SEO Guide: Managing sites that are multi-regional and multilingual
You can improve Google Search results for your site if it provides diverse material to visitors in different languages, nations, or areas.
Background:
A multilingual website is one that provides material in several languages. Consider a Canadian company that has English and French versions of its website. Google Search tries to discover sites in the searcher’s native language.
You can improve Google Search results for your site if it provides diverse material to visitors in different languages, nations, or areas.
A multi-regional website is one that caters to consumers from many nations. For instance, consider a company that ships to both Canada and the United States. Google Search aims to match the searcher with the appropriate locale page.
Some websites are multi-regional and multilingual, with separate versions for the United States and Canada, as well as French and English versions of Canadian material.
Managing your website’s multilingual versions
If you have identical content in multiple languages on your site, here are some tips for helping users (and Google Search) find the right page:
For different language versions, use separate URLs
Instead of utilising cookies or browser settings to change the content language on a website, Google suggests using distinct URLs for each language version.
Use hreflang annotations to assist Google search results connect to the proper language version of a page if you use distinct URLs for various languages.
If you wish to modify content or redirect users based on language preferences, be in mind that Google may not locate and crawl all of your variants. This is because the Googlebot crawler is generally based in the United States. Furthermore, the crawler sends HTTP queries without including the Accept-Language header.
Hreflang annotations and sitemaps are two ways that Google offers for marking language or region variations of a page. Make relevant notes on your pages.
Make sure the wording on the page is clear
Google determines the language of your website based on the visible content. We don’t utilise any language-specific code, such as lang attributes or the URL. By utilising a single language for content and navigation on each page and eliminating side-by-side translations, you may help Google detect the language properly.
If the same content appears multiple times in search results with various boilerplate languages, translating only the boilerplate text of your pages while keeping the bulk of your content in a single language (as often happens on pages featuring user-generated content) can create a bad user experience.
Use robots.txt to prevent search engines from crawling your site’s automatically translated pages. Automated translations aren’t always accurate, and they might be considered spam. A bad or artificial-sounding translation, on the other hand, might impair the perception of your website.
Allow the user to change the language of the page
If you have numerous versions of a page, do the following:
Consider include links to a page’s various language versions. Users may then select a different language version of the page by clicking on it.
Automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language should be avoided. These redirects may prevent users (and search engines) from seeing all of your site’s versions.
Use URLs that are distinct to each language
It’s permissible to utilise localised terms or an Internationalized Domain Name in the URL (IDN). However, make sure the URL is encoded in UTF-8 (we advocate using UTF-8 wherever feasible) and that the URLs are correctly escaped when linking to them.
Content on the site can be tailored to a certain country (geotargeting)
You may target people in a single specific nation who speak a certain language using your website or sections of it. This can boost your page ranks in the target nation, but at the price of other locations or languages.
To use Google to geotarget your website, follow these steps:
Site or page level: For your website or page, use locale-specific URLs.
Use hreflang or sitemaps at the page level to inform Google which pages are relevant to specific locales or languages.
Site level: If your site has a generic top-level domain (such as.com,.org, or.eu), use the International Targeting report to identify your site’s target locale.
Don’t use the International Targeting report if your site targets more than a single country. For example, it would make sense to set the target as Canada for a site about restaurants in Montreal; it would not make sense to set the target as Canada if it also targets French speakers in France, Canada, and Mali.
Remember that geotargeting isn’t a precise science, so people who land on the “wrong” version of your site should be taken into account. One approach to do this would be to include links on all pages that allow users to pick their preferred region and/or language.
Do not use IP analysis to adapt your content. IP location analysis is difficult and generally not reliable. Furthermore, Google may not be able to crawl variations of your site properly. Most, but not all, Google crawls originate from the US, and we do not attempt to vary the location to detect site variations. Use one of the explicit methods shown here (hreflang, alternate URLs, and explicit links).
Using URLs that are unique to a certain location
Consider utilising a URL structure that allows you to easily geotarget your site, or sections of it, to specific locations. Your selections are shown in the table below:
| URL structure options | |
|---|---|
Country-specific domainexample.de | Pros: Clear geotargeting Server location irrelevant Easy separation of sites Cons: Expensive (can have limited availability) Requires more infrastructure Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes) |
Subdomains with gTLDde.example.com | Pros: Easy to set up Can use Search Console geotargeting Allows different server locationsEasy separation of sites Cons: Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone (is “de” the language or country?) |
Subdirectories with gTLDexample.com/de/ | Pros: Easy to set up Can use Search Console geotargeting Low maintenance (same host) Cons: Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone Single server location Separation of sites harder |
URL parameterssite.com?loc=de | Not recommended. Cons: URL-based segmentation difficultUsers might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone; Geotargeting in Search Console is not possible |
What factors does Google consider when selecting a target location?
To select the optimal target audience for a page, Google uses a variety of signals:
- The International Targeting report in Search Console was used to specify a target locale. Google recommend utilising Search Console to inform the search engine which nation you want your site to be associated with if you use a generic top-level domain (gTLD) and a hosting provider in another country (if you want to geotarget your site).
- Top-level domains with country codes (ccTLDs). These are associated with a certain nation (for example,.de for Germany, and.cn for China), and so send a strong signal to both visitors and search engines that your site is meant for that country. Be aware that certain nations have limits on who may use ccTLDs, so do your homework first. We also regard some vanity ccTLDs (such as.tv and.me) as gTLDs since we’ve discovered that users and website owners often see them as more general than country-specific (we don’t maintain a full list of such vanity ccTLDs that we treat as gTLDs because such a list would vary over time). See Google’s list of generic top-level domains (gTLDs).
- hreflang declarations in tags, headers, and sitemaps.
- The location of the server (through the IP address of the server). The server location is frequently geographically close to your users and might indicate who your site is designed for. It is not a conclusive signal because some websites utilise distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are housed in a nation with stronger webserver infrastructure.
- There are other indications. Local addresses and phone numbers on the pages, the usage of local language and currency, connections from other local sites, and/or the use of Google My Business are all possible sources of information about your site’s target audience (where available).
With multilingual/multi-regional sites, dealing with duplicate pages is a challenge
Pick a preferred version and use the rel=”canonical” element and hreflang tags to ensure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers if you provide similar or duplicate content on different URLs in the same language as part of a multi-regional site (for example, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show similar German language content).
SEO for multilingual and multiregional sites is always evolving. As we move forward in this crazy Internet age, I expect this to be a growing concern. One of the things I like about how things are changing is that if you pay attention to new search tactics, you’ll receive other great ideas for improving your internet business.
