Contents6
In short
Language and country are two different decisions.
A translation is enough when only the language changes; one page per market when the offer changes.
Google advises against automatically redirecting visitors based on their IP address.
Language or country: two separate questions
Google makes the distinction itself. A multilingual site offers its content in several languages, and Google looks for the page in the user’s language; a multi-regional site explicitly targets countries, and Google looks for the right local version, as its documentation on multi-regional and multilingual sites explains. A site can be both at once.
The difference matters. A French speaker in Geneva and a French speaker in Paris read the same language, but not necessarily the same prices, the same terms or the same competitors. Conversely, in Dubai, the same customers search in English, Arabic or French depending on the subject. These choices follow from where your customers search, not from a map of languages.
Translate, adapt or create a dedicated page
A translation is enough
Same offer, same price, same terms
Only the buyer’s language changes
Queries translate word for word
One page per market is needed
Different price, currency or availability
Regulations or supporting documents specific to the country
Different queries, competitors or local practices
The deciding criterion is not technical: it is the question “does the buyer in this country need information the other one does not?”. If so, a translated page will not serve them, and its visits will not turn into enquiries.
URL structure
Three structures dominate, each with its trade-offs, again according to Google’s documentation: one domain per country (a clear signal, but costly and limited to one country), a subdomain (easy, but ambiguous between language and country), a subdirectory such as /fr/ (simple and cheap to maintain). Parameters in the URL are not recommended. For most companies of 20 to 500 people, the subdirectory is the reasonable choice: a single site to keep alive, a shared authority.
Watch out
Do not redirect based on IP address
It is a frequent request: “let’s automatically send each visitor to their version”. Google explicitly advises against it, and points out that its crawler mostly crawls from the United States: an automatic redirect can hide your other versions from it. Offer a visible link to each language or country instead.
Hreflang: linking versions without getting it wrong
The hreflang annotation tells Google which version to show to which audience. It breaks easily: one-way links, announced versions that do not exist, a badly chosen fallback page. We have detailed these mistakes in hreflang and multilingual SEO: the costly mistakes.
From the field
A client had opened a country by translating its site as is. The pages were indexed, but they showed the prices and terms of the original market. Visits came in, enquiries did not. A dedicated page per market, with the currency, lead times and local references, put things back in order.
Checking market by market
Once the versions are in place, you still need to know whether they rank where they should. Rankings are checked by country and by city, in each language, and you check that the right version appears: a French page showing up in Geneva instead of the Swiss page is a signal to deal with. That is what our rank tracking on Google and in AI does, on thousands of checks sorted by AI and then decided by an expert.
When markets multiply, producing pages one by one no longer holds up: programmatic SEO generates pages per market from data specific to each one. For opening a new country, from the decision to the first content, see our guide to international SEO.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need one domain name per country?
Rarely. It is the clearest signal, but each domain has to be built up on its own. A subdirectory per market is enough in most cases.
Can machine translation be enough?
For the language, often, with a measured review. For a market that needs its own information, no: the problem is not the translation, it is the content.
Sources
- Google Search Central: managing multi-regional and multilingual sites (new tab)developers.google.com
Google Search Central: managing multi-regional and multilingual sites
Read on developers.google.com(new tab)Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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