Search Console Hreflang-Tag Error "missing return tag": No explanation

[Online-Marketing-Guy]

Hey there,

we have recently implemented hreflang on the sitemap level for our global website. The website has 57 sitemaps that are all referenced in a sitemap index file (www.buschvacuum.com/sitemap.xml). Google is showing several errors in search console ("Sitemap provided URLs and alternate URLs in 'en-AU' that do not have return tags."). However when I try to verify this I do find the return tags. Can this be caused by the fact that my hreflang tags span several sitemap files?

To pick one random example (see screenshot for search console error message):
The Originating URL-hreflang-Tag is in www.buschvacuum.com/sitemap_3.xml, the return tag is in www.buschvacuum.com/sitemap_4.xml.

It would be great if someone with experience regarding those errors could help me explaining that behavior.

Thanks a lot.

Jochen

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[Mobilio]

This happens when a page includes a hreflang link to an alternate language, but the linked page doesn't link back to it. This post explains that:
https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2014/07/troubleshooting-hreflang-annotations-in.html

Annotations must be confirmed from the pages they are pointing to. If page A links to page B, page B must link back to page A, otherwise the annotations may not be interpreted correctly.

So if you have this error reported, you should edit the Alternate URL page code to ensure there's a hreflang link back to the matching Originating URL.

[Online-Marketing-Guy]

Thanks for your response Peter. In the meantime I got a response from Google's John Müller regarding my problem. In our case the problem is duplicate content and not missing return tags as reported in search console.

See the ongoing discussion here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/ezMvrlRWuDk/6XWuM1fIDgA

[StudentSEO]

But using sitemaps you will not be using this method? The return tag will be in a sitemap...