Every minute Google receives more than 4 million search queries. SEO is the key to be found within today's flood of content. This presentation summarizes tips and tricks for SEO for your multilingual website and lists some dos and don'ts to consider.

1. MULTILINGUAL WEBSITES
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB
SEO FOR

2. https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB
THERE IS MORE THAN ENGLISH
− Every minute Google receives more than 4 million search queries.
− In 2014, almost 1 billion websites have been online and nearly 2.1 trillion search queries
have been placed on Google the same year.
YOUR WEBSITE WITHIN THIS FLOOD OF CONTENT?
HOW CAN SURE THAT USERS WILL FIND EXACTLY

3. https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB
MULTILINGUAL WEBSITE
SEO TIPS FOR YOUR

4. URL STRUCTURES
Google favors content for each language on a separate URL.
− Top level domains: yourwebsite.com | yourwebsite.de | yourwebsite.fr
− Sub-domains: en.yourwebsite.com | de.yourwebsite.com
− Sub-directories: yourwebsite.com/en | yourwebsite.com/de
International domain namesare no problem. Translate your URL using UTF-8 encoding
(yourwebsite.ca/en/mountainbike ⟶ yourwebsite.ca/fr/vélo-de-montagne)
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB
Hands off URL parameters! They are not supported by Google.

5. URL STRUCTURES – TOP LEVEL DOMAINS
PROS
− TLDs can be connected to Google’s Search
Console for geotargeting purposes.
− The location of the web server is irrelevant.
− Running separate websites in the same
language, like yourwebiste.com.ca and
yourwebsite.com.au, may create duplicate
content with slight differences. This won’t
affect your ranking negatively.
CONS
− Buying various domains is expensive.
− Cookies can not be shared across multiple
domains.
− TLDs often don’t match the language code.
It’s better not to use them for localization by
language as users may get confused.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

6. URL STRUCTURES – SUB-DOMAINS
PROS
− Sub-domains can be used for both
localization by country and language.
− They’re easy to set up and can be
connected to Google’s Search Console.
− Sharing cookies across all localesis
possible, thus, an immaculate user
experience is created.
CONS
− The domain name itself cannot be
localized.
− Sub-domains may not be identified as
locales by users at first glance.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

7. URL STRUCTURES – SUB-DIRECTORIES
− Adding sub-directoriesto a single URL allows you to use multiple alternate URLS.
− Sub-directoriesare quite similar to sub-domains, hence the same pros and cons apply.
− The only difference is that there’s only one DNS entry. Thus, hosting a website in multiple
countriesfor different localesis prohibited.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

8. ‘hreflang’ FOR LANGUAGE AND REGIONAL URLS
After making a decision for your URL structure, you need to let Google know which locales
serve which target users. Google uses the rel=“alternate”hreflang=“x” attributesto list the
relevant locale in search results.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

9. ‘hreflang’ FOR LANGUAGE AND REGIONAL URLS
LANGUAGEANNOTATIONS
When offering a website in English (yourwebsite.com) and German, there are 3 ways to
indicate that e.g. de.yourwebiste.com is the German equivalent to the English page:
1. Inserting a HTML link element in the header of yourwebsite.com points out that de.yourwebsite.com
is the German version.
<link rel=“alternate” hreflang=“de” href=“http://de.yourwebsite.com/” />
2. When publishing non-HTML files a HTTP header can be used.
<http://de.yourwebsite.com/>; rel=“alternate”; hreflang=“de”
3. Information about different language versions can submitted as a sitemap.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

10. ‘hreflang’ FOR LANGUAGE AND REGIONAL URLS
LANGUAGEANNOTATIONS
When you’re using separate URLs for Ireland, Canada and Australia for example,you may
still want all other English users to see your generic English page. To annotate this
information you can submit a sitemap or use HTML link tags like the following:
<link rel=“alternate”href=“http://yourwebsite.com/en-ie”hreflang=“en-ie”/>
<link rel=“alternate”href=“http://yourwebsite.com/en-ca”hreflang=“en-ca”/>
<link rel=“alternate”href=“http://yourwebsite.com/en-au”hreflang=“en-au”/>
<link rel=“alternate”href=“http://yourwebsite.com/en”hreflang=“en”/>
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

11. ‘hreflang’ FOR LANGUAGE AND REGIONAL URLS
LANGUAGEVALUES
The value of the hreflangattribute provides information about the language and region on
an alternate URL. Here’s a short list of examples:
− de: German content, no region defined
− en-IE: English content for users in Ireland
− nl-BE: Dutch content for Belgium users
− fr-BE: French content for Belgium users
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

12. https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB
MULTILINGUAL WEBSITE
DO‘S AND DON‘TS IN SEO FOR

13. DO’S AND DON’TS
1. Help Google to correctly determine the language of your website by using a single language for
content and navigation on each page.
2. Don’t use lang attributes. Google exclusively uses visible content to detect the language of your
website.
3. Avoid side-by-side translation to help search engines determining your website’s language
4. Translating only the boilerplate text can create a bad user experience as the majority of your
content remainsin a single language.
5. Be careful on pages featuring user-generated content as content in various languages may be
generated.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

14. DO’S AND DON’TS
6. Use robots.txt to block search engines from crawlingautomatically translated pages. Automated
translation can affect your website’s reputation negatively.
7. Keep the content of each language you support on a separate URL to guarantee good SEO.
8. Cross-linking the different versions of your multilingual website helps users to navigate the
website in their preferred language, just in case they’ve been misdirected.
9. Avoid automatic redirection based on your users’ perceived language. It can prevent them from
viewing all versions of your website.
10. Use ccTLD or Search Console’s geotargeting tool to set up geotargeting, so you don’t need to
worry about the server location.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB

15. BROUGHT TO YOU BY LINGOHUB
ANJA OBERMÜLLER
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT& MARKETING AT
LINGOHUB
anja.obermueller@lingohub.com
@LingoHub
@anjaobermueller
Read the whole article.
https://lingohub.com MADE WITH BY LINGOHUB