Case study: hreflang errors that indexed the wrong-country page

Case study: hreflang errors that indexed the wrong-country page

Setup: A travel brand with 14 language versions had US visitors getting the UK page in results. I audited with Ahrefs Site Audit (from $129/mo) which has a dedicated hreflang cluster check.

What it did well:
— Found 6,200 pages with missing return-tags (hreflang A→B but no B→A), which Google ignores entirely
— After fixing return-tags, correct-locale pages started serving; GSC impressions for the right country pages rose ~15%

Where it fell short:
— Ahrefs Site Audit is pricey if you only need hreflang — overkill for a one-off
— hreflang affects which version shows, not whether pages index; thin alternates still got dropped

Verdict: 4/5 for the hreflang cluster view specifically.

Best for: multi-locale sites with serving problems. Not for: single-language sites — you'll never touch this tab.