Solved: Weebly language error

Nigel1 · ‎03-03-2025

Hi - posting this again as am not sure if my first attempt was saved.

I have had a Weebly website for several years. I recently discovered that the language tag was wrong -I need the language of my site to be English (UK) - so I went to the settings page and changed it.

But Weebly creates the html tag as <html lang="en_gb">. This is NOT correct, it should be <html lang="en-GB">

I have been getting errors in reports since I changed it.

The correct format is BCP 47 standard, which uses a hyphen (-) not an underscore (_) in the tag.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?
(or can Weebly fix it - seems like this is a global issue and there is probably an easy fix!)

Sineaid · ‎03-05-2025

Hi @Nigel1,

Thanks for your patience while I awaited an update on this.

Our Engineers have taken a look, and now have created a back end ticket to review the language tags that are currently being used.

In the interests of full transparency, it is likely that this action item will not be considered high priority at this time. The reason for this is that while the reporting service you're using is pointing this out as something that can potentially be improved, it should have little to no impact on your SEO ranking.

As you'll see here, Google doesn't use hreflang, or the HTML lang attribute to detect the language of a page. Instead, they use algorithms to determine the language.

I am actively watching the progress of the ticket that's been raised, and I'll be sure to let you know here of any updates.

View Solution >

Sineaid · ‎03-04-2025

Hi @Nigel1,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community about this - Welcome!

Would you mind sharing a link to your site, so I can pass this along to our eCom engineers for investigation?

I'll keep an eye out for your response.

Nigel1 · ‎03-04-2025

Hi @Sineaid

Here's the link to my site:

https://www.schoolofthewild.com/

Thanks

Sineaid · ‎03-04-2025

Thanks for that @Nigel1!

You mentioned that you've encountered reporting errors since updating the language tag. Could you provide a little more detail on that? Is an error message displayed for example?

If you could also share a screenshot demonstrating the issue, that would be helpful for our Engineers.

Nigel1 · ‎03-04-2025

Thanks @Sineaid

Here are 4 screenshots as examples:

1. Weebly language setting

2. website source showing the incorrect language tag

3. Error report from Ahrefs showing every page on my website (427) has an invalid HTML language attribute

4. Error report in Ahrefs showing 'No' for valid Html language tag on every page

I'd expect that you guys would have got this right! (It must be affecting thousands of websites)

Please can you let me know what the response is asap and/or explain how it can be fixed?

Weebly settingView sourceAhrefs error reportAhrefs error update

Sineaid · ‎03-04-2025

Thanks for the comprehensive response, @Nigel1,

I've passed all of the above to our eCom engineers, and I'll update you here as soon as I learn more.

Sineaid · ‎03-05-2025

Hi @Nigel1,

Thanks for your patience while I awaited an update on this.

Our Engineers have taken a look, and now have created a back end ticket to review the language tags that are currently being used.

In the interests of full transparency, it is likely that this action item will not be considered high priority at this time. The reason for this is that while the reporting service you're using is pointing this out as something that can potentially be improved, it should have little to no impact on your SEO ranking.

As you'll see here, Google doesn't use hreflang, or the HTML lang attribute to detect the language of a page. Instead, they use algorithms to determine the language.

I am actively watching the progress of the ticket that's been raised, and I'll be sure to let you know here of any updates.

Nigel1 · ‎03-05-2025

I see.

We are a UK based site with a .com url. We get a lot of traffic from the USA. We are trying to do things that increase our UK traffic, I've been advised that getting the hreflang tag right will make some difference.

So it is important to us that this is changed.

If your engineers are not making this a high priority, is there something I can do in the meantime that will change it? ie can I add some code or change the css?

[And I'm also really keen to know how you are developing Weebly in general. It doesn't seem like much has changed in a long time - is Weebly a priority at all?]

Nigel1 · ‎03-05-2025

If possible we need to switch the language tag to read en-gb to show that we are targeting UK based english speakers.

Sineaid · ‎03-07-2025

Hi @Nigel1.

I've not seen any movement on the ticket with Engineering just yet, however I'll be sure to let you know once I do.

In the meantime, have you considered reaching out on the Developer Forums, to check if there is something that you can do on your end with custom code? Unfortunately us Community Moderators wouldn't be able to answer Weebly Developer queries.

Nigel1 · ‎03-10-2025

Thanks @Sineaid
I just tried to post something on the Developer Forums, it won't let me!

I created an account but

- I can't see how start a new thread/post a new question

- every time I try to reply to a post, I get stuck in a loop where it keeps asking me to log in

Sigh.