Is it OK to change language by user IP?
-
Hello, I just read https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en#1 about multilingual website.
Google says "Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language". so Is it ok to redirect url by user IP instead of user language?
-
Hi
I would not do it. Main Google bot is using a California IP address - so depending on the languages you are targeting you risk that the bot is only crawling one version of the site. There are bots that use foreign IP addresses - but they don't guarantee that these bots crawl 100% of your site. Apart from that, it can be annoying for your visitors if you get it wrong. Check also this article on international SEO https://moz.com/blog/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo
Better to allow the user to make the choice of language on first visit and store the preference in a cookie. Set hreflang to indicate the alternative versions in other languages. Here is a tool that helps you to generate the Hreflang tags: http://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool and here you can test if the implementation was correct flang.dejanseo.com.au
Hope this helps,
Dirk
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
-
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 -
Sitelinks in multiple language
Hello ! In a french browser & french Google interface with no browsing history, I have the french version of my website indexed, but the site links coming along with it are in English ! Is there any way to combat this? Note - we use a 302 language re-direction. See screenshot here: http://bit.ly/25kViB0
International SEO | | TechWyse0 -
How to interlink 16 different language versions of site?
I remember that Matt Cutts recommended against interlinking many language versions of a site.
International SEO | | lcourse
Considering that google now also crawls javascript links, what is best way to implement interlinking? I still see otherwhise extremely well optimized large sites interlinking to more than 10 different language versions e.g. zalando.de, but also booking.com (even though here on same domain). Currently we have an expandable css dropdown in the footer interlinking 16 different language versions with different TLD. Would you be concerned? What would you suggest how to interlink domains (for user link would be useful)?0 -
E-commerce : 1 site per country or 1 site per language?
I'm working with an European e-commerce; they already have a French website with a .fr domain. They want to target the Belgium with a .be domain and the Nederland with a .nl domain. Belgium = 50% dutch, 50% French. Is it better to do 3 websites, one per country, or 2 websites, one per language ? Thinking to SEO, costs, VAT management, what is your opinion?
International SEO | | johnny1220 -
International Site - Language Targetting
Hi Mozzers, I am currently conducting a technical site audit on a large website. Their main content and audience is in the US, but they have started to add translated versions of the content in different languages (about 30 different languages). Also, they are not using cookies or scripts to auto-populate the language on the page, and the pages seem to be getting indexed just fine. Currently, they have their language distinguished by sub-folder (i.e. example.org/blog/by-language/spanish/), which I plan to 301 redirect to example.org/blog/es/ for each language. However, they are not implementing any sitemaps or hreflang header tags. I have not dealt with this in the past as all of my work has been done on smaller US sites, so I wanted to verify the steps I plan to take to ensure this is a solid approach. 301 redirect example.org/language/spanish/blog/ to example.org/es/blog/ Recommend adding hreflang markup into the header for each language. (They have a lot of pages, so they may not implement this if it is too much work.) Highly recommend adding XML sitemaps for each content version of the site using the media flow HREFLANG Siitemap Tool. Setting up multiple Webmaster Tools accounts and geotargetting them by language. I would also add the XML sitemap for each language. Is this a solid approach, given the information above? I want to make sure I am fundamentally sound on this before suggesting so many large changes. Thank you in advance for any thoughts / wisdom you can instill! ---------------------additional information--------------------- If I am hearing you correctly, I would only submit one XML Sitemap for international content. It would look something like the below image. I would only use one GWT account to upload the file, and I would not need to add any additional markup on each page, as it will be located in the hreflang xml sitemap. Finally, would it be a good or bad idea to 301 redirect their naming convention to a new, shorter one? example.org/by-language/spanish/blog/this-is-an-example --> example.org/es/blog/this-is-an-example bpXAYlr.png
International SEO | | J-Banz0 -
Changing server location for a global targetted site
Hi, I am just in the process of purchasing a site from someone. The site has a global target audience (well global English speaking anyway). The site is on a .info domain and is currently hosted in Germany. Checking on SemRush it looks like 70% of traffic comes from English speaking countries (US, Australia, Canada, UK). Now I need to move the hosting to one of my own when I change ownership of the site. Now does it overly matter where I choose my hosting as currently it is hosted in Germany (around 4% of visitors from Germany) but I want to do my best not to knock any rankings but I was thinking of moving it to a UK or US based host but still want to keep a general worldwide userbase. As the US accounts for the largest part of traffic (39%) would I be best choosing hosting based over in the US or does it not overly matter too much (I am in the UK so most hosting I use is UK based). I have read a number of posts on server location but most seem to be for site which have a country specific target audience. Thanks for your help! 🙂
International SEO | | Wardy0 -
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 -
International SEO with .com & ccTLD in the same language
I've watched http://www.seomoz.org/blog/intern... and read some other posts here. Most seem to focus on whether to use ccTLD, subdomains or subfolders. I'm already committed to expanding my US-based ecommerce to Canada with a .ca ccTLD. My question is around duplicate content as I take my .com USA ecommerce business to canada with a second site on a .ca URL. With the .com site's preference set to USA, and the .ca site's geo preference (automatically) set to Canada, is it a concern at all? About 80% of the content would be the same. FYI, .com ranks OK in Canada now and I want .ca to outrank it in Canada. I know 'localizing' content within the same language is important (independent of duplicate content), but this might not be viable in the short run given CMS limitations. Any direct experience to help quantify the impact here between US and Canadian ecommerce? Adding: I'm not totally confident here. From this google webmaster central post it seems that canonical tags aren't needed. I tend to think nothing is truly neutral and want to be confident regarding whether to use canonicals or not. Is it helpful, harmful or harmless? My site already has internal canonical tags and having internal and external would be a pain I think. @Eugene Byun used it successfully, but would the results have been the same without? Thanks!
International SEO | | gravityseo0
