Multilingual site SEO

[cathymarc]

Hi all

Two days ago I did not know about Prestashop, I was going crazy for a month with M*g*n*o and getting really lousy performance, with support telling me that M can only realistically run on an (expensive) dedicated server, not on mutualized hosting like OVH 90plan. Clearly M is one of those pieces of fatware that one wants to stay away from.

In two days with Prestashop I have a site up and running, with excellent speed.
The backoffice is very efficient and friendly (aside from the "hidden" SEO-friendly URL box in the Products section... why not make it always visible, without extra clicks on obscure links, like in the Categories section!?).

I am inclined to move to Prestashop immediately because of the obvious intelligence that went into most of its conception. The only thing holding me back is SEO issues relating to multilingual sites -> this appears to be the Achilles' heel of this brilliant piece of work... let me explain. There are also some major issues with the friendly URLs that concern even unilingual sites

Geolocation

Multilingual sites need to be partitioned into sections that can be clearly and individually geolocated for google. The possibilities, in order of decreasing preference, with example english french spanish, are:
1) www.mysite.com/ www.mysite.fr/ www.mysite.es/ domains all sharing common Prestashop
2) www.mysite.com/ fr.mysite.com/ es.mysite.com/ subdomains all sharing common Prestashop
3) www.mysite.com/en/ www.mysite.com/fr/ www.mysite.com/es/ subdirectories all sharing common Prestashop

(in 2 and 3, "en","fr","es" could be replaced by anything, like "cheese","fromage","queso")

A site using 3) is in your showcase, not sure how they did it: http://www.teatower.com/en/12346070-herbal-tea
These guys were clever enough to modify the URL so that categories are shown on same directory level as products, and category and product numbers are customized to match their own product references.
If I could get to emulate what the Teatower guys did I would be happy, but there is no obvious way available short of hacking the code. This should be a standard feature. Unless there is a hidden thread that reveals something I missed?

Any possibility of doing 3, 2 or especially 1 ???

Cookies for language state : bad !

The worst problem of the current Prestashop is the fact that language state is stored in cookies, which means that the home page of each language has exactly the same URL, making it impossible for google to index anything but the default language !!! This cookie technique is very prevalent on the net, even on pro sites, yet it is a real SEK (search engine killer). The "lang-fr" appears (as an additional subdirectory inserted just after the site base url) only when the user requests a language change, otherwise the URL gives no language info.
For the home page, there is NO WAY of giving the language state in the URL. For other pages one could name categories with different names in each language, but all would appear to google as coming from the same site, with no geolocation possible. This is a nightmare.

It would be better if the "lang-fr"appeared in every URL permanently !

And the form of that language identifier should be user definable, allowing to use other words like "fr", "fromage", or "fr-tshirt"

Even better, one should have the options of partitioning the site as per 1) and 2) and 3) above !!!

id numbers in URL

Another truly annoying problem is the little id_category and id_product number, which makes the products appear to be in a different subdirectory than their category. Also the product page has a ".html" at the end, you should at least give the option of defining whether the url ends in .html or simply with a trailing slash, which most people would prefer.
For category page you now get www.mysite.com/3-category/
-> should be www.mysite.com/category/
For product page you now get www.mysite.com/category/12-product.html
-> should be www.mysite.com/category/product/
-> or at the very least, make it consistent and include the category number in product URLs, so that you get same directory: www.mysite.com/3-category/12-product.html
I have read the counterobjection that google does not care about those numbers - maybe, we don't know that, but WE certainly care, because such inconsistent directory structures really make no sense. If those numbers have to be there, fine, but then put them in all the time, consistently.

At first I thought of integrating in the name of the category a language identifier, like "fr-fromages", but because of the number problem above in the products you get "3-fr-fromages", argh!

Conclusion

Prestashop is not the only platform that is deficient for multilingual site SEO, almost every platform on the market ignores this issue, yet is concerns a large number of users !!!

If you can incorporate some of the changes I suggested, and especially the ability to share multiple country domains or subdomains on one installation with common backoffice, that would be a USP - unique selling proposition !!!

In the mean time, any suggestions you have for a temporary fix with some of the features needed will be very welcome, believe me, I WANT to use Prestashop.

TIA

Mike

[cathymarc]

Solution 3) above had been implemented by Hessellund on a prior version of PS in this thread:
http://www.prestashop.com/forums/viewthread/8051/P15/general_discussion/urls_are_the_same_for_all_the_languages__seo_problem/

I have modified his code to work with Prestashop 1.2.1, works well. Same Todos apply (will post when done). See same thread for all changes, only 2 core files need mods, and the .htaccess file of course.

hope this helps

Mike

[megri]

Hi,

I have implemented multilingual site SEO for one of my client and if you need any advice or help, Please let me know

[TropischBruin]

Hi,

I have implemented multilingual site SEO for one of my client and if you need any advice or help, Please let me know

Why not share it with all of us?

[Ann]

cathy marc has it right about SEO and prestashop.... this not the first time there is a topic about it... curiously enough... versions after versions, we get tons of useless gadgets, but this definitely essential point is always ignored...Cedric Girard published some very interesting threads about this, I hope this will be sorted out pretty soon

[cathymarc]

@megri - thanks for your offer. I will plug away at the current issues I have with multiple country domains and then we can compare notes. Or I may beg you for some code :-)

Solution for sundirectories I have already shared, see my previous post above.

cheers

Mike

[infoseek]

thank you cathymarc, hadn't i read your post,I wouldn't realised the importance of the issue,I have come accrose site that just use you sundirectories solutions,at first,I don't know how they managed to do that,here I find the answer,thanks again!

[millennia]

Eventhough Prestashop has several SEO shortcomings and inconsistencies, using numbers in the products or categories is not one of them. First, the numbers do not affect rankings. Secondly, if you think they look ugly, think again. There is a very good reason for the numbers there and I have discussed this with THE authority in SEO (take a guess).

If the user tries to copy the URL and mistypes a letter, or even copy & paste and miss one letter, you get an error. With numbers there, as long as you get the numbers right, you will get where you want to go. It allows for a great margin of user error and that's what SEO is all about, usability and user friendly structure.