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Multilingual Sites Competing With Themselves: Hreflang Problems and Fixes

December 20, 2024
Southern Whale
Hreflang setup for multilingual Phuket websites

The Problem: Multiple Languages But Declining Rankings

A luxury Phuket hotel with a 4-language website (Thai, English, Chinese, Japanese) approached us with a concerning issue:

“Our rankings dropped after adding new languages. Google seems confused about which version is our main site.”

The issue: Google detected duplicate content across language versions, not understanding each page was in a different language.

Root Cause: Missing Hreflang Tags

Upon HTML code review, we discovered:

  • No hreflang tags implemented
  • Missing language attributes
  • Unclear canonical tags
  • URLs without language codes (/en/, /zh/, /ja/)

Google couldn’t determine which version to show to which language user.

Solution: Proper Hreflang Implementation

1. Add Hreflang Tags to Each Page

<!-- Thai page -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="th" href="https://example.com/th/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="zh" href="https://example.com/zh/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ja" href="https://example.com/ja/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/" />

2. Configure Language Settings in XML Sitemap

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
  xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/en/rooms</loc>
    <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="th" href="https://example.com/th/rooms" />
    <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="zh" href="https://example.com/zh/rooms" />
  </url>
</urlset>

3. Configure Google Search Console

  • Go to Settings > Languages and Regions
  • Set Preferred Domain for each language
  • Review Hreflang Coverage Report

Verifying the Fix

After correcting hreflang, the first thing to check is which language version Google serves to users in which country. The performance report in Search Console shows this when filtered by country and page. If users from a given country are still landing on the wrong language, the declarations are either incomplete or contradicting each other.

After that, track bounce rate by language — it improves when people arrive on a page they can read — and enquiries broken down by language, which tells you which languages justify further content investment and which should be stopped.

Key Considerations

URL Structure Options: Which Works Best for Phuket?

Method Advantages Disadvantages
Subdirectory (/en/, /th/) Simplest, shares domain authority Single DNS required
Subdomain (en.site.com) Separate analytics Separate domain authority needed
ccTLD (site.th, site.jp) Clearest intent Expensive

Recommendation: For Phuket hotels, subdirectory (/th/, /en/) provides best SEO benefits.

Hreflang Validation Tools

  • Google Search Console: Enhancements > Hreflang Report
  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Hreflang analysis report
  • Ahrefs: Site Audit > Hreflang Issues

Implementation Checklist

For multilingual websites like yours:

  1. Check Google Search Console for each language version
  2. Scan for Hreflang Issues using Screaming Frog
  3. Add Hreflang Tags to all pages
  4. Update XML Sitemap with hreflang alternates
  5. Submit Sitemap to Search Console
  6. Wait 2-4 weeks for Google to re-index

Southern Whale helps Phuket tourism businesses implement proper multilingual SEO. Get your free international SEO audit today.

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