A Website in Two Languages: How Google Decides Which Version to Show
A website in two languages needs three things. Real pages in each language and not an automatic translation. An hreflang tag that tells Google which version belongs to which audience. And both versions pointing at each other. Without the third one Google ignores all of it and you are back where you started.
What the tag actually does
Hreflang is a small line of code that sits in the head of the page and tells Google one sentence. This page has another version in a different language and here is its address. Google words the purpose itself in the official documentation: to help it understand that these pages are localized variations of the same content.
Without it two bad things can happen. Google may show a tourist from London the Hebrew page and lose them in a second. Or worse, it may decide the two versions compete with each other for the same slot and pick one of them to show instead of both.
It matters to understand what the tag does not do. **It does not rank you higher.** It does not replace good content and it does not bring new visitors on its own. All it does is make sure the right person sees the right version. That sounds small, and it is the difference between a tourist who stays and a tourist who goes back to the results.
Two thirds of sites get this wrong
That is not our estimate. In August 2023 Ahrefs checked the implementation across 374,756 domains that use hreflang and found that 67% of them have at least one issue. It is the largest study done on the subject.
The number stops being surprising once you look at the kinds of errors. These are not the mistakes of people who do not understand. They are the mistakes of people who implemented part of the thing and not all of it.
| The mistake | How common | What actually happens |
|---|---|---|
| Missing x-default | 56.3% | A visitor whose browser is neither Hebrew nor English has no defined fallback |
| Missing self reference | 18% | A page does not declare itself in the list, so the cluster is incomplete |
| Points to a broken or redirected page | 16.9% | The address in the tag no longer exists or has moved. The tag points nowhere |
| Missing reciprocal tag | 15.3% | One page points and the other does not return. Google ignores both |
| Points to a non canonical URL | 8% | The tag and the canonical contradict each other and Google has to choose |
The rule Google states most bluntly
Of all the rules there is one Google words without any ambiguity. If two pages do not point at each other, the tags will be ignored. In the official documentation it also explains why: so that someone on another site cannot arbitrarily declare itself an alternative version of one of your pages.
The practical meaning is harsher than it sounds. **One broken link is enough to void the whole pair.** If the Hebrew page points at the English one but the English one does not return the favor, all the work on both of them does not count. And it happens most often when you add a new page in one language and forget the other side.
That is exactly why everything new here goes live in both languages in the same deploy. Not because we are thorough but because half the work here is worth zero.
x-default: the most common mistake nobody talks about
More than half the sites in the study are missing the x-default value, and it is the simplest one to add. It tells Google where to send a visitor whose language is none of the ones you defined.
For a business in Eilat this is not theoretical. A tourist from Poland or France or Hungary arrives with a browser set to a language you do not have. Without x-default Google decides on its own and sometimes chooses wrong. With it you tell it explicitly where to send them, usually to the English page, which is the shared language of most tourists.
Technically it is one extra line. Commercially it is the difference between a European tourist landing on a page they understand and one landing on Hebrew.
Machine translation: what Google actually says and what the real problem is
Many businesses install a plugin that translates the site automatically and feel the subject is closed. It is worth being precise here, because an inaccurate claim goes around.
**Google does not forbid machine translation.** Its spam policies do not mention automatic translation as a violation in itself. They do mention translation in the list of automated techniques that produce spam, but only in the context of generating many pages where little value is provided to the user.
And from there comes the real problem, which is not a penalty from Google but something much simpler. **The tourist does not ask what the local asks.** The Israeli searches for how to get there and what it costs. The tourist from abroad asks whether they need to book ahead, whether there is a vegetarian option, and what there is to do here in January when Europe is cold. A machine translation of a Hebrew page gives them answers to somebody else’s questions, usually in slightly broken phrasing.
There is direct damage to trust too. A dish name or a service name translated automatically sometimes comes out strange, and a visitor who sees one clumsy sentence stops trusting the rest of the site. We expanded on this audience in our guide to a website for a tourism business.
How it looks on this site
The easiest way to check is on a real site, so we checked ours. Every page here carries three lines: one for Hebrew, one for English and one for x-default. They are identical on both sides, so each version declares both itself and its sibling. The canonical of each page points at itself and does not contradict the tags.
We checked that against the four common mistakes from the table above, the ones that together appear on more than two thirds of sites.
- x-default is present on every page. That is the mistake found on 56.3% of domains
- The self reference is there. Every page appears in its own list
- The reciprocal link is complete. The English version returns exactly the same list the Hebrew one sends
- The canonical of each version points at itself and not at the other, so there is no contradiction
- And it applies to the blog too. Every article exists in both languages under the same slug and goes live in both in the same deploy
When is a site in two languages even worth it
Not for every business. A site in two languages is twice the content to write and maintain, and if there is no audience on the other side it is work for nothing. Three questions we ask before recommending it.
- Do people who do not read Hebrew reach you. In Eilat the answer is almost always yes. In service trades aimed at residents, usually not
- Are their questions different. If the tourist asks exactly what the local asks, one English page may be enough. If they ask differently they need content of their own
- Can you maintain it. An English page that has not been updated in two years is worse than never starting
And one more point about the season
The audience from abroad arrives in Eilat in the opposite season to the Israeli one. The European flight season runs from autumn to spring, exactly in the months when Israeli search is at its low. We showed that curve in our demand map.
They also book further ahead. In a Booking.com survey of more than 12 thousand European travelers, 30% booked three to four months in advance. Someone landing in January is searching already in September, so the English pages need to be live and ranked in autumn and not in December.
What that means for the order of work is that the quiet months in Eilat are exactly the months when the English pages earn their keep. We expanded on that split in the annual marketing calendar.
This is exactly what we do at Website building in Eilat. If you want us to go over it together for your business, write to us.
Frequently asked questions
A line of code in the head of the page that tells Google this page has a version in another language and what its address is. It does not rank you higher, it only makes sure the right person sees the right version.
You can, and it is not a Google violation. But it does not solve the real problem, which is that the tourist from abroad asks different questions than the local. Automatic translation gives them answers to somebody else’s questions, sometimes in clumsy phrasing that damages trust in the rest of the site.
It is the value that tells Google where to send a visitor whose language is none of the ones you defined, a tourist from Poland for example. It is missing on 56.3% of domains according to the Ahrefs study, and it takes a single line.
Google ignores both. That is stated explicitly in its documentation, and the reason is to stop a foreign site declaring itself an alternative version of one of your pages. One broken link voids the whole pair.
No. It is twice the content to write and maintain. It is worth it when people who do not read Hebrew reach you, when their questions differ from the local audience, and when you can maintain it over time. An English page that has not been updated in two years is worse than never starting.
In autumn. The European flight season to Eilat runs from autumn to spring, and according to a Booking.com survey 30% of European travelers book three to four months ahead. Someone landing in January is searching already in September.
Want us to look at this for your business?
Just write to us on WhatsApp. The first conversation comes with no commitment. 050-294-0127
Write to us on WhatsApp