SEO: Multiple languages [closed] - seo

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Okay, I know this question have been asked plenty of times already, but I haven't found any actual answer.
Considering SEO, what is the best way to construct the URL for multiple languages? One top-level domain for each language would feel unnecessary, so I'm thinking about different subdomains or sub-folders. And in that case, which would be better - en.mydomain.com or english.mydomain.com? And if eg. the english version is more viewed than the swedish version, how do I tell the search engines that they actually are the same page?

Answer 1

Pretty everything is answered in this Google Webmasters article: Multi-regional and multilingual sites.
Here's a summary of relevance:
URL structures
Consider using a URL structure that makes it easy to geotarget parts of your site to different regions. The following table outlines your options:
ccTLDs (country-code top-level domain names)
Example: example.de
Pros:
Clear geotargeting
Server location irrelevant
Easy separation of sites
Cons:
Expensive (and may have limited availability)
Requires more infrastructure
Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes)
Subdomains with gTLDS (generic top-level domain name)
Example: de.example.com
Pros:
Easy to set up
Can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting
Allows different server locations
Easy separation of sites
Cons:
Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone (is "de" the language or country?)
Subdirectories with gTLDs
Example: example.com/de/
Pros:
Easy to set up
Can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting
Low maintenance (same host)
Cons:
Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone
Single server location
Separation of sites harder
URL parameters
Example: example.com?loc=de
Pros:
Not recommended.
Cons:
URL-based segmentation difficult
Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone
Geotargeting in Webmaster Tools is not possible
Duplicate content and international sites
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately.

Answer 2

Google's guidelines are:
Make sure the page language is obvious
Make sure each language version is easily discoverable
This point specifically references URLs as needing to be kept separate. The example they provide is:
For example, the following .ca URLs use fr as a subdomain or subdirectory to clearly indicate French content: http:// example.ca/fr/vélo-de-montagne.html and http:// fr.example.ca/vélo-de-montagne.html.
They also state:
It’s fine to translate words in the URL, or to use an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN). Make sure to use UTF-8 encoding in the URL (in fact, we recommend using UTF-8 wherever possible) and remember to escape the URLs properly when linking to them.
Targeting the site content to a specific country
This is done through CCTLDs, Geotargetting settings in Search Console, Server Location and 'other signals'.
If you're worried about duplicate content, they state:
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this might not always be possible.
If you do re-use the same content across the same website (but in a different language then:
There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag.
But!
However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers.
So, be sure to declare the relationship between different languages using hreflang.
Example below:
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com" hreflang="en-us" />
You can use this in a number of places including your page markup, HTTP headers, or even the sitemap.
Here's a link to a hreflang generator which you might find useful.
Hope this helps.