Hreflang for Danish sites: a plain-language guide

If your site has a Danish and an English version, search engines need to know which is for whom. Hreflang is the tag that tells them. It's simple in principle and easy to get wrong.

What hreflang does

It says: this page has a version for Danish readers at this URL, and a version for English readers at that URL. It helps search engines show the right one. It doesn't boost rankings by itself.

The three rules

1. Every page points to all its versions, including itself.
2. Every link goes both ways. If the English page points to the Danish page, the Danish page must point back.
3. Use correct codes. Language first (da, en), optionally country (da-DK). Use x-default for the fallback.

An example

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/pricing/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="da" href="https://example.com/da/pricing/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/pricing/" />

Put the same three lines on both pages.

Common mistakes

• One-way links (English points to Danish, Danish doesn't point back).
• Pointing hreflang at a redirected or broken URL.
• Using dk instead of da for the language. Denmark's country code is DK, the language code is da.
• Canonical tags pointing to a different language version, which cancels the hreflang.
• Hreflang on pages that exist in only one language: skip the missing twin, don't point to the home page.
• Machine-translated copy that nobody reads, so the Danish version is thin.

Pages that exist in only one language

If a page only exists in English, give it hreflang for en and x-default only. Don't invent a Danish twin. On this site, our case studies and articles are in English only and are marked that way.

How to check

Crawl your site with a tool that reads hreflang, or inspect a page's source and check each pair. Search Console's international reports can help. Re-check after every release.