Google explains why hreflang alternate URLs show as “not indexed” Gary Illyes: hreflang alternate URLs aren’t indexed in the proper sense

Gary Illyes clarified how Google handles hreflang and alternate URLs throughout canonicalization, explaining that these alternate variations aren’t listed within the conventional sense.

This got here up in a LinkedIn thread began by Faiez Javaid, who requested:

“If Google is selecting by itself one /lang/ as canonical and ignoring others displaying in GSC as not listed, then how can Google present different lang variations of the identical web page to the person in search outcomes?”

Gary Illyes replied with a two-part clarification:

“There are two issues at play:

1. Alternate names: Once we canonicalize a URL, the opposite URLs in its duplicate cluster from which it was chosen could grow to be so-called alternate names. They might be utilized in search outcomes if the person question deserves a type of alternate names. Essentially the most distinguished use case is the ‘web site:’ question. If you happen to do a search like [site:], we could present a bunch of URLs that really redirect; they’re not listed within the correct sense; they’re simply alternate names of a canonical URL.
2. hreflang alternates grow to be such alternate URLs; they’re not, in actual fact, listed within the correct sense.”

This can be a helpful clarification for anybody confused about seeing language or area variants of a web page seem in search outcomes, regardless of Search Console reporting these URLs as “not listed.” In accordance with Illyes, this doesn’t imply these URLs are damaged or being ignored they’re merely functioning as alternate names tied to the canonical model, and Google can nonetheless floor them in particular contexts, resembling via hreflang or web site: search queries.