Semalt SEO Tips For Multilingual Sites

23.05.2018

Semalt SEO Tips For Multilingual Sites

Many bloggers face some problems when trying to add multiple languages to their website. The problem is that this
feature really affects your SEO. Sometimes, adding content in multiple languages can be bene cial to your efforts,
making your site ranking get high. In other cases, multilingual pages on a site can make a website rank poorly.

So, the question is: will making your site multilingual hurt your SEO or enhance the efforts? Max Bell, one of the
leading experts of Semalt Digital Services tells what SEO aspects you should consider when making a multilingual
site.

Multi-Language Sites and SEO

In the Google algorithm, content that appears machinery translated in different languages is deemed as duplicate
content. Google penalizes duplicate content by making the website rank poorly. No one would want the site receive
a poor ranking due to the languages problem. According to this, Google can incorporate secondary optional
language on websites in particular regions. For instance, it works if people are French speaking citizens as much as
English speaking. Google re nes this search, incorporating these languages. In this case, they do not appear as
duplicate content, so the one can use native Google URL for the content.

In other cases, Google algorithm can detect multilingual content as keywords stuf ng. Keyword stuf ng is one of
the black hat SEO methods which involves excessive usage of keywords to trick the system into ranking you rst.
However, since the January 2017 update, content relevance is the key factor. Multilingual content which is
appearing as stuffed keywords does not work well on your SEO anymore. Most search engines penalize it almost
immediately.

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23.05.2018

Succeeding with Multilingual Website

Upon the decision of using the multilingual
approach on your website, setting it up is another
important factor. For instance, one has to consider
the fact that site crawlers like Google bots should
see it correctly as a second language. If this fails, the
consequences mentioned above can make your
website SEO fail. To succeed, using a URL or domain
structure is important. This can help Google search
engine to detect the multilingual content you are
posting. For example:

A top-level domain (TLD). This is for the
region you are targeting. It is costly but can be the best option. It sets your intention clear to google. The
websites can look like this: mywebsite.de

Generic Subdomains (gTLD). This option can help you to retain the old URL. However, there is no direct
targeting as in the case of the top-level domain (TLD). The websites can look like this: de.mywebsite.com

Generic Subdirectories. This option is the cheapest. It involves changing the URL structure. The website URL
can look like mywebsite.com/de/URL

Conclusion

For the blogger, using multiple languages to get to get the attention of many readers seems like a great opportunity.
However, digital marketers advice you to be careful with this technique. For example, multilingual sites can be
deemed as duplicate content and receive a poor ranking. When Google bots detect your content as duplicate, it
affects your SEO ranking negatively. In other cases, multilingual content has the potential to improve your ranking.
Using the tips mentioned above, you can set up and operate a multilingual site successfully in order to achieve good
SEO results.

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