SEO on a site with language translations

kgpixels

I’m planning to translate my site into French, German and maybe Spanish also.

Plan is to do full translations, meta data, file names etc.

From an SEO point of view will Google recognise that the site is in different languages? Does it do indexing based on that, and will this improve my domain ranking?

Regarding the different languages that the site will be in, what else can I do to improve SEO within those countries, ie google.fr/de etc

Any pointers/advice greatly appreciated. . .

RedCardinal

I'd do some research into Google Webmaster Tools geotargeting tool - depedning on your domain you may be able to use this tool to your advantage.

Google will see the transaltions as unique, but the same rules will apply - you need to promote these language sites just as you do your EN site. So ensure that you dont do any silly stuff with serving different languages on one URL based on user IP/langauge settings. Set up unique URLs for each language, and build good internal linking structures to enable optimal crawling/indexing of new content.

Other thing would be to promote each language site - get links from relevant language/locale websites to increase your rankings.

I've no idea what "domain ranking" is?

cormee

RedCardinal wrote: »

I've no idea what "domain ranking" is?

Maybe Google Page Rank

kgpixels

cormee wrote: »

Maybe Google Page Rank

That was the one "Google Page Rank"

Still not up with all the lingo

RedCardinal

kgpixels wrote: »

That was the one "Google Page Rank"

Still not up with all the lingo

So sorry - the question is will adding language variations increase your Pagerank?

Let me give you one piece of advice - if you want to do well in Google build the best site you possibly can for your users. Don't build the best site for you or your company, and don't even bother thinking about a little green bar.

TheWaterboy

kgpixels wrote: »

I’m planning to translate my site into French, German and maybe Spanish also.

Plan is to do full translations, meta data, file names etc.

From an SEO point of view will Google recognise that the site is in different languages? Does it do indexing based on that, and will this improve my domain ranking?

Regarding the different languages that the site will be in, what else can I do to improve SEO within those countries, ie google.fr/de etc

Any pointers/advice greatly appreciated. . .

Google will automatically recognise that you have translated the sites into each language and will rank it accordingly - The german version should appear on google.de

Personally I would use sub domains
german.mysite.com
french.mysite.com etc.

The most importnt thing from an SEO point of view in appearing on google.de, google.fr etc. is to have all the site translated and not just some of it.

Very important to have your page titles and meta tags translated also

gaillimh_abu

Im using a Wordpress plugin to do translation at my site and receive a lot of traffic to the specific translated pages.

As a quick bit of research for you I checked: google.fr , de and es

Each had my homepage in its normal format and a second ( not home page ) underneath in the format of:

domain.com/de/guten-tag.html

I hadnt noticed this before ..

Also searching for keywords in the language on the local Google site shows the translated version..

As an added piece of info - i havent promoted any of the translated pages specifcally..

HTH

kgpixels

gaillimh_abu wrote: »

Im using a Wordpress plugin to do translation at my site and receive a lot of traffic to the specific translated pages.

As a quick bit of research for you I checked: google.fr , de and es

Each had my homepage in its normal format and a second ( not home page ) underneath in the format of:

domain.com/de/guten-tag.html

I hadnt noticed this before ..

Also searching for keywords in the language on the local Google site shows the translated version..

As an added piece of info - i havent promoted any of the translated pages specifcally..

HTH

Thanks for that HTH, that’s good to hear. You have gone for the folder option for each language. I'm still trying to decide separate folders or domains for each language.

gaillimh_abu

Hmm I suppose i would have gone for domains if possible... might look better from a aesthetic point of view.. but to be honest im not sure about benefit from an seo point of view..

Take a look at :

http://searchengineland.com/how-changes-to-the-way-google-handles-subdomains-impact-seo-12899

It has a paragraph about the way Google's algo treats subdomains vis-a-vis internal folders ( domain/en )

Now that’s changing. Google is no longer treating subdomains (blog.widgets.com versus widgets.com) independently, instead attaching some association between them. The ranking algorithms have been tweaked so that pages from multiple subdomains have a much higher relevance bar to clear in order to be shown.

Im not saying that its Gospel.. but just a consideration...

But above all... Make sure that the "Title" tag matches the language.. dont end up with 5 pages from 5 languages and the same Title . What I mean is:

Titles that will get you no where -

Hello - domain/en/hello.html
Hello - domain/es/ola.html

:-)

kgpixels

TheWaterboy wrote: »

Personally I would use sub domains
german.mysite.com
french.mysite.com etc.

Thanks Waterboy. Are you saying from an SEO point, sub domains are better?


I can get my head around folders for each language and how to manage that in dreamweaver with templates etc.


I'm a little confused about the sub domains and how I would set it up and manage it in dreamweaver.
eg. german.mysite.com, is this a separate registration I need to do? Or how do I split my domain like that?
If a separate reg, I should go for mysite.fr/.de right?

Pls excuse my ignorance

gaillimh_abu

In your hosting.. you need to reg a sub-domain ( if bog standard hosting)
If you have any fancy hosting you can auto create the subdomain with htaccess etc.

If subdomains ( and bog standard hosting ) you end up with a folder in ftp per lang...

RedCardinal

gaillimh_abu wrote: »

Hmm I suppose i would have gone for domains if possible... might look better from a aesthetic point of view.. but to be honest im not sure about benefit from an seo point of view..

Take a look at :

http://searchengineland.com/how-changes-to-the-way-google-handles-subdomains-impact-seo-12899

It has a paragraph about the way Google's algo treats subdomains vis-a-vis internal folders ( domain/en )



Im not saying that its Gospel.. but just a consideration...

That's actually a change that affected when you primary domain AND subdomains appeared in a single SERP.

If you have a well-known and promoted brand then probably go for subdomains, If not might be better to go with subfolders. There is a small but quite important difference in how Google views subfolders Vs. subdomains.

Also make sure you chack out the Google Webmaster Tools Geotargeting tool.

Another consideration is your domain - if you are on ccTLD (e.g. domain.ie) you cant use the tool, while gTLD (e.g. .com) can.

Hope this helps