Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and regional version of a page to serve to users in specific locations. It is used on sites that have content in multiple languages or separate versions of the same content for different countries.
The tag specifies two things: the language code (en for English, ar for Arabic) and optionally the country code (ae for UAE, ca for Canada). A site targeting English speakers in the UAE and Arabic speakers in the UAE would use hreflang="en-ae" and hreflang="ar-ae" respectively.
Hreflang errors are among the most common technical issues on multilingual B2B sites in the GCC region. The most frequent mistakes are missing return tags (every page in a hreflang set must reference all other pages in the set), incorrect language or country codes, and pointing hreflang tags at non-canonical URLs. When implemented incorrectly, hreflang causes Google to serve the wrong language version to users, which increases bounce rates and reduces conversion from organic traffic. For UAE sites targeting both English and Arabic audiences, a correctly implemented hreflang setup is one of the higher-leverage technical fixes available.
