Change Lang. IP base, Browser Base or Manually?

[Vahid-af]

Hello

I would like to ask a question about multi lang/international Website. Which one is better for SEO?

User in Different Countries automatically see  The website in their Language?

or

User see the English version and can change the language manually?

[donford]

Good question,

I personally lean towards browser language selection and allow the option for manual change. Most major sites do it this way.

I changed my FF browser to DE (German) and noticed many sites will serve my content in German. If it were IP based I wouldn't have noticed many changes. Also with the amount of people who speak multiple languages, deployed overseas, or using proxies, IP based really isn't the best solution.

My vote browser based with manual option hope it helps,

Don

[BlueprintMarketing]

Well think that if you are in the end user / visitor's shoes.

I'm German and although I spend most of my life in United States, I would prefer German I have a better understanding of it. So if you prefer English over any other language or would you like to have to choose?

That's the way I will look at it in. You said something about IP address and they do matter ONLY if you do for have not correctly set up your site in GWT with hreflang.

So the good thing to check out would be WP engine Mercury project GeoIP that might have some interesting things for you to learn more about the subject. It is trying to provide the best end-user experience.

http://wpengine.com/support/geoip-personalizing-content-based-geography/

[gfiorelli1]

You are not telling us if the different language versions are in the same website or in different ones.

In fact, if they are in different domains, the ideal - IMHO - is to not redirect people to the one corresponding to the their IP if they expressly entered in another language version (i.e.: the user is in the USA, like Thomas, but goes to www.domain.de because he is German). In those case is better presenting an advice to those user saying: "We saw you are visiting us from the USA. If you want you can go to www.domain.com. If not, do not consider this advice" (this is what Amazon does, for instance).

If the different language/country versions are on the same domain, then the ideal would be making those users landing on the correct language/country page because they clicked on their corresponding URLs from search thanks to hreflang. But, at the same time, letting them free to navigate throughout all versions (if there are not legal reasons for forbidding that, i.e. products that can be sold in one country but on in others for whatever reason).

Then, again in the case of multicountry in the same domain name, if users goes to the home page because of direct, a link or type-in, then you can use the same tactic I described before in case of different domains.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Guys,Gianluca brings up some good points.Talking about very real situations that happen to me quite often. I will prefer to read German and if there is a conversion like a purchase obviously I will have to back out and find the product that I hope is in stock for the US market.I think placing something the language that is native to the country and you can only hope the visitor.

"We saw you are visiting us from the USA. If you want you can go to www.domain.com. If not, do not consider this advice" (this is what Amazon does, for instance). Gianluca

• User see the English version and can change the language manually?

I would say user see native version for whatever country you're actually assuming that they are visiting from. Well said GianlucaAll the best,Thomas