Multilanguage URL structure

Question

i ask for suggestions about running multilanguage on EE. fyi, i use transcribe. i need to know what type is the most suitable url structure for multilanguage site. for example my site will be available in english and french. there is 2 options, 1. http://mysite.com/en/about-us 2. http://mysite.com/en/a-propos-de-nous

Which one of these options i should use?

The easiest one is the first, but i think the second one is more accepted. But i don't know, what do you think?

The second option challenge is that i have to enter the page url more specific and it cost time. Then in the transcribe module, i have to match if the translation is about hyperlink. Also is it good if then maybe in search engine result there will be duplicate result but with different language?

What do you think?

Thanks, .mafaik

Answer 1

Without this going into an opinion based answer, the major factors will be project budget and SEO performance.

The latter URL structure is far better for SEO purposes and also for your audience (seeing the URL in their native language). To clarify this is the better URL Structure for this:

• domain/en/about-us
• domain/fr/a-propos-de-nous

Note: There are even better ways for multi-language site URLs (for improved SEO), such as unique domain names, hosting within the relevant countries, removing language identifier from default, etc. But these are much more costly to implement! Also remember to set your header and meta as appropriate.

Regarding duplicate content, have a read of this Google article, which basically states that although they'd prefer the wording to be relevant to the target audience (nationality) rather than a direct translation, you wouldn't be penalised for it.

While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible.

Other answers relating to this that may help:

• Multilingual Sites and Url Mapping
• Transcribe translated URL segments