Quick answer: hreflang for Arabic and English pages is a tag that tells Google two pages hold the same content in different languages, so Arabic searchers are shown your Arabic page and English searchers your English one. Each version must list itself and every other version, use valid codes (“ar” and “en”, or “ar-KW” and “en-KW” for pages aimed at Kuwait), and point to full URLs that load without redirects.
Most company websites in Kuwait publish in two languages. Without hreflang, Google has to guess which version to show, and it sometimes shows the English page to someone who searched in Arabic. Visitors then leave, or never click at all. hreflang is a small piece of code, but it is easy to get wrong, and a broken setup is silently ignored. This guide covers what it does, which codes to use and how to check your own site.
What does hreflang do, and what doesn’t it do?
hreflang connects equivalent pages. It tells Google that example.com/en/about-us/ and example.com/ar/about/ are the same page in two languages, so the right one appears for each searcher. It does not translate anything. It does not raise rankings by itself, and it does not fix thin or machine-translated content. Think of it as a label that keeps the two halves of your site paired.
Which language codes should a Kuwait website use?
| Your situation | Codes to use |
|---|---|
| One Arabic and one English version for everyone | ar, en |
| Pages written for Kuwait, with other versions for other countries | ar-KW, en-KW, plus each country version’s own codes |
| A fallback page for any other language | x-default |
The language code comes first and is required: “ar” or “en”. The region is optional and comes second: “KW”. A region on its own, such as “kw”, is not valid, and neither is a language-country pair that doesn’t match your audience, such as “ar-AE” on a page written for Kuwait.
How do you add hreflang to your pages?
There are three methods, and you need only one:
- Link tags in the page head. The most common method. Each page lists all versions, including itself.
- HTTP headers. Useful for files such as PDFs that have no HTML head.
- XML sitemap entries. Practical for large sites, because the pairs live in one file.
For a page with Arabic and English versions, the head of both pages would contain:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/about-us/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="ar" href="https://example.com/ar/about/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/en/about-us/" />
Which mistakes stop hreflang from working?
- No return link. If the English page points to the Arabic one but not the other way round, Google can ignore the pair.
- No self-reference. Each page should list itself as well as its alternates.
- URLs that redirect or are blocked. Every hreflang URL should load directly, be indexable, and not be blocked by robots.txt or a noindex tag.
- Relative URLs. Use full addresses starting with https://, not paths like /ar/about/.
- A canonical tag that points to the other language. Each language version should be canonical to itself.
- Untranslated pairs. Linking an English page to an Arabic page that is still in English confuses users and search engines alike.
How can you check that it works?
Open a page, view its source, and search for “hreflang”. Confirm that both versions appear with the right codes. Then open the linked page and check the same tags appear there in reverse. In Google Search Console, the URL Inspection tool shows which page Google selected as canonical, a quick way to spot a language version being folded into another. On larger sites, a crawler that reports hreflang errors saves hours.
What about WordPress multilingual plugins?
Plugins such as Polylang and WPML write hreflang tags automatically, but only for pages that are linked as translations of each other. Most problems we see come from pages created separately and never linked, so they appear as two unrelated pages. Each time you add a page in one language, link its translation in the plugin’s language box.
Also set the page language for browsers and screen readers: lang=”ar” and dir=”rtl” on Arabic pages, lang=”en” on English pages. Google says it does not use the lang attribute to pick a language version, but assistive technology relies on it.
Frequently asked questions
Do I still need hreflang if my URLs use /ar/ and /en/?
Yes. Folders help people read your URLs, but hreflang is the explicit signal that pairs the two pages.
Does hreflang help with AI search results?
Google’s AI features draw on its index. When each language version is indexed and correctly paired, the version that matches the searcher’s language is more likely to be the one used.
What if a page exists only in English?
Leave hreflang off that page, or list only the English version. Never point to a translation that does not exist.
Our SEO service page explains how we audit bilingual sites, including hreflang and indexing. To have your Arabic and English pages checked, send your site through our quote request form.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Tell Google about localized versions of your page
- W3C: Choosing a language tag
- W3C: Structural markup and right-to-left text in HTML
By the Creative 4 All team, building bilingual websites and campaigns since 2012. Reviewed for Kuwait in November 2026.
