Google’s Markup for Multilingual Content: rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”

Last month, on Dec. 5, 2011, Google announced it was rolling out a “new markup for multilingual

content”. The purpose of this is to help multilingual/multi-regional web sites better target audiences

and assist users to find the most relevant content based in their location. In other words, if a user

performs a search on a Google local domain, Google seeks to direct the user to the most relevant

page based on geographic location and assumed language.