How Do You Identify And Resolve Technical Issues For Multi-Language Websites?

Story Based Question

You’re working on a global e-commerce platform that serves customers in over 10 languages, from French and Spanish to Mandarin and Arabic. Recently, you’ve noticed issues: some pages aren’t indexed properly in specific regions, and certain translations are being shown in search results, even when they shouldn’t be. You wonder, How do I identify and fix technical issues on a multi-language website to make sure everything runs smoothly across all regions?

Exact Answer

Identify and resolve technical issues for multi-language websites by checking hreflang tags, ensuring proper URL structures for each language, fixing duplicate content issues, improving site speed, validating robots.txt, and testing the site’s crawlability with tools like Google Search Console and Screaming Frog.

Explanation

Managing a multi-language website involves additional technical challenges compared to a single-language site. Even minor issues can affect search engine rankings and user experience, especially when dealing with international audiences. Here’s how to identify and resolve the key technical issues:

1. Check Hreflang Tags
   • Hreflang tags tell search engines which page to show to users based on their language and region. Incorrect hreflang tags can cause the wrong language to show in search results.
   • Solution: Use tools like Google Search Console to spot hreflang errors. Ensure tags are properly implemented in both the HTML headers and XML sitemaps.
   Example:
2. Verify URL Structures for Each Language
   Different language versions should have distinct URLs. You can use subdirectories, subdomains, or country-specific domains. For example:
   1. example.com/en/ for English
   2. example.com/fr/ for French
   3. fr.example.com for French
   Solution: Ensure the URL structure is consistent across languages. Avoid using the same URL for different languages or regions, as this can confuse search engines.
3. Handle Duplicate Content Issues
   If content appears in multiple languages or regions but isn’t properly tagged or segmented, search engines may consider it duplicate content.
   Solution: Implement hreflang and canonical tags correctly to tell search engines which version of the page to index. Use Google Search Console to monitor for duplicate content warnings.
4. Improve Site Speed Across Regions
   Slow load times can be a technical issue, especially when serving international users. For example, users in Asia might experience delays when accessing a site hosted in the U.S.
   Solution: Use a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up the site. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help pinpoint speed issues specific to regions and suggest fixes.
5. Check Robots.txt and Crawling Settings
   Sometimes, language or region-specific pages might accidentally be blocked by robots.txt or improper crawling settings.
   Solution: Double-check your robots.txt file to ensure search engines can access all relevant pages. In Google Search Console, ensure there are no crawl errors.
6. Test Crawlability and Indexing
   Use tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Google’s URL Inspection Tool to crawl your site and identify issues like broken links, improper redirects, or inaccessible pages.
   Solution: Address any crawling issues immediately. Check that search engines are indexing your multi-language pages and ensure they’re being served in the correct language.
7. Ensure Mobile Optimization for All Languages
   Mobile-first indexing is essential for SEO, and it applies to all regions and languages. If your site is not mobile-optimized, it could negatively affect your rankings.
   Solution: Test your multi-language site’s mobile-friendliness using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Ensure each language version is optimized for mobile devices.

Example

Let’s say you’re managing a multi-language e-commerce website for a brand selling beauty products. The site is available in English, French, and German. Upon reviewing your site, you discover the following issues:

• The French version isn’t properly tagged with hreflang tags, and Google is showing it as an English result in French-speaking regions.
• Some product pages in German have duplicate content issues because both the /de/ and /de-ch/ (Swiss-German) versions have similar content without hreflang or canonical tags.
• The site is slow for users in Asia, likely because the server is in the U.S.

To fix these, you:

• Correct the hreflang tags, ensuring they reflect the correct language-region pairs.
• Add canonical tags to the duplicate German content to tell Google which version to index.
• Implement a CDN to serve content faster for Asian users.

Once you make these fixes, you use Google Search Console to monitor improvements. In a few weeks, you see a jump in organic traffic to the German and French versions, with pages appearing in the correct regional search results.

Technical issues on a multi-language website can cause serious SEO problems, but they’re fixable with the right approach. Check hreflang tags, manage URL structures, address duplicate content, optimize site speed, and ensure everything is crawlable and mobile-friendly.