The HTML lang attribute is used to identify the language of text content on the web. This information helps search engines return results in a specific language, and is also used by screen readers that switch language profiles to provide correct accents and pronunciations.
A while ago, John Mueller said that Google ignores the HTML lang attribute and recommended using link hreflang instead. The Google Search Console documentation states that Google uses the hreflang tag to match the user’s language preference to the correct variation of your page.
lang-vs-hreflang.pngThe bar chart shows that of the 7.5 million netherlands mobile database indexed pages, 65% use the lang attribute on the html element, while 21.6% use at least hreflang links.
Of the 70,000 indexed pages we were able to look at, 4,903,665 used the lang attribute on the html element. That’s about 65%!
When it comes to hreflang attributes, which indicate the presence of multilingual sites, we found approximately 1,631,602 pages – meaning that approximately 21.6% of indexed pages use at least a link rel="alternate" href="*" hreflang="*" element.
Since the beginning, the main task of Google Analytics has been to generate reports and statistics about your website. However, if you want to group certain pages together and see how people are moving through the funnel, you need a unique Google Analytics tag. This is where things get complicated.