International Expansion with hreflang
Challenge: A UK brand expanding to EU markets needed proper international SEO. Duplicate content and unclear geo-targeting were causing cannibalisation.Results: Traffic from EU markets increased 200%. Cannibalisation eliminated. Clear visibility per market in Search Console.Timeline: 3 months
The challenge
A UK e-commerce brand had launched French and German versions of their site. Traffic from those markets was weak, and there were signs of cannibalisation between UK and EU versions. hreflang was partially implemented but inconsistent.
Approach
We audited and fixed the international setup:
- hreflang audit: identified missing tags, incorrect implementations and self-referencing issues
- Corrected hreflang on all relevant pages (product, category, homepage)
- Ensured x-default was set appropriately
- Country-specific content: localised key category pages beyond translation
- GSC setup: verified all property versions and configured geo-targeting
- Ongoing monitoring for crawl and index issues per market
Results
- Traffic from EU markets (FR, DE) increased 200% over 6 months post-launch
- Cannibalisation eliminated; clear separation of visibility by market
- Search Console showed healthy indexation per country
- EU revenue from organic became a meaningful share of total
Key learnings
hreflang is easy to get wrong. Even small implementation errors (wrong URLs, missing return tags) can cause significant issues. Audit before and after any international rollout.