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        4. French Canadian Website and French Language URLs

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        French Canadian Website and French Language URLs

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        • Aviatech
          Aviatech last edited by

          Hello,

          One of my clients has a question on a new Quebec, Canada version of their website. The website content and copy is in the French Canadian language, but the IT Director has asked if, for the purpose of SEO, should the URLs be in French as well?

          So, this questions has two parts...

          For SEO, should the URL's be in French or left in English, to avoid crawl errors?

          For visitor UX, is there any reason to have them in French versus English?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Aviatech
            Aviatech @smstv last edited by

            So, was your hierarchy like this?

            GER = www.domain.de = German language and URLs version of www.domain.com

            FRA = www.domain.fr = French language and URLs version of www.domain.com

            ...and so on  and so on?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Aviatech
              Aviatech @THB last edited by

              So, this client has this current setup...

              USA = www.domain.com in English

              CAN = www.domain.ca in English

              FR CAN = quebec.domain.ca = which based on this consideration, should be have URL's in French.

              So, how would one handle accent marks and such in the URL?

              We are using the Ektron CMS, which eventually, all the sites will live there and country specific domains can be redirected to a language and locale specific version of the website.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Aviatech
                Aviatech @THB last edited by

                So, this client has this current setup...

                USA = www.domain.com in English

                CAN = www.domain.ca in English

                FR CAN = quebec.domain.ca = which based on this consideration, should be have URL's in French.

                So, how would one handle accent marks and such in the URL?

                We are using the Ektron CMS, which eventually, all the sites will live there and country specific domains can be redirected to a language and locale specific version of the website.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • smstv
                  smstv last edited by

                  We made 3 or 4 versions of our last clients site, cause the had German, French, English, and Chiniese, and what we did was a Umbraco CMS, so the client could do a version of all. That would be the best and safest rout. May be labor intensive, but smart thought process.

                  Aviatech 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • THB
                    THB last edited by

                    Well, is it content only available to French-Canadian's?  For example, would your company's services be relevant to somebody from, say, Dallas, Texas in the US?  Is any of your services relevant to English speaking people?  And if so, what is the percentage?

                    Build your site for your clients/customers/users, and whatever makes sense to them.  If only French speaking/reading people will be visiting your site (for the most part), then build everything in French (including URL's), as it will be legible.  For the same reason you a Hindu site might not be relevant to you, regardless of their services (taking a stab in the dark that you might not know Hindu; I apologize if I'm wrong 😉

                    You know what I mean?  Bottom-line: build for your users and what is going to generate the greatest ROI.

                    Aviatech 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
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