hreflang.invalid-code

What to change

A finding of this rule on a page carries the exact edits for that page: the markup it quotes, and what to write instead.

When it runs

Runs on every SEO audit: of a page, a crawl, a build directory or HTML. A warning is a problem that costs a page ranking, clicks or citations. Each finding takes 5 points off the page's score.

The severity here is the rule's usual one: a finding can be raised or lowered when the page gives a reason.

Run it, or skip it

Check a page for this rule alone, after a fix for instance:

npx @rivi-software/agentic-seo-check audit https://example.com --rule hreflang.invalid-code

Or from an assistant, with the MCP tool seo_audit_page:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "rules": [
    "hreflang.invalid-code"
  ]
}

To leave it out of an audit, pass --disable hreflang.invalid-code on the command, or disableRules: ["hreflang.invalid-code"] to a tool.

• Warninghreflang.relative-urlhreflang links must use absolute URLs.
• Warninghreflang.duplicate-langThe same hreflang value appears more than once with different URLs.
• Warninghreflang.missing-selfThe hreflang set does not include this page itself (self-referencing entry).
• Infohreflang.missing-x-defaultThe hreflang set has no x-default entry.
• Warninghreflang.canonical-other-languageThe canonical points to an hreflang alternate in another language, so search engines treat this page as a copy of that one and leave it out of the index.