Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best practice for multilanguage website ( PHP feature based on Browser or Geolocalisation)
-
Hi Moz Experts
I would like to know what does it the best practice for multilanguage website for the default language ?
There are several PHP features to help users to get the right language when they come from SEO and direct; present the default language by browser language, by gelolocalisation, etc. However, which one is the most appropriate for Quebec company that try to get outside Canada ? PRO and CONS.
Thank you in advance.
-
I love it Kate Moriss.
it make it simple with the small questions. 
-
Thank you. So, I will need to add the hreflang for the first strategy.
For the Webmastertool, I'm not so sure, because we didn't have subdirectories. We have www.mycompany.com and www.mycompany.com/fr. So, actually, I have webmastertool for www.mycompany.com. However, we have a Google plus page, but we didn't have a Content marketing strategy.
that's all we have for the moment in place?
-
I built a tool to help people understand how to best go about international expansion. It's here: katemorris.com/issg
-
Not sure if you could really call it a best practice - but in Belgium (3 different languages) the normal configuration is not to determine the default language automatically but rather to present a first time visitor a "choose language" page and store the choice in a cookie for future visits. This is mainly for direct visits.
People coming in via search engines use queries in one of the languages, so normally Google will direct them to pages in that language. Again, on first time visit, the implicit choice of language is stored in a cookie.
All pages contain a link to switch to the other language(s) - which also changes the choice stored in the cookie.
Disadvantage of this system is that you add an additional layer to the site (choice of language) - advantage is that error margin is zero.
Systems which are based ip, browser language, ...etc are not 100% reliable - which could lead to unwanted results (in Belgium quite a sensitive issue if you server a Dutch page to a French speaking person - idem for French & Dutch speaking).
Hope this helps,
Dirk
-
Hi there
Look into hreflang attributes - if you have the same site with multiple languages, this is a best practice.
You can also look into setting up Webmaster Tool accounts for different sites (if they have different country codes or subdirectories) and geotarget those for the country they are supposed to appear to.
Does this help? Let me know - good luck!
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
-
What’s the best tool to visualize internal link structure and relationships between pages on a single site?
I‘d like to review the internal linking structure on my site. Is there a tool that can visualize the relationships between all of the pages within my site?
Web Design | | QBSEO0 -
How to prevent development website subdomain from being indexed?
Hello awesome MOZ Community! Our development team uses a sub-domain "dev.example.com" for our SEO clients' websites. This allows changes to be made to the dev site (U/X changes, forms testing, etc.) for client approval and testing. An embarrassing discovery was made. Naturally, when you run a "site:example.com" the "dev.example.com" is being indexed. We don't want our clients websites to get penalized or lose killer SERPs because of duplicate content. The solution that is being implemented is to edit the robots.txt file and block the dev site from being indexed by search engines. My questions is, does anyone in the MOZ Community disagree with this solution? Can you recommend another solution? Would you advise against using the sub-domain "dev." for live and ongoing development websites? Thanks!
Web Design | | SproutDigital0 -
Website rankings drop significantly after moving to new hosting provider
My website - www.isacleanse.co.nz has dropped from being top10 rankings for all of my keywords to not even being in top 50 after just checking now. It used to be hosted on: www.1stdomains.nz
Web Design | | IsaCleanse
It got migrated to Sitground servers about a month ago See attached screenshot - would moving hosting provider cause such a huge drop? Or would there be anything else I should be looking at ? J2ahi0 -
Is placing an H1 tag below a slideshow a bad practice?
Hello All, It is to my understanding that it is a best practice to have a single H1 headline that corresponds to your title tag at the top of your page, above your content for the best On-Site Optimization. We are developing a site that uses a big slideshow with text on each slide, and are concerned that placing the H1 Headline below this will be a bad practice. Would a better option be to have the slide show text on the image and place no alt tags on the slides, so that the crawlers accessing the page overlook this and see the H1 below the slider first? We need to maintain the slider for design purposes, but would like the site to optimized. A similar example to what the slider will look like is as follows: http://www.boviskyle.com/ However, we look to have optimized, "10x" content below the slider with a solid H1 headline as well. Thank You!
Web Design | | Armen-SEO0 -
Website organic traffic unchanged, impressions took a 98% drop in the last week.
Hi all, I have a very curious predicament and I'd be grateful if someone could shed some light on the situation. As mentioned in the title, organic traffic to our website has remained unchanged, but organic impressions have taken a 98% drop in the last week. This happened suddenly over one day; on October 22, impressions were 700, on October 23, they were 500, and on October 24 they drastically dropped to 50. The next two days they were at 22 and then up to 35. Organic traffic, however, showed the normal "weekend drop" as of October 24, and is still showing normal level (even increased a bit) continuing into this week. These are organic impressions according to Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools. We did perform a complete site redesign a month ago. Could this be an effect from the redesign? We also noticed drop in Domain Authority, but our competitors suffered a similar (if not greater) drop as well, so we wondered if it could be due in part to the algorithm update. If anyone could shed some light on the situation I would be so appreciative! Thanks!
Web Design | | Joanne_Pendon0 -
Duplicate content on websites for multiple countries
I have a client who has a website for their U.S. based customers. They are currently adding a Canadian dealer and would like a second website with much of the same info as their current website, but with Canadian contact info etc. What is the best way to do this without creating duplicate content that will get us penalized? If we create a website at ABCcompany.com and ABCCompany.ca or something like that, will that get us around the duplicate content penalty?
Web Design | | InvoqMarketing0 -
How can a Pincode finder website be SEO optimised?
Guys, I wanted to build a simple Pincode finder website for India. The targeted visitors as is obvious will be from India. Alike other Pincode finder websites, the users in this case too will have to key in the location / area of whose pincode he is looking for and they will get Pincode from that very location / area. Other than this, users will also come to this website when they search for something like " <location name="">pincode</location>" on Google (for instance, users will search for something like "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode") Along with data fethced from our sources via Indian postal departments and other data available in public domain, we shall be using data from Google Maps API too. My question in regards to the same is as follows: What should the page-structure / structure of the website be for ranking well on Google? What should be the URL structure? Other suggestions to rank well on Google in this regards? Competition: (You can search for the term "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode" to know how these sites show data) http://www.getpincode.info http://www.pincode.net.in Pls. help...
Web Design | | ShalinTJ0 -
3 Brands, 3 Services, 3 Different Websites Right?
My client was told that having 1 website for 3 different brands/services is better than having 3 websites. I need your help to prove my value to a new client. This client has worked with Reach Local on PPC for some time and when they first got started the Reach Local Markering Consultant told this cleint that they needed to have one site for better SEO purposes. The client was told that Google ranks websites higher if they have more paid traffic going to them. I've been doing this for long enough to realize this does not help ranking, at least not enough to make a difference. Keep in mind this is for 3 different companies. One company does plumbing, another electrical and the last one does air conditioning. They also have 4 locations but only two locations have mutliple services opperating out of them. I understand these 2 location will not have there own Google+ Local / Places listing. Using the same address for 2 different business and expecting a first page ranking is just not possible. Right now when you visit the clients website you see a logo that rotates with a banner section that follows the logo rotation. First you see the AC Company and then the Plumbing etc. I see this as confusing to the end user and it is more work to get it ranked for SEO. I recommended that we build 3 speerate websites for each service and just list out all the addresses that the company services on the contact page. I would also design inside the footer links to the other services for branding purposes. Please share your thoughts on how you would handle this if you were doing the SEO for your own 3 different business services. I really appreicate any input/insight to this. Thank you so much in advance!!!!
Web Design | | 1SMG0