Multilingual website
What is a multilingual website?
A multilingual website presents the same content in two or more languages, each at its own address, so a search engine can index every version and show the right one to the right person. The versions are tied together with hreflang, and the language switch stays visible. Translation is half the job: addresses, forms, emails, currency and terms all have a language too.
Example
A parts maker sells in Bulgaria and in Romania. The site keeps Bulgarian at the root and Romanian under /ro/: one domain, one hosting account, one reputation being built. The other two structures are a subdomain (ro.site.bg) and a separate country domain (site.ro); the second gives the strongest local signal and is the most work, because it starts from nothing.
Each page then declares its counterparts with hreflang: the Bulgarian page points at itself and at the Romanian one, and the Romanian page points back. If the return link is missing, the pair is ignored. An x-default entry says which version to show a visitor whose language matches none of them.
The mistakes are the same everywhere. Machine translation published without review. Both languages served at one address that switches on a cookie or on the browser’s language, which a search engine reads as a single page. Redirecting by location, which sends a Bulgarian in Bucharest to the wrong version and gets in the way of crawling. And a second language that stops being updated, so the English pages describe last year’s products.
Why it matters for a business
People search in the language they think in. A page in the right language, at its own address, can rank in that market; the same text hidden behind a switch cannot. But every language doubles the content that has to be kept current — an out-of-date English page costs more trust than a missing one.
Language reaches further than the copy: order confirmations, error messages, invoices, delivery terms and the currency at checkout all belong to it. We build multilingual sites — in two languages or more — as part of website development; this site is built the same way: Bulgarian at the root, English under /en/, with hreflang and both versions listed in the sitemap.
What to ask
- Does every page have its own address in every language?
- Who maintains the second language when the first one changes?
- Are the forms, confirmation emails, errors and buttons translated, or only the page copy?
- Is hreflang in place, does it point both ways, and is there an x-default?
- How does someone switch language — do they choose, or does the site decide for them?
- What happens to the addresses when a third language is added?