Two versions of a website with different languages - Best way to do it?
-
I'm working on a website for a Swedish artist and her page is in Swedish, everything is in Swedish on the site, even though it's not a lot of text on the site. We would like to have the site in English too, or another version of the site in English on a separate domain, what's the best way to proceed from here?
The domain name is a .se (swedish domain), would it be better to create a another domain and host the english version of the site on a .com domain? Or will we bump into problems with duplicate content if we create a replica of the swedish site in english.
We're using wordpress and I know that there's translation plugins out there, is that a good option?
I'm a bit clueless on how to proceed and would love some help or guidance here.
-
Hi Fisken,
The best way to proceed depends on who you want to target:
- If you look to target a global or location independent English speaking audience (they might be in any country, the US, UK, Europe, etc.): Using a .com (or any generic domain, which won't be restricted to a specific country) will be the best way to go.
- If you look to target only English speakers located in Sweden: The easiest way would be to enable a sub-directory in your current .se domain: yourbrand.se/en/. If a sub-directory is not possible, then you can also enable a sub-domain for the new language, although if the site is small, I would recommend the sub-directory as it's easier to set and it inherits in a direct way the current popularity you have from your current version. This is not so straight-forward when working with sub-domains. Please, keep in mind that this option is only good if you really want to just target English speakers located in Sweden, not abroad; as if you keep your English version inside your .se domain it will be automatically geotargeted to Sweden.
- If you look to target a specifically located English speaking audience abroad: Use the country specific ccTLD to target its English speaking audience. For example, if you want target specifically people in the UK or Australia, the best would be that you use a .uk or a .au ccTLD for each case. Choose this option only if you really want to focus your English speaking version to people located in a specific country.
For more international SEO information, please take a look at:
If you have any doubts, just let me know!
-
In the past I have had it all on the same domain using WordPress and WPML. It is a paid plugin but It makes your life as an admin so much easier! The way I would set it up is through **.se/english **(easily accomplished in WPML).
In WPML you can do the translations yourself or submit the articles to a translator through the plugin.
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
-
My Website Not Showing In Google English Search Results
My website is not visible on Google English. Selecting the language of Google in Hindi, Spanish, etc., my pages are visible in search results.
International SEO | | Jude_Wix0 -
Will hreflang with a language and region allow Google to show the page to all users of that language regardless of region?
I'm launching translations on a website with the first translation being Brazilian Portuguese. If I use the following hreflang: If a user is outside of Brazil and has their browser language set to just Portuguese (Not Portuguese (Brazil)) will Google still serve them the Portuguese version of my pages in search results?
International SEO | | Brando160 -
Multinational website - best practice
Hello, I am researching a lot on this subject and have read several articles here on Moz and elsewhere about the best practices for multinational websites. But I'm not yet convinced on what would be the best solution in my case. Today we have the following websites (examples):
International SEO | | WebGain
website.com which function as a global website.
website.dk which is for the danish market
website.no which is for the norwegian market Some of the content on these websites are the same (but different languages; english, danish and norwegian). We want to expand the business to more countries and work with ccTLDs. Both to countries which speaks languages that we don't have content for yet (an example could be Poland), but also more countries that speaks english, like Great Britain (with a .co.uk domain) and Australia (with a .com.au domain). We expect to expand in many countries (as many as it makes sense to do). I have read a lot about the alternative hreflang tag which would look like and that seems like a good solution, but I have a couple of questions that I hope you guys can answer: Should the alternate hreflang tags show every existing language versions including the one you're on or only show the alternative versions? Do we risk penalty by having identical or almost identical content for same language websites (could be UK and the global .com one) if we use the alternate hreflang tags? I'm aware that we should use the native spellings and sentences in each country. Would the sitemap solution be better in our case? We have the same link structure for all websites, but the sub-directories can differ due to their language (like /articles/ is /artikler/ in danish) - is that an issue? Will hreflang="en" function as global english? (so searching users that we don't have a local website for will see that).0 -
Can we use similar images on multi regional websites?
I have couple of questions regarding multi regional websites. Right now, We're working on http://www.canvaschamp.com/ and planning to design new website for Australia region. I have read Google's official guidelines regarding duplicate content on following URL. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en Now, I have biggest question regarding images and videos. We're going to use all photo gallery images on Australia website. http://www.canvaschamp.com/canvas-prints We may use similar name, title tag, meta description for all images. So, Will it work for us? I want to save my website from duplicate content penalty. I am looking forward for any additional help which may help me to perform better on different region with similar images.
International SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
JavaScript IP-based redirection, best approach?
Hi everyone, What are the best practices for implementing Javascript redirections like on http://www.nike.com/ to send visitors to the right country section? I see it uses cookies and sessions to store the country and language, but what about search engines? Are they redirected via JS? Are there any risks that Google can't crawl everything? We had IP-based, server-side redirections on a few country-specific websites (purehazelwood.com, purnoisetier.fr, purnoisetier.com) that we had to remove because googlebot was always redirected to the US site and couldn't access the other sites. We instead added pop-ups if the visitor is accessing the "wrong" site but we'd like the redirection to be automatic. Is the javascript approach the best? Anything else we need to think about? Thanks for your time!
International SEO | | AxialDev0 -
Dynamic Google search snippet text based on user's language
On Google search results page, I want to show search snippet text (of my webpage) in Hindi language if user is user is using Google in Hindi language. If user chose another language on Google search page, my snippet text should be shown in that language. Is this possible? How?
International SEO | | Avinashmb0 -
How long does it take for google to realize there is a new language sub domain?
I have a global client who just launched new sub domains of their site in new languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese). Example: es.client.com pt.client.com ru.amdocs.com ja.amdocs.com How long does it take for Google to recognize these new subdomains? Would submitting an XML sitemap be helpful? If so how long can we see them pick up the site? What is the best way to check that your new subdomains are showing in each countries SERPs? Thanks for your help!
International SEO | | Scratch_MM0 -
French Canadian Website and French Language URLs
Hello, One of my clients has a question on a new Quebec, Canada version of their website. The website content and copy is in the French Canadian language, but the IT Director has asked if, for the purpose of SEO, should the URLs be in French as well? So, this questions has two parts... For SEO, should the URL's be in French or left in English, to avoid crawl errors? For visitor UX, is there any reason to have them in French versus English?
International SEO | | Aviatech0