Brighton SEO April 2025: XML + Hreflang for E-Commerce Sites

Thanks for either attending my BrightonSEO talk, looking up the slides or showing a general interest in the topic of Hreflang. Here is a list of references and resources…

Brighton SEO

Talk: XML + Hreflang: A practical guide for large ecommerce sites

Date: Friday 11th April 2025, 9.30am

By: Nick Samuel – Head of Technical SEO at Dentsu

The Slides…

• SpeakerDeck Version – Massive URL I couldn’t change…
• SlideShare Version – I think this is less popular these days
• Speaker Deck (Profile) – Nick Samuel

References in Deck

• Hreflang Analysis Data – This was based on Top 100 UK Fashion Sites from SimilarWeb
• Pull & Bear – At the time of analysis they had 696 Hreflang Tags!
• Adidas Colombia Futbol – Hreflang Example used….Vamos Millonarios!
• Google Hreflang Documentation – Nuff said, best source of best-practices
• Ahrefs Hreflang Guide – Good starting point for beginners
• Tanvir BrightonSEO Talk on Hreflang Dashboard – Links to slides; there’s also a video as well
• Tanvir International UX Dashboard – Approach to pulling GSC Data with Big Query to analyse Hreflang Cannibalisation
• XML Sitemap Generator – TechnicalSEO.com by Dentsu
• Hreflang Tags Testing Tool – TechnicalSEO.com by Dentsu
• Hreflang Builder – Brilliant and highly recommended Hreflang generation tool by Bill Hunt

Thank You

Thanks to BrightonSEO (Kelvin and Andrea) for selecting me to speak.

Thanks to a fair few Dentsu colleagues for their help/support…apologies if I have overlooked anyone here – it is a busy week!

• Nat Abrams – Inspiration and discussion on all things International x Tech SEO
• James Foley – Sharing his Brighton Deck and giving me his advice
• Dentsu SLT – Mario La Malfa, Rachael Murdoch, Alex Wright for validating the idea and feedback
• Tanvir Ali – Sharing his International UX Dashboard and help updating it so I could reference + Brighton Deck inspiration
• Henry Price – Inspiration for Hreflang Analysis; he worked on the 2024 SEO Web Almanac
• Faisal Anderson – Found his deck from a few years ago on Server Logs really help in terms of laying out a pres!
• David Reid – Sharing Hreflang Forecasting Framework (Didn’t use it fully!)

And of course the wife for permission to reduce her country down to a few celebrity images and all of her support <3

Connect With Me:

I’m not very active on socials etc. but will try and keep an eye on these during and after BrightonSEO.

More than happy to have a quick chat and help answer any questions you may have or discuss any challenges you have.

• LinkedIn.com – nmsamuel
• Blue Sky – nmsamuel.bsky.social
• Twitter/X @nm_samuel – not sure if anyone uses Twitter anymore…I don’t