Hreflang Tag Validator - Audit rel=alternate hreflang for SEO

Audit hreflang tags on any page or across a site to prevent international SEO issues.

This Actor fetches each page and checks:

• Missing hreflang tags (<link rel="alternate" hreflang="...">)
• Duplicate hreflang values
• Invalid language / region formats (common Google-supported patterns)
• Missing x-default
• Missing self-reference hreflang (recommended)
• Optional reciprocal checks (target pages link back)

Input

• Start URLs (startUrls) – Pages to check.
• Max pages (maxPages) – Crawl limit.
• Follow internal links (followLinks) – Turn on for site-wide audits.
• Max depth (maxDepth) – Depth when following links.
• Stay on same domain (sameDomainOnly) – Avoid leaving the site.
• Request timeout (timeoutSecs) – Per-page processing timeout.
• Normalize trailing slash (normalizeTrailingSlash) – Treat /page and /page/ as the same for comparisons.
• Allow cross-domain hreflang (allowCrossDomainHreflang) – If disabled, cross-domain hreflangs are flagged.
• Warn if x-default is missing (warnIfNoXDefault) – Adds a warning if no x-default link exists.
• Check reciprocal hreflang links (checkBidirectional) – Optionally fetch target pages and verify they link back.
• Max reciprocal checks per page (maxTargetChecksPerPage) – Safety limit for reciprocal checks.
• Proxy (proxyConfiguration) – Optional Apify Proxy.

Output

Dataset (per page)

Each dataset item includes:

• url, loadedUrl, statusCode, title
• hreflangCount, xDefaultPresent, selfReferencePresent
• hreflangTags[] (detailed extracted tags)
• warnings[], errors[]

Key-value store

• SUMMARY – run totals
• REPORT – compact per-page report

Example API usage

{
  "startUrls": [{"url": "https://example.com"}],
  "maxPages": 10,
  "followLinks": false,
  "checkBidirectional": false
}

Quick start

Store page: https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/hreflang-tag-validator

Paste this into Input and click Run:

{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/"
    }
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

Outputs (what you get)

• Dataset: Dataset items typically include fields like: url, loadedUrl, statusCode, title, hreflangCount, xDefaultPresent, selfReferencePresent, redirected, warnings, errors.
• Key-value store: REPORT, SUMMARY

Tips (trust + predictable results)

• Start with 1–3 URLs to validate behavior, then scale up.
• If a target blocks requests, enable Proxy and/or slow down concurrency in Input.
• Use the SUMMARY / REPORT keys (when present) for automation pipelines and monitoring.

Related actors

• broken-link-checker (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/broken-link-checker)
• canonical-url-checker (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/canonical-url-checker)
• meta-tag-analyzer (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/meta-tag-analyzer)
• security-headers-checker (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/security-headers-checker)

Search keywords

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