UK English and USA English - two flags on navigation?
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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
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First off, you're talking about two things here. It sounds like you have two sites that are geo-targeted to two different countries. There might be some translation in there, but if you have a .co.uk and a .com, those need to be treated like different sites as they are targeted at two different markets.
Second, please never use an automated IP redirect. Google only crawls from the US, it's asking to not get your .co.uk crawled. In addition to that, it's a poor user experience for some people. As the other commenter mentioned, there is a big chance someone is traveling and needs to see the .com, wants to, and gets redirected to the .co.uk because they are traveling.
If you want to attempt to put people in the right place, detect their IP and use javascript to pop up a message if they are going to the other site that asks them if they'd prefer to be on the one associated with their IP.
Flags in the header is the best way to go about this in conjunction with the IP detect and javascript prompt. You can even set a cookie after the prompt that will always put them on that country site when they come back.
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Yes, you can definitely use an IP redirect and redirect users to the correct 'version' of the site based on their IP address. You still may want to add a link to both versions, though, since it is possible that someone from the USA might be traveling in the UK and want to see the USA version of the site.
Keep in mind that most likely these two versions may look like duplicate content to Google, you may want to only allow Google to see one 'version'. Otherwise, use the proper hreflang tag to indicate US English and UK English.
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