Mapping workbench
Hreflang Checker and Tag Generator
Paste one locale and URL pair per line. The workbench checks codes, duplicates and URL format against Google's documented rules, adds notes for the four markets we cover, and writes the tags. It runs only in this browser tab and fetches nothing.
What this tool does not do. It never fetches your pages. It cannot confirm return links, status codes, canonicals, indexability or whether each page is really in the stated language, and it does not decide whether gambling is legal anywhere. Treat a pass as "the syntax is right", then check the rest by hand.
1. Your URL set
Format:en-GB,https://example.com/en-gb/. A tab also works as the separator, so you can paste two spreadsheet columns. Lines starting with # are ignored. Press Ctrl+Enter to run.
2. Results
3. Generated output
What the workbench checks
| Check | Result | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Language is a two-letter ISO 639-1 code | Error | Google supports only ISO 639-1 language codes |
| Region is a two-letter ISO 3166-1 code (UK and numeric regions rejected) | Error | Google supports only ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 region codes |
| Region given without a language | Error | Google: the country code cannot be specified by itself |
| Duplicate locale (case ignored) | Error | Each version appears once in a set |
| URL is absolute http or https, with no credentials or spaces | Error | Google requires fully qualified alternate URLs |
| Fragment, query string, mixed protocols, reused URL | Warning | Likely mistakes worth a second look |
| Case convention, script subtags, missing x-default, several hosts | Note | Valid, but worth knowing |
| Region outside GB, DE, ES, CA; es-ES not on .es; en-CA without fr-CA | Note | Market rules covered in our market guides |
After a pass: check these by hand
- Every page in the set carries the same list, including itself.
- Every URL returns status 200, is indexable and is its own canonical, in its own language.
- Each page's main content is in the language its value states.
- Each targeted country is one where the brand holds the required license.
Regression tests
These five cases come from the approved project brief. Run them to confirm the checker behaves as documented in this browser.
| Case | Input | Expected | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not run yet. | |||
Questions
Does the workbench send my URLs anywhere?
No. All checks run in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent to a server, stored or fetched.
Why are tags withheld when there is an error?
A set with an invalid line would be published incomplete, and a missing member breaks return links for every page in the cluster. Fix the errors and the tags appear.
Can it check return links on my live site?
No. It does not fetch pages. Crawl your site with a crawler to compare the sets each page actually serves.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Tell Google about localized versions of your page, last updated September 21, 2026.
- IETF, RFC 5646: Tags for Identifying Languages, September 2009.