Good question 👍
In PrestaShop (or any e-commerce platform), correct use of hreflang and canonical tags is crucial for SEO, especially if you sell in multiple regions or have duplicate/variant product URLs. Let’s break down the benefits:
🔹 Hreflang Tags in PrestaShop
Hreflang tags tell Google which language/region version of a page to serve.
✅ Benefits:
- Correct Regional Targeting
- Ensures a French visitor sees your French product page (
/fr/produit), while a US visitor sees the English page (/en/product).
- Ensures a French visitor sees your French product page (
- Avoids Duplicate Content Across Languages
- Same product in English, Hindi, and French won’t be seen as duplicate content.
- Improves User Experience
- Users land on the version of the page in their language/currency, reducing bounce rate.
- Boosts International SEO
- Helps your store rank in the right country-specific Google searches (Google.fr, Google.de, etc.).
🔹 Canonical Tags in PrestaShop
Canonical tags tell search engines which URL is the “main” version when multiple URLs show the same or similar content.
✅ Benefits:
- Prevents Duplicate Content Issues
- Example:
example.com/product?id=123andexample.com/product/product-namepoint to the same item. The canonical ensures Google only indexes the preferred URL.
- Example:
- Consolidates Ranking Signals
- Backlinks, traffic, and authority are attributed to the main product URL instead of being split across duplicates.
- Cleaner Indexing
- Search engines don’t waste crawl budget on unnecessary duplicate product/variant pages.
- Better SEO Performance
- Improves chances of higher ranking for the main product/category pages.
⚖️ Hreflang + Canonical Together in PrestaShop
- Hreflang handles regional/language variations.
- Canonical handles duplicate URL variations within the same region/language.
👉 Best practice:
Each localized version should point canonicals to itself (not all to one main page). This way, Google understands:
/en/product(canonical = itself, hreflang for EN)/fr/produit(canonical = itself, hreflang for FR)
This avoids conflicts and ensures both SEO value and correct international targeting.
⚡In short:
- Hreflang = right page for the right audience.
- Canonical = right URL for search engines.
Both help PrestaShop stores maximize SEO, avoid duplicates, and improve global visibility.