⚠️ WARN "Add `hreflang=\"x-default\"` for the default/fallback page" | | Invalid language code (must be ISO 639-1, e.g. `en`, `fr`, `de`) | ❌ FAIL | | Invalid region code (must be ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, e.g. `en-US`, `fr-CA`) | ⚠️ WARN | | Hreflang URLs return 4xx or 5xx | ❌ FAIL "Hreflang points to broken URL" | | Duplicate hreflang entries for same language-region | ⚠️ WARN | ## 2. HTML lang attribute | Check | Status | |---|---| | `` missing | ❌ FAIL | | `lang` value doesn't match hreflang self-reference | ⚠️ WARN "Mismatch between html lang and hreflang" | | Properly set | ✅ PASS | ## 3. Content-Language header (meta) - `` → check if present - If present, verify it matches the `lang` attribute → ⚠️ WARN if mismatch ## 4. URL structure for internationalisation Detect URL pattern used: | Pattern | Example | Assessment | |---|---|---| | Subdirectory | `/en/`, `/fr/`, `/de/` | ✅ Recommended | | Subdomain | `en.example.com` | ✅ Acceptable | | ccTLD | `example.fr`, `example.de` | ✅ Strong geo-targeting | | URL parameter | `?lang=en` | ⚠️ WARN "Not recommended — search engines may ignore parameters" | ## 5. Translated content checks | Check | Status | |---|---| | Page has `lang="en"` but content appears in another language | ⚠️ WARN "Language mismatch detected" | | `` and `<meta description>` not translated (same across language variants) | ⚠️ WARN | | Images with alt text not translated | ⚠️ WARN | ## 6. Regional targeting - Check for `<meta name="geo.region">`, `<meta name="geo.placename">`, `<meta name="geo.position">` → ✅ PASS if present - Google Search Console geographic targeting hint: check for `<link rel="canonical">` pointing to regional variant ## Edge cases - A monolingual site with no internationalisation signals → skip all checks, report "Not applicable" - A site with `hreflang` on some pages but not others → flag inconsistency - Right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew) → check for `dir="rtl"` attribute on `<html>` or `<body>`