Hreflang Audit & Fix

Get the real handle from each store

Shopify stores the handle per-store. UK/US/DE usually use short English handles; FR uses long localised slugs. Do not guess them. Open each store's products JSON feed in your browser:

https://www.brainzyme.com/products.json?limit=250
https://www.brainzyme.us/products.json?limit=250
https://www.brainzyme.de/products.json?limit=250
https://brainzyme.fr/products.json?limit=250

Find your new product by title (Ctrl+F). Copy the exact "handle" value. You should end up with 4 handles (one per store).

Add the product to config/hreflang_snippets.json

Open F:/Claude Root/config/hreflang_snippets.json and add a new entry under product_map. Use a short ALL_CAPS code as the key:

"FOCUS_PLUS": {
  "handles": [
    "brainzyme-focus-plus",
    "brainzyme-focus-plus",
    "brainzyme-focus-plus",
    "brainzyme-focus-plus-long-french-slug-here"
  ],
  "urls": {
    "en-GB":    "https://www.brainzyme.com/products/brainzyme-focus-plus",
    "en-US":    "https://www.brainzyme.us/products/brainzyme-focus-plus",
    "de-DE":    "https://www.brainzyme.de/products/brainzyme-focus-plus",
    "fr-FR":    "https://brainzyme.fr/products/brainzyme-focus-plus-long-french-slug-here",
    "x-default":"https://www.brainzyme.com/products/brainzyme-focus-plus"
  }
}

x-default always points to the UK URL. fr-FR is always non-www (brainzyme.fr, no leading www).

Extend the Liquid {% case product.handle %} block in all 4 store snippets

Open F:/Claude Root/hreflang-audit/corrected-snippets.md. You'll see 4 store sections. For each of UK, US, DE, FR, add a new {% when ... %} clause inside the elsif template contains 'product' branch, above the {% else %} fallback.

The when clause lists every store's handle for this product (so the same clause catches the product regardless of which store Liquid is running on):

{%- when 'brainzyme-focus-plus', 'brainzyme-focus-plus-long-french-slug-here' -%}
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="https://www.brainzyme.com/products/brainzyme-focus-plus" />
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://www.brainzyme.us/products/brainzyme-focus-plus" />
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-DE" href="https://www.brainzyme.de/products/brainzyme-focus-plus" />
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://brainzyme.fr/products/brainzyme-focus-plus-long-french-slug-here" />
  <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.brainzyme.com/products/brainzyme-focus-plus" />

Paste this clause into all 4 snippets (UK, US, DE, FR). The URLs inside are the same across all 4 snippets — only the self-ref logic differs per snippet.

Deploy each store's snippet to its Shopify theme

For each of UK, US, DE, FR:

1. Shopify admin → Online Store → Themes → Edit code
2. Open layout/theme.liquid
3. Find the comment <!-- 43) Adding the theme diversion code for SEO purposes -->
4. Replace the entire block (from {%- if template == 'index' -%} through the matching {%- endif -%}) with the updated store-specific snippet
5. Save

Cache-bypass verify on each store

Open the new product page on each store. Open Chrome DevTools → Console. Paste:

fetch(location.href + '?nc=' + Date.now(), {cache: 'reload'})
  .then(r => r.text())
  .then(html => {
    const tags = html.match(/<link[^>]*rel=["']alternate["'][^>]*hreflang=[^>]*>/gi) || [];
    console.log('Count:', tags.length);
    tags.forEach(t => console.log(t));
  });

Expected: 5 tags. One each for en-GB, en-US, de-DE, fr-FR, x-default. If you get 2 tags, the when clause didn't catch — most likely a handle typo. See troubleshooting.

Resubmit sitemaps in Google Search Console (optional but speeds up recrawl)

For each of the 4 GSC properties, Sitemaps → Submit /sitemap.xml. Google should re-index the new product with correct hreflang within 24–72 hours.

Add the handle to mirrored_pages_allowlist

Open F:/Claude Root/config/hreflang_snippets.json. Add the new handle (without /pages/ prefix) to the mirrored_pages_allowlist array:

"mirrored_pages_allowlist": [
  "brain-issues-quiz",
  ...existing entries...,
  "testimonials"
]

Add the path to the allowlist branch in all 4 snippets

Open F:/Claude Root/hreflang-audit/corrected-snippets.md. Each snippet has a {% elsif template contains 'page' %} branch with a path check. Add the new path:

{%- elsif template contains 'page' and page.handle == 'brain-issues-quiz'
    or page.handle == 'ingredients'
    or page.handle == 'testimonials'  {%- comment -%}NEW{%- endcomment -%}
    ...etc -%}

(Exact Liquid syntax is in corrected-snippets.md — don't reinvent it, just extend the existing condition.)

Deploy all 4 stores

Same as Playbook A step 4. Replace the section-43 block on each store's layout/theme.liquid.

Verify via cache-bypass fetch

Expect 5 tags on /pages/testimonials on each of the 4 stores. If you get 2 tags, the allowlist didn't catch — check the handle spelling exactly matches what Shopify stores as page.handle (lowercase, hyphenated).

Confirm the new handle in Shopify admin

Admin → Products → [product] → scroll to the URL field at the bottom of the page. Copy the exact handle.

Update the JSON

Open F:/Claude Root/config/hreflang_snippets.json. In the affected product's entry:

• Add the new handle to the handles array (keep the old one as a safety alias)
• Update urls.[locale] to the new full URL

Update the store's snippet

Open corrected-snippets.md. In the affected store's snippet, find the {% when %} clause for this product. Add the new handle to the list. Update the locale's <link> href inside the clause.

Deploy and verify that one store

Paste the updated snippet into the affected store only. Verify via cache-bypass fetch on both the old URL (should 301 and still show 5 tags) and the new URL (should show 5 tags directly).