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  4. International (foreign language) URL's best practices

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International (foreign language) URL's best practices

International SEO
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  • mongillo
    mongillo last edited by May 29, 2012, 9:57 PM

    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.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • rayvensoft
      rayvensoft last edited by May 30, 2012, 8:23 AM May 30, 2012, 8:23 AM

      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.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • jim_cetin
        jim_cetin last edited by May 30, 2012, 4:45 AM May 30, 2012, 4:45 AM

        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

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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