Creating SEO‑Friendly Multilingual URLs & Hreflang Tags

Introduction

SEO can make or break your multilingual website. You might think translation alone is enough, but without proper URL structures and hreflang tags your new pages could cause duplicate content problems or fail to rank. This guide explores best practices for creating SEO‑friendly multilingual sites, drawing on advice from Jetpack’s multilingual SEO sectionjetpack.com. We’ll also show how Eldris automates these tasks.

Why URL structure matters

Search engines treat different languages and regions as separate audiences. To avoid confusing them, each language needs a distinct URL. There are three common structures:

1. Subdirectories – example.com/fr/ for French, example.com/de/ for German. This is easy to maintain and signals that all languages are part of the same site.
2. Subdomains – fr.example.com and de.example.com. This gives each language its own site but keeps brand cohesion.
3. Country‑code top‑level domains (ccTLDs) – example.fr or example.de. This sends a strong signal to search engines but is more expensive and complex to manage.

Whichever structure you choose, use it consistently. Eldris defaults to subdirectories because they balance clarity and maintainability.

Hreflang tags explained

Hreflang tags tell search engines which version of a page to serve to which audience. Without them, Google might show your English page to a French user or consider your French and German pages duplicates, hurting rankings. Each page must reference its alternates for other languages. For example:

html

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<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fr” href=”https://example.com/fr/product”>

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”https://example.com/product”>

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x-default” href=”https://example.com”>

Implementing hreflang can be tedious, especially on large sites. Eldris automatically generates these tags and updates them as you add new languages or pages.

Translating meta tags

It’s not enough to translate page content; you must also translate meta titles and descriptions. Jetpack’s multilingual SEO guidelines warn that failing to translate metadata can lead to duplicate snippets or irrelevant keywordsjetpack.com. Each language should have a unique meta title and description targeting relevant keywords. For instance, if your English title is “Blue Running Shoes – Free Shipping,” your Spanish title might be “Zapatillas de running azules – Envío gratis.”

Avoid machine‑translation pitfalls

While AI translation is a powerful tool, simply translating text without adjusting it for local search intent can cause problems. Keyword research varies by language; the most popular translation of “running shoes” in one region might differ in another. A hybrid approach where a human adjusts keywords and phrasing ensures better SEO.jetpack.com

Keep sitemaps updated

When you add new languages you must update your XML sitemaps. This ensures search engines discover all versions of your pages. Eldris automatically generates and submits multilingual sitemaps to major search engines.

Testing and monitoring

After deploying a multilingual site, use tools like Google Search Console to monitor indexing and coverage. Check for errors related to hreflang or crawling. Use A/B testing to measure conversion rates across languages and adjust your content accordingly.

Eldris automation

Because implementing multilingual SEO manually is complex, Eldris integrates these best practices into the platform:

• Automatic URL generation – we create clean subdirectory structures for each language.
• Auto hreflang – our system inserts hreflang tags referencing every language version of a page.
• Metadata translation – meta titles and descriptions are translated and can be edited in the portal.
• Internationalisation compliance – pages declare their language in the HTML lang attribute and use UTF‑8 encodingw3.org.

Final thoughts & CTA

SEO is critical for driving traffic to your multilingual site. By following best practices for URL structure, hreflang tags and translated metadatajetpack.com, you ensure search engines understand your content and show the right version to the right users. Eldris automates this complexity, so you can focus on growth.

Ready to simplify multilingual SEO? Start your free demo and see how Eldris handles URL structures and hreflang tags for you.