Using hreflang tags to direct your customers to their region-specific URL

Hreflang tags are code elements in your theme that allow search engines to determine which language and region a website is intended for, and then return the appropriate URL based on a customer's language and location. For example, your store might have a default URL of johns-apparel.com, and a Spanish URL of es.johns-apparel.com. When a customer is located in Spain and has the Spanish language set on their device or browser, then the hreflang tag in your theme increases the likelihood that the customer is directed to the Spanish URL.

Because hreflang tags identify your localized URLs as regional versions instead of duplicate web pages, they're necessary for search engine optimization (SEO).

Hreflang tags and meta tags are automatically created for every international domain or subfolder that you set up. Your sitemaps also include all published languages to help search engines detect the different languages on your store.

Note

If you don't want your hreflang tags to be created automatically, then you can contact Shopify Support to have this feature deactivated. To avoid impacts on your SEO, you need to add your own hreflang tags to your theme.