International (foreign language) URL's best practices
-
I'm curious if there is a benefit or best practice with regards to using the localized language on international sites (with specific ccTLDs). For example, should my french site (site.fr) use the french language as keywords within the URLs or should they be in english?
e.g. www.site.fr/nourriture vs. www.site.fr/food
Is that considered best practice for SEO (or just for brand perception those markets?). Is there a tangible loss in SEO if we do not use the correct language for those URLs and just stick with English around the world?
I recall seeing a Matt Cutts video on the topic and he said that google does support i18n URL's but other SE's might not support them as gracefully but he didn't come down with a hard recommendation to go with i18n URL's or just English.
Would love a strong ruling in favor one direction based on best practices.
-
All my sites are in multiple languages - including french - and I have seen much better results when I translated the file names into French instead of leaving them in English. So for example I have found that:
www.mywebsite.com/bonjour.html
performed better for relevant French language searches than
www.mywebsite.com/goodmorning.html
This has held true for me in all the languages. Even in Chinese and Russian, I write them out with latin characters and it seems to make a difference.
I hope this helps.
-
hi
if you want your site indexed on google.fr then leave it with french, but if you want both, so with englisch translation and on google.com, then I'd suggest the following structure:
www.site.fr/nourriture & www.site.fr/en/food
it's up to you in which language you create your site... Google does not care, they can translate
cheers
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
-
Is this approach of returning different content depending on IP beneficial for international SEO?
I've decided to use sub folders for my site, and from everything I've read online it seems I shouldn't change the page content depending on IP, yet I know of a successful well funded site that hires full time SEO staff that does just that, and I'm wondering whether they know something I don’t which is helping their SEO. From everything I've read online this is the format I think I should use: mysite.com/us/red-wigs mysite.com/gb/red-wigs mysite.com/red-wigs does not exist This is the format the other site is using: othersite.com/red-wigs (from US IP address) othersite.com/red-wigs (from UK IP address) othersite.com/gb/red-wigs The content on othersite.com/red-wigs is identical to othersite.com/gb/red-wigs when loading from a UK IP address, and a lot of URLs without /gb/ are being returned when searching google. The benefit I can think of that they are gaining is US pages which are being returned for UK based searches will return the correct content. Are their any other gains to this approach? I'm concerned that if I use this approach for different languages then the radically differing content of othersite.com/red-wigs depending on the location of the crawler might confuse google - also generally changing content depending on IP seems to be recommended against. Thanks
International SEO | | Mickooo0 -
International SEO Setuo
Hi Guys i have a client who is looking to be found in multiple English speaking countries I.e .co.uk, .com and .com.au At first I advised they would need unique content for each to avoid duplication but then the client showed me this site http://welleco.com/ this is setup via shopify on a multisite. All the sites have the same content and are all indexed. My question is can this be done in WordPress? Via something like WPML. And would it need to have seperte hosting and a seperate site or can this be done by something like IP redirect. Can someone advise if this is good practice or maybe suffer other ways? Thanks in advance.
International SEO | | nezona1 -
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 -
International advice.... can anyone help and check my site?
Hi ALL, I'm running 3 sites, internationally .com, com.au and co.nz Can anyone please look at my site and give me feedback about the hreflang tags, I ran a W3C and i have errors stating https://validator.nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fzenory.co.nz for www.zenory.com and its relevant domains
International SEO | | edward-may0 -
Homepage URL for multi-language site
Hi, We are setting up a new site, and currently considering the URL and folder structure of the site. We will have 2-3 different language versions, and we have decided to use sub folders for this. My question is regarding the homepage URL. We want the English language site (en) to be the default one, from where you can then change the language. Should I have a folder for each of the language versions (as described below)? www.mydomain.com/en
International SEO | | Awaraman
(this would be the default page where everyone would always come if they type www.mydomain.com to webrowser) www,mydomain.com/ru www.mydomain.com/es Or, would it be better for SEO to have www.mydomain.com as the default URL where we would have the English version of the site, and then have two other folders (as below) where we would have the 2 other language versions: www,mydomain.com/ru www.mydomain.com/es Thank you in advance, BR Sam0 -
Researching (and launching a site within) a foreign language market
Morning peeps, A client wants to clone their website for a foreign language market, obviously swapping all English content for whichever language/market they're looking to target. Any advice on how to research a foreign market (when I only speak English), or perhaps any pitfalls to look out for or advice you might have with a launch like this? thanks
International SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Backlinks to rewrite urls and russian cyrilic characters
Dear Mozers, I've been tried different methods for backlink building and I need some help in order to make it clear in my mind. I have a multilingual website. Also it has russian language which is our basic market. My main keyword is(Недвижимость в Греции) which means Properties in Greece and of course I target my russian first page which has url rewrite (because I have to include my keywords in url) with cyrrilic characters - http://www.halkidikiproperties.com/ru/халкидики-недвижимость-греции/. As I see these backlinks doesn't appear in seomoz tool and there is no improvment in link analysis tab. Do I have to target better my home page than this url rewrited page or maybe do I have to target www.halkidikiproperties.com/ru/ which is the main russian page but before the url rewrite? Also as I see my competitors targeting their homepage without any rewrite but they are not multilingual. Do I have to analyze better this specific rewrited-url by using Link analysis tool? Is it possible to analyze a specific url? Thank a lot , It will be really helpful your assistance. Regards, George
International SEO | | elgreco0 -
The case of the attempted server hacking and it's effect on SEO
Since relaunch earlier this year, we've had patches where our site has failed to load. It's happened every so often, but, until I receive the server logs from the company who hosts the site, I won't know exactly when this issue has occurred. Until now, we've only noticed it when someone in the company has tried, and failed, to access the site. Again, it happened today. After hassling our developers/hosting firm for a conclusive answer as to why, it emerged that their server (perhaps our site in particular because of the nature of our business) had been the target of an attempted hacking. We've now concluded that every time our site has messed around like this, it's because of a possible hack. Would anyone in SEOmoz Land be able to tell me if this is going to have a negative impact for our SEO and site performance? Would search engines be able to tell if a potential hack is, or was, occurring? Would we then be penalised? Please feel free to elaborate on the hacking process in general, too, if you can because this is the first time I've encountered it. Thanks
International SEO | | Martin_S0