hreflang
An annotation declaring alternate language or regional versions of a page, so search engines serve the appropriate one to each user.
InternationalSitemap hreflang
Multilingual sitemaps
XML sitemaps carrying `xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang` annotations, an alternative to placing hreflang in page head markup.
In full
Sitemap-based hreflang keeps annotations out of the HTML, which reduces page weight and centralises maintenance — valuable when a set has many language versions. Each URL entry must list every alternate including itself, so the file grows quadratically with the number of locales. It is generated programmatically in practice, and mixing sitemap and head implementations for the same set risks contradictions.
Example
A twelve-locale site emits hreflang exclusively in sitemaps, removing 130 link elements from every page's head.
Related terms
XML sitemap
An XML file listing URLs a site wants crawled, optionally with lastmod dates, used as a discovery aid by Google, Bing and other engines.
hreflang x-default
The hreflang value marking the fallback page for users whose language or region does not match any specified alternate.
Multilingual SEO
Optimising a site that serves several languages, ensuring each version is fully indexable, correctly annotated and not mixed within a…
International SEO
Structuring and optimising a site so the right language and country version is served to the right audience in each market's search results.