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SEO & AEO

hreflang

Also known as: hreflang tags · language targeting

Definition

hreflang is an HTML or sitemap annotation telling search engines which language and regional version of a page to serve to which audience, preventing translated versions from competing with one another.

For bilingual UAE sites the correct pattern is reciprocal annotations between en-AE and ar-AE versions, plus an x-default for users outside both. Every version must reference every other version including itself, and any missing return link invalidates the set.

Common failures are hreflang pointing at URLs that redirect, conflicting with canonical tags, or using language codes that do not exist. Any of these result in the wrong version ranking, or both versions suppressing each other.

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Canonical tag

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