How does Google handle a page containing multiple languages?

How does Google handle a page containing multiple languages?

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Added on Thursday 08 July 2010 12:44:48
by GoogleWebmasterHelp
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"How would Google consider (and rank) a site that uses meta data and URLs in a language (Italian) and has the h1 of the pages in another (English) considered more appealing for users?

ex:
title: Pallacanestro
h1: Basket
url: site.com/pallacanestro/"

Eddy, Milan, Italy

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TheChewyTunes

So, if you want to link to the different language page from the english original page, then do you link to the subdomain folder you made for that other language page you make in the root folder of your english page?
Saturday 05 February 2011 09:00:58
TheOz1999

What's up with all these silly backgrounds on your vids!?
Thursday 25 November 2010 14:18:33
finalwebsites

What Matt doesn't say is that this mixed language page will not rank so high as the pages from competitors ;) You need to structure your multi language website a lot to get good google traffic for all languages.
Saturday 07 August 2010 03:09:15
Twasta

If you really want to put some time and effort into it and you don't have too many of these word, you could wrap them in something like (span lang="en")Basket(span). This should also be much better for screen readers, but of course, it generates quite an overhead.
Friday 23 July 2010 10:04:24
02javis

well ...lets all speak American...
Monday 19 July 2010 21:17:10
compucar03

Thanks so much for making these Matt. I really appreciate it.
Monday 12 July 2010 21:39:03
sayweb

great question, great answer.
Sunday 11 July 2010 01:29:12
DrSunnz

What about on web sites where it is their CULTURE to mix their language, like many Hong Kong sites? How do you handle that? This practise is also know as code-switching.
Friday 09 July 2010 06:19:00
imrankhanseo

@kron3r Yeap Right Thanks @Imran Khan seo
Thursday 08 July 2010 19:38:00
peppeddu

@adithecool That should be no problem for Google (to some extent, I explain below) What I am talking about is two languages on the same page, for example, ancient books written in Latin with English side-by-side, of any pair of your favorite languages. There is no dominant language and they are both equally important. For the pages where the language switching is done with a cookie/Ajax (not QueryString) Google doesn't know how to index it, and it grabs the default that comes without cookies.
Thursday 08 July 2010 19:32:52
kron3r

@imrankhanseo Just keep in mind that Subdomains aren't as strong as subdirectories. Maybe try: domain.com/en/english-content/ or domain.com/it/italian-content/ for example. - As Opposed to en.domain.com/english-content or it.domain.com/italian-content/ @KRONiS
Thursday 08 July 2010 19:29:41
adithecool

@peppeddu I don't really know how you interpreted the video but Matt makes it pretty clear that you can have one page targeting English and another one with similar content targeting French. Just have a look at how Wikipedia do it :)
Thursday 08 July 2010 18:04:19
peppeddu

A.K.A. Google doesn't like sites that have multiple languages in the same page. So, you guys who are working to improve your foreign language skills, looks like you're out of luck when searching those pages with Google.
Thursday 08 July 2010 16:59:54
schank111222

@TechieGeek1 Or another directory or just name the page maybe about-en.html or about-fr.html
Thursday 08 July 2010 14:58:20
johncolesuk

So I am presuming that wouldn't count as duplicate content?
Thursday 08 July 2010 14:56:37
imrankhanseo

That's Great... Even Subdomain or else a different Directory also can work on the domain with different languages. Thanks matt for nicely explaining and clearing the Information.. Regards Imran Khan
Thursday 08 July 2010 14:21:17
mhaidarhanif

So that's how it works! Nice, even I'm only using a half language.
Thursday 08 July 2010 13:55:57
TechieGeek1

So it would be nice to have a different subdomain for different languages on your site.
Thursday 08 July 2010 13:54:31