--- name: validate-international-seo-hreflang-and-locale-targeting description: 'Audit international SEO implementations for reciprocal hreflang clusters, locale codes, canonicals, redirects, indexability, sitemap coverage, and rendered output using crawl and page evidence. Use when a multilingual or multi-region site is launching, migrating, or changing localized URL templates. Search engines are indexing the wrong locale, consolidating pages incorrectly, or showing unexpected regional results. A team needs to validate hreflang tags, XML sitemap annotations, canonical relationships, redirects, and indexability across locale clusters. International SEO issues may affect organic visibility, duplicate content handling, or user routing.' compatibility: 'Instruction-only Agent Skill. Requires an Agent Skills-compatible client and access to the tools or systems named in the instructions. No executable scripts are bundled.' metadata: publisher: RichlyAI product: Amo.ng amo_id: AMO-S-000032 canonical_url: 'https://amo.ng/skills/validate-international-seo-hreflang-and-locale-targeting' package_version: 1.0.0 source_type: prompt source_amo_id: AMO-P-000252 source_content_sha256: f7ba48cbcb70969f6c1bb500793f3e12535db433c90bf0dfc24e3ac17dd1bf07 source_version: 1.0.0 --- # Validate International SEO Hreflang and Locale Targeting ## When to use this Skill - A multilingual or multi-region site is launching, migrating, or changing localized URL templates. - Search engines are indexing the wrong locale, consolidating pages incorrectly, or showing unexpected regional results. - A team needs to validate hreflang tags, XML sitemap annotations, canonical relationships, redirects, and indexability across locale clusters. - International SEO issues may affect organic visibility, duplicate content handling, or user routing. ## When not to use this Skill - Do not use for general keyword research or content strategy without technical international SEO evidence. - Do not use for legal localization, translation quality, or market-entry decisions except as supporting SEO evidence. - Do not use when no URL samples, crawl data, rendered HTML, sitemap data, or implementation details are available. - Do not treat the output as a guarantee of search ranking or search-engine behavior. ## Required inputs - List of markets, languages, locale codes, and intended canonical URL patterns. - Representative URL clusters across locales, including default or x-default pages if used. - Crawl exports, rendered HTML snippets, sitemap files, robots directives, canonical tags, redirect behavior, and indexability status. - CMS, framework, template, or routing rules that generate localized pages and tags. - Known symptoms from Search Console, logs, SERP observations, analytics, or stakeholder reports. - Launch stage, production constraints, change history, and required acceptance criteria. - Named locale and market owners, canonical ownership rules, crawl and indexing evidence dates, and current authoritative search-engine guidance with source links and access dates. Use [INPUT-TEMPLATE.md](assets/INPUT-TEMPLATE.md) to organize the supplied information. ## Required tools or access Published source tool designations: ChatGPT. These are source designations, not portable-client compatibility claims. Use only authorized access described in the inputs and source instructions. Do not claim access or inspection without evidence. ## Procedure Before starting, read [SOURCE.md](references/SOURCE.md), including the exact Prompt instructions and any ordered Workflow steps, review notes and carry-forward requirements. 1. Use the linked source prompt AMO-P-000252 as the international SEO QA scaffold; feed it the URL, crawl, sitemap, and rendered-output evidence instead of copying its full text into the answer. 2. Separate supplied crawl facts, page evidence, implementation assumptions, inferred risks, and missing information. 3. Group URLs into hreflang clusters and check reciprocity, self-references, x-default use, locale-code validity, locale ownership, canonical and hreflang interaction, redirect stability, crawlability, indexability, and sitemap consistency against current authoritative search-engine guidance. 4. Identify contradictions such as hreflang pointing to non-indexable, redirected, canonicalized-away, blocked, missing, duplicated, or wrong-language URLs. 5. Prioritize findings by affected market, template scope, crawlability/indexability risk, implementation complexity, and reversibility. 6. Define concrete remediation options and post-fix acceptance checks for representative templates and high-value URL clusters. 7. Require human review before publishing template changes, sitemap changes, canonical changes, or redirects that may affect production SEO traffic. 8. Avoid ranking guarantees; frame recommendations as risk reduction and validation steps. Published expected output: An international SEO validation brief with cluster-level findings, prioritized technical risks, remediation recommendations, acceptance-test checklist, unresolved evidence gaps, and release or publication review gates. ## Review gates Read and apply the source review instructions in [SOURCE.md](references/SOURCE.md) before acting. Keep proposed, unrun and executed actions distinct; preserve missing evidence and obtain the human approvals required by the source. ## Completion criteria Complete when: - Each finding references a supplied URL, crawl row, sitemap entry, rendered tag, redirect result, or search evidence. - The audit checks reciprocity, self-reference, locale-code validity, canonical compatibility, indexability, and sitemap consistency. - Priority levels reflect scope, severity, reversibility, and business relevance. - Acceptance checks are specific enough to run after implementation. - Unverified assumptions and missing samples are explicitly listed. Use the [completion checklist](references/COMPLETION-CHECKLIST.md) and record unresolved items. ## Limitations - Do not invent crawl results, locale mappings, Search Console data, or rendered HTML. - Do not recommend broad URL, canonical, redirect, or sitemap changes without evidence of scope and impact. - Do not guarantee indexing, rankings, traffic recovery, or AI/search engine treatment. - Respect production release controls and require human approval for SEO-impacting changes. - Keep translation/content-quality observations separate from technical hreflang validation unless directly evidenced. This is an instruction-only package. Packaging does not execute work, grant access or independently verify the package. Existing public verification in amo.json describes only the identified published source resources. ## References - [Published source instructions](references/SOURCE.md) - [Completion checklist](references/COMPLETION-CHECKLIST.md) - [Input template](assets/INPUT-TEMPLATE.md) - [Rights](RIGHTS.md) - [Canonical Amo.ng Skill](https://amo.ng/skills/validate-international-seo-hreflang-and-locale-targeting)