Missing x-default: what it means and how to fix it

What we look for

These pages have hreflang tags (lines in <head> listing the page's versions in other languages), but no x-default entry (the version to show when no listed language matches).

Why it matters

Without it, search engines choose which version to show people whose language you have not listed. Google recommends it, but it is optional.

How to fix

Add a hreflang tag with hreflang="x-default" that points at your fallback page, often a language chooser or the main version, in the page template or the plugin that writes the tags.

Seen in a real crawl

From a crawl of Fernhollow Outdoor, a test site built for this site’s demo.

Low

1 page has no fallback for other languages

/en-us/

Paths on http://127.0.0.1:8006raptor 0.3.0, 17 Oct 2026

Open this finding in that crawl’s report

Where you’ll see it

The id is stable, and every surface uses it, so it’s the thing to search for or hand to an agent.

Terminal: When it is one of the five findings under Fix first, raptor crawl prints the id under it.
Check: hreflang.missing_x_default
crawl.json and the CSV: The crawl JSON names the finding by this id, and so do the CSV and raptor_query.
"check_id": "hreflang.missing_x_default"
The HTML report: This link opens the finding in the report, and each finding shows its id.
crawl.html#finding=hreflang.missing_x_default
MCP: raptor_findings with this check_id returns the finding in full, with a fix brief ready to paste into a task. If it didn’t fire, it says why.
raptor_findings { "job_id": "...", "check_id": "hreflang.missing_x_default" }