What are the best practices for translation of city/state names for international SEO? (ie. New York in English vs. Nueva York in Spanish)
-
I'm working on international SEO / translation of a global travel site. While we have a global keyword research and translation strategy in process for each market they serve, I've run into a unique question. Overall, we are translating (and localizing) content for each market but aren't sure what to do with location names.
Each country/state has cities and locations that have their own dedicated pages. I see three options for these location names (when titling a page and writing content): keep them in English, translate the names in the market languages, or use a combination of the two.
The challenge with altering the location names to the market languages is that they are truly not known by those names. Though there are some instances where it may make sense…for instance **New York **in Spanish would be "Nueva York" with **‘**Nueva' being the Spanish translation of ‘new’. There are other instances, where no translation exists.
If you’ve had a similar experience I'd love to hear your approach/recommendation.
-
While I agree with Lesley that it's best not to translate the proper nouns associated with place names - it's not always as simple as that. For instance, the Spanish island of Mallorca is mostly referred to as Majorca in the UK. So in these situations I would go for the version that is most widely understood (and searched for) in the target region.
-
Don't translate proper names. Especially things like New York, I would be willing to bet that everyone has heard of that. But I take the stance to not translate proper nouns, it dilutes the word and causes confusion.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Website relaunched: Both old pages and new pages indexed
Hi all, We have recently made major changes to our website and relaunched it. We have changed URLs of some pages. We have redirected old URLs to new before taking website live. When I check even after one week, still the same old and new pages also indexed at Google. I wonder why still old pages cache is there with Google. Please share your ideas on this. Thanks
International SEO | | vtmoz0 -
UK English and USA English - two flags on navigation?
If a website is translated to English and has .co.uk version and a .com which are directed at UK and USA audiences respectively (using localised spellings etc), how do you get the visitor to the right version? It seems clumsy to add two flags on the navigation - one for USA and one for GB English as well as other languages. Should a redirection script be in place based on their IP address? Thanks for any help
International SEO | | AL123al0 -
Setting up I.P Filter Google Analytics - I.p ending with 0/24
Hi everyone, Your help would be much appreciated for the following: I am trying to setup I.P filters for our Google Analytic account to exclude internal traffic. We are located in multiple locations and each location have multiple I.p addresses. The I.P addresses we have end either by 0/24 which apparently means they provide a range from 0 to 255 and or 128/25. I have tried to setup the I.P addresses in different formats on the GA filter but they are apparently are not valid: example of one setup I tried: 1**.\2**.\8*.([0-256]) I have gone through the Filter setup guide from Google but I must be doing something wrong- probably to do on how I setup the I.P's ending with 0/24 and 128/25 If anyone could help me on how I can set up the I.P filters Google analytic would be great. The I.P addresses look like the following (changed digits): Location 1: 174.177.179.0/25 174.177.179.128/25 Location 2: 196.222.87.0/24
International SEO | | AlphaDigital2
194.59.197.0/24 Thanks you so much for your help, L.0 -
Google Analytics - whats best way to set up to track users on geotargeted sub folders & tlds ?
Hi ive got a client site just about to launch into 2 new territories (German Germany & Turkish Turkey) The existing/main site is in English & targets English keyword usage globally via domain.com and is not geotargeted in anyway. Analytics is set up for this on domain.com and tracking accurately and GWT is set up too. Now we have added a Turkish language site via a subfolder (domain.com/tr/) & the German site (domsain.com/de/) BUT this German subfolder will be domain mapped to a TLD (domain.de) eventually.. So what's best way to configure/set up Google Analytics to track users so can view the international sub-sites as individual sites etc ? (& GWT for that matter) ? Also after doing this i will be setting up in Moz Anlytics as separate campaigns so how do you set up so only draws in the Analytics data specific to these sub-folders ? All Best Dan
International SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Canonical and hreflang mess of international desktop and mobile site versions
Hello, I have an interesting case and I am lost in it. There are two versions of the site: desktop and mobile. And there are also international versions: English and Spanish. I'm stuck at implementation of canonical tags. Currently my setup has the following: English (default) desktop page has these: English Mobile page has these: Spanish Desktop version: Spanish Mobile version: But I somewhat feel that I messed the things... Could you guys point me to what I did wrong and explain how to set it right? Also, if you know URLs of blog posts or articles, where similar case is explained - share with me please.
International SEO | | poiseo0 -
Country name displayed after domain name in google SERP
our online shop targets clients in the US and worldwide (same URL - no subdirectories - currency changes based on IP). when searching in google.ie or google.no for our site google displays in the SERPS "US" or "United States" after the URL for our site, but for most other US competitors it does not show the country in the SERPS. I deleted our google places listing 2 weeks ago, since I suspected it may be related, but no change so far. In google webmaster tools we have targeted the shop domain to United States, which may be another factor. Unfortunately we can not undo this setting since without it our google US ranking for the most relevant competitive keyword drops from position 8 to position 100+. Server location is in Germany which despite lots of US links and US contact info and USD currency appparently makes google think that the site is not targeting the US. Does anybody know what triggers the country name in the SERPS (google places or webmaster tools or other) and can give advice if there is any way to get rid of it.
International SEO | | lcourse0 -
Website Translation
Hi All, I know its not an SEO question, but....................... Can anyone suggest a few good website translation "widgets" I would like to give those who are not fluent in English and option to choose another language in which to view the page text. Thank You!!!
International SEO | | APICDA0 -
Ranking local content against English content
Hi SEOMoz, If I have a site that has multiple language selection, how would it be possible for my site with localized content to rank higher than the default/English content? For example, in Google.co.th, my site with English content (http://www.xyz.com/en-us/) ranks higher than the localized content (http://www.xyz.com/th-th/). How is it possible for me to turn things around and ensure that for local markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China etc the localized content organically ranks higher than the default-English page? Thanks! Steve
International SEO | | sjcbayona-412180