Is it OK to change language by user IP?

[visaasancard]

Hello, I just read https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en#1 about multilingual website.

Google says "Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language". so Is it ok to redirect url by user IP instead of user language?

[DirkC]

Hi

I would not do it. Main Google bot is using a California IP address - so depending on the languages you are targeting you risk that the bot is only crawling one version of the site.  There are bots that use foreign IP addresses - but they don't guarantee that these bots crawl 100% of your site. Apart from that, it can be annoying for your visitors if you get it wrong. Check also this article on international SEO https://moz.com/blog/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo

Better to allow the user to make the choice of language on first visit and store the preference in a cookie. Set hreflang to indicate the alternative versions in other languages. Here is a tool that helps you to generate the Hreflang tags: http://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool and here you can test if the implementation was correct flang.dejanseo.com.au

Hope this helps,

Dirk