Language/country redirect best practice?

[rtora]

Hi,

What is SEO best practice when it comes to redirecting users from www.domain.com to their specific language/country, let's say www.domain.com/de for Germany?

From what I heard in on of the whiteboard fridays, it seems to be Javascript based on IP and browser language, and then set a cookie - correct?

Or should we let our users manually select their language/country at the first visit?

Any suggestion appreciated, thanks!

[glennfriesen]

I recommend avoiding javascript redirects as they can be considered cloaking.

Here's an idea: show the English language homepage by default, but determine the user's preferred language (from the accept-language header sent by the browser). If your site supports the identified language, include & display a hyperlinked text-box/graphic-banner suggesting the visitor "view this site in {the user's identified language}" which links to the homepage for that language.

Useful links for reference:

• http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-practice-to-redirects-based-on-visitors-detected-language
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-international-versions-of-websites
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7paVYBgH0Hw