Proposal to extend the existing hreflang audit

This could also be a brand new audit, but since an existing SEO hreflang audit exists, maybe it could just be extended upon?

The current hreflang audit checks that valid hreflang codes are used. Like with any audit, we could further strengthen/widen the scope so that more things are validated. Here are some suggestions for enhancements:

1. If a canonical URL exists, then ensure that URL is referenced by one of the hreflang’s source
2. Country based language variations are fine, e.g. en-gb. But could also do a general language version so an english speaker in canada still benefits, like en. So if we see hreflang codes of en-US and en-AU, this audit could suggest an additional hreflang of en. source
3. Use utf-8 encoding in URLs: if a link href refers to http://vélo.com, that should instead be http://v%C3%A9lo.com source
4. The audit could check that a fully-qualified URL is being used - so no relative URLs source

Any thoughts on these? Happy to add these in if we feel these would be useful.

Google webmaster docs here.

[patrickhulce]

IMO there’s two separate audits to have for 3.

1. SEO-specific audit, no relative links for hreflang
2. Best Practices audit, no protocol-relative links anywhere

@paulirish is that what you were thinking too?

[umaar]

Yep thanks!