[SEO Audits] Document has a valid hreflang code #3177

rviscomi · 2017-08-29T18:22:19Z

Audit group: Content best practices
Description: Document has a valid hreflang
Failure description: Document does not have a valid hreflang ({value...})
Help text: Allows crawlers to discover alternate translations of the page content. Read more in the Search Console Help page.

Success condition: Query selector head > link[rel=alternate][hreflang] doesn’t exist, or the hreflang value passes aXe validation for each respective link tag.

Notes

Similar to html-lang-valid.js
See Add rule for hreflang values dequelabs/axe-core#502 for discussion about using aXe validation
Could also extend to check Link headers
Could also extend to check a[hreflang]

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

kdzwinel · 2017-11-06T22:55:21Z

@rviscomi some questions:

we should also probably validate the URL? Docs don't mention anything about relative URLs, but I'd assume they are also valid.
should we check if website has a hreflang for itself? That's recommended according to the help page
it'd be great if we could also check if page linked in hreflang links back to current page ("Missing confirmation links") - but that'd require us to load, pottentially multiple, external pages, so I assume we will have to skip it?
we can probably reuse list of languages from AXE, but we will have to maintain lists of regions and scripts ourselves (thankfully, these lists aren't too big). Is that correct or have I maybe missed something here?
what do you mean by a[hreflang]? Help page doesn't mention <a>s 🤔

Notes to self:

remember about reserved (and valid) value of x-default
edgecase - language - script - region - e.g. zh-Hans-TW - should be valid
edgecase - "Do not specify a country code by itself" - e.g ES should be invalid

rviscomi · 2017-11-07T17:30:20Z

we should also probably validate the URL? Docs don't mention anything about relative URLs, but I'd assume they are also valid.

Let's skip URL validation and focus on the hreflang value.

should we check if website has a hreflang for itself? That's recommended according to the help page

Is this just the <html lang="..."> attribute? (already validated)

it'd be great if we could also check if page linked in hreflang links back to current page ("Missing confirmation links") - but that'd require us to load, pottentially multiple, external pages, so I assume we will have to skip it?

Skip it

we can probably reuse list of languages from AXE, but we will have to maintain lists of regions and scripts ourselves (thankfully, these lists aren't too big). Is that correct or have I maybe missed something here?

Let's keep this in sync with the <html lang> validation, so limit to languages if that's all it does. Of course, this audit would need to support x-default in addition.

what do you mean by a[hreflang]? Help page doesn't mention s

Anchors can also have hreflang attrs but let's leave that outside the scope of this audit for now.

kdzwinel · 2017-11-07T19:40:31Z

should we check if website has a hreflang for itself? That's recommended according to the help page

Is this just the <html lang="..."> attribute? (already validated)

Sorry, I meant if we should check if website links to itself via link[rel=alternate] (as it should)? But since you said we should skip URL validation, I'm guessing we won't be checking that either?

rviscomi · 2017-11-08T20:51:39Z

Oh ok. Yeah this audit should only be concerned with the language values themselves.

fbessonnat · 2018-07-12T17:02:34Z

Guys, It's not all aligned with the HrefLang Google recommendation: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

Eg. https://www.maxwellbaynes.com/fr/toutes-nos-proprietes shows a Light-House positive hreflang validation but this is not the case... probably it's okay because a <html lang="xx" > is found. That's a mistake and not aligned at all with what Google algorithm expects....

We should only validate if there's a (<link> tag or <a> tag) including:

attribute rel="alternate"
and
attibute 'hreflang' with a value 'xx' or 'xx-xx' or 'x-default'

Examples of correct use:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en-gb.example.com/page.html" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="http://en-gb.example.com/page.html" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="http://en-gb.example.com/page.html" />

Also... in case Light-House is also able to deal with HTTP headers, Hreflang infos can also be set by webmaster on it.

Here's the HTTP Header format supported by Google:
Link: <url1>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="lang_code_1", <url2>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="lang_code_2", ...

Ex.

Link: <http://example.com/file.pdf>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="en",
      <http://de-ch.example.com/file.pdf>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="de-ch",
      <http://de.example.com/file.pdf>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="de"

rviscomi · 2018-07-12T17:17:47Z

@fbessonnat sorry your comment lost some of its markup so it's hard to read. Could you reformat it with code blocks?

fbessonnat · 2018-07-12T23:52:58Z

@rviscomi : done! (thx for the code block advice)

rviscomi · 2018-07-17T01:20:25Z

Prior to the v3.0 release, Lighthouse didn't have a concept of applicability of audits, so we chose to positively pass the audit even if there were no hreflang attributes to validate. In the case of this page, there aren't any so we pass the audit. It would be more accurate if we showed the audit in the "not applicable" category.

https://googlechrome.github.io/lighthouse/viewer/?gist=3b0850ab03d903417ed5a3b1059cd105

@fbessonnat would that address your concerns?

fbessonnat · 2018-07-17T10:50:05Z

@rviscomi : just to clarify, if there's a [link alternate hreflang], yes, we can a add a "Document has a valid alternate hreflang" on the "Not applicable" section (very good choice).
But, if there's no [link alternate hreflang], it's not a problem and no mention should appear in the SEO audit report.

rviscomi · 2018-07-19T16:54:30Z

@fbessonnat I'm actually suggesting the opposite:

If hreflang exists on the page, it shows up normally as either pass/fail depending on its validity.
Otherwise, it shows up as "Not applicable".

I think you're looking at the "Not applicable" section as "audits that do not need my attention because they passed". We treat it as "audits that have no conclusive result because they do not apply to the current page". WDYT?

fbessonnat · 2018-07-21T14:28:55Z

@rviscomi : Yes, I didn't have the good "Not applicable" vision. So, yes, if no hreflang the "Not applicable" section is the right place. :)

crmpicco · 2023-03-09T08:05:27Z

I have a <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://crmpicco.co.uk/en/login"> in my markup yet PageSpeed Insights still shows me the following error:

Document doesn't have a valid hreflang

rviscomi mentioned this issue Aug 29, 2017

[SEO Audits] Content best practices group #3117

Closed

7 tasks

patrickhulce added this to the SEO health-check audits milestone Aug 29, 2017

ebidel assigned kdzwinel Sep 5, 2017

patrickhulce added the needs-priority label Sep 26, 2017

paulirish added the new_audit label Sep 27, 2017

rviscomi added P2 and removed needs-priority labels Sep 29, 2017

paulirish added the seo label Oct 2, 2017

rviscomi modified the milestones: SEO health-check audits, Sprint Tres: Oct 30 - Nov 12 Oct 30, 2017

rviscomi added P1 and removed P2 labels Oct 30, 2017

kdzwinel mentioned this issue Nov 12, 2017

new_audit(hreflang): document has a valid hreflang code #3815

Merged

vinamratasingal-zz modified the milestones: Sprint Tres: Oct 30 - Nov 12, Sprint Quatro: November 13-26 Nov 13, 2017

rviscomi modified the milestones: Sprint Quatro: November 13-26, Sprint Cinco: November 28 - Dec 9 Nov 27, 2017

paulirish closed this as completed in #3815 Nov 29, 2017

rviscomi mentioned this issue Aug 27, 2018

Mark SEO audits as "Not Applicable" whenever appropriate #5913

Closed

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[SEO Audits] Document has a valid hreflang code #3177

[SEO Audits] Document has a valid hreflang code #3177

rviscomi commented Aug 29, 2017

kdzwinel commented Nov 6, 2017

rviscomi commented Nov 7, 2017

kdzwinel commented Nov 7, 2017

rviscomi commented Nov 8, 2017

fbessonnat commented Jul 12, 2018 •

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rviscomi commented Jul 12, 2018

fbessonnat commented Jul 12, 2018

rviscomi commented Jul 17, 2018 •

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fbessonnat commented Jul 17, 2018 •

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rviscomi commented Jul 19, 2018

fbessonnat commented Jul 21, 2018

crmpicco commented Mar 9, 2023

[SEO Audits] Document has a valid hreflang code #3177

[SEO Audits] Document has a valid hreflang code #3177

Comments

rviscomi commented Aug 29, 2017

kdzwinel commented Nov 6, 2017

rviscomi commented Nov 7, 2017

kdzwinel commented Nov 7, 2017

rviscomi commented Nov 8, 2017

fbessonnat commented Jul 12, 2018 • edited Loading

rviscomi commented Jul 12, 2018

fbessonnat commented Jul 12, 2018

rviscomi commented Jul 17, 2018 • edited Loading

fbessonnat commented Jul 17, 2018 • edited Loading

rviscomi commented Jul 19, 2018

fbessonnat commented Jul 21, 2018

crmpicco commented Mar 9, 2023

fbessonnat commented Jul 12, 2018 •

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rviscomi commented Jul 17, 2018 •

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fbessonnat commented Jul 17, 2018 •

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