Shopify Markets and hreflang: Selling to the US, EU and Australia From One Store

Most brands we work with sell into more than one country. A grill brand ships to the US and Australia. A Shenzhen electronics brand sells in the US, Germany, France and the UK. The question is always the same: one Shopify store or several, and how do we stop Google showing the Australian page to Americans?

The answer for most brands is one store, Shopify Markets, subfolders and correct hreflang. Shopify now automates a lot of this. It doesn't automate the decisions, and a surprising number of stores break what Shopify gets right. This guide explains the setup we use and the problems we fix most often.

What hreflang does, in one paragraph#

hreflang tells search engines that several pages are versions of the same content for different languages or regions. When a searcher in Sydney searches for your product, Google can then show the en-AU page instead of the en-US one. Google describes hreflang as a signal, not a directive, so it helps Google choose the right version but won't rescue pages that are weak, untranslated or blocked. Google's own documentation sets three hard rules:

• Every version lists itself and every other version. If page A points to B but B doesn't point back, Google may ignore the annotations.
• Codes follow ISO standards. Language in ISO 639-1 (en, de, fr), optional region in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 (US, AU, DE). "en-AU" is valid; "AU" alone is not, and neither is "en-UK" (the code is GB).
• URLs are fully qualified, including https://.

An x-default tag tells Google which page to show when no other version matches the searcher.

How Shopify Markets structures international URLs#

A market in Shopify is a country or group of countries with its own settings: currency, language, pricing, product availability and a URL. You can give each market one of three URL types.

Shopify's own help center recommends subfolders for most stores for the same reason we do: all the links and authority your main domain has earned also support the international versions. For a brand that is still building authority, splitting it across three domains slows everything down.

What Shopify does automatically#

According to Shopify's documentation on international SEO for markets, once your markets, domains and languages are set up:

• hreflang tags are generated for every page based on each market's language and region, with an x-default pointing to your primary domain.
• Tags are injected through content_for_header, which every theme renders in the head of layout/theme.liquid. If a developer removed that line, hreflang disappears with it.
• Each market version gets a self-referencing canonical, so Google sees related pages for different audiences rather than duplicates.
• Sitemaps include market-specific URLs.
• Search engine crawlers bypass automatic geolocation redirects, while customers are still redirected.

You can publish up to 20 languages on Basic, Grow and Advanced, and up to 30 on Plus. Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app auto-translates up to two languages; beyond that you add translations manually, by CSV or with a third-party app.

A setup for the US, EU and Australia#

Here is a typical structure for a brand whose main market is the US:

On a product page, the resulting tags look roughly like this (simplified):

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.example.com/products/pellet-grill">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://www.example.com/products/pellet-grill">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-AU" href="https://www.example.com/en-au/products/pellet-grill">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="https://www.example.com/en-gb/products/pellet-grill">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-DE" href="https://www.example.com/de-de/products/pellet-grill">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.example.com/fr-fr/products/pellet-grill">

For a market that covers several countries, such as "Rest of EU", check what your store actually outputs. In the stores we audit, Shopify lists the market's countries against the same subfolder URL. View the source rather than assuming.

Which countries deserve their own market?#

Give a country its own market when at least one of these is true:

• It has meaningful search demand for your products (check keyword volumes by country in Ahrefs or Semrush).
• It needs its own language, currency, pricing or product range.
• You can actually localize the content, not just switch the currency symbol.

Everything else can sit in a broader market until the data says otherwise.

Australia: same language, different market#

Americans and Australians both speak English, which is exactly why the en-AU version needs work. If the en-AU page is the en-US page with AUD prices, Google has little reason to rank it separately. Differences that matter:

• Words. Americans search "grill", Australians often search "BBQ" or "barbecue". A US "cooler" is an Australian "esky". A US "backyard" is often a "garden" in the UK.
• Spelling. Colour, aluminium, metre.
• Prices and tax. Australian shoppers expect GST-inclusive prices, and EU shoppers expect VAT-inclusive prices. Shopify can include or exclude tax based on the customer's country.
• Shipping and returns. Delivery times from an Australian warehouse, local returns address, warranty terms.
• Standards and plugs. Electrical plugs, voltage and local certifications for anything that plugs in.

The EU: languages first#

For the EU, language is the bigger lever. A German shopper searches in German, and machine-translated German reads badly to native speakers. Start with the one or two EU languages where you have the most demand, have native speakers review the money pages (top collections and best-selling products), and translate URL handles too. Our international SEO service covers this localization work.

The hreflang mistakes we fix most often#

Google's guidance is to avoid automatically redirecting people based on their perceived language or location without a way to switch. Shopify lets crawlers through, but shoppers who are travelling or using a VPN still need a way back.

Keyword research per market, not per language#

Translation gets a page into the right language. It doesn't tell you what people in that market search for. Before localizing a collection, run keyword research in each target country:

• Volumes differ. A keyword with strong demand in the US can be tiny in Australia, while a local term you never considered is large.
• Terms differ. "Billiard table" and "pool table" split differently by country, and in the UK "snooker table" is a different product altogether. "Wine fridge" is common in the UK where Americans often say "wine cooler".
• SERPs differ. Page one for the same keyword in Germany and the US can show different page types, marketplaces and local competitors.

Then localize the collection title, H1, intro copy and FAQs around the local terms, not just the translated ones. Internal links in each market version should use local anchor text too. This is also where Zack's rule applies per market: look on page one in that country, because Google shows you exactly what it rewards there.

How to audit hreflang on Shopify#

Google retired Search Console's International Targeting report in 2022, so you need other tools.

1. View source on a product, a collection and the homepage in each market. Count the hreflang tags; they should be identical in every version apart from the canonical.
2. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog, Ahrefs Site Audit or Semrush Site Audit, which flag missing return links, invalid codes and hreflang pointing at redirected or non-canonical URLs.
3. Check Search Console performance by country. Filter by country and page. If Australian searchers are landing on US URLs, something's wrong.
4. Test the redirects. Load each market from a VPN, switch markets with the selector, and make sure you can reach every version.

One store or several?#

Markets now handles most multi-country needs in one store. Separate stores still make sense in some cases.

For most of our clients, one store is the right answer. When separate stores are needed, they still need hreflang between them, which you then have to manage yourself.

International SEO in practice#

For our automotive accessories client, part of the work was fixing international SEO problems that were leaking value, including broken internal links and cannibalization between near-identical pages. With 360+ pages and thousands of internal links built on top, the store went from roughly zero to almost 100,000 visits a month and $758,772.94 in organic revenue in 7 months.

International SEO rarely wins on its own. It makes sure the pages you've built reach the right country. For the content side, start with Shopify collection page SEO. If you're a Chinese brand selling West, Google SEO for Chinese brands covers the wider picture, and our comparison of Shopify, Shopline and Shoplazza explains how each platform handles hreflang.