Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Multilang site: Auto redirect 301 or 302?
-
We need to establish if 301 or 302 response code is to be used for our auto redirects based on Accept-Language header.
https://domain.com
30x > https://domain.com/en
30x > https://domain.com/ru
30x > https://domain.com/deThe site architecture is set up with proper inline HREFLANG.
We have read different opinions about this, Ahrefs says 302 is the correct one:
https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
302 redirect:
"You want to redirect users to the right version of the site for them (based on location/language)."You could argue that the root redirect is never permanent as it varies based on user language settings (302)
On the other hand, the lang specific redirects are permanent per language:IF Accept-Language header = en
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/en
IF Accept-Language header = ru
https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/ruSo each of these is 'permanent'.
So which is the correct?
-
Hi Guys i am newer to SEO. my web with the 301 302 issue. anyone able help to fix it? will be high appreciated.
Internal URL
Yes
Full URL
https://myoffroadled.com/led-rocker-switch
HTTP status code
301 Moved permanently
First found at
Seed URL
Content type
text/html; charset=utf-8
Depth
0
Redirect URL
https://www.myoffroadled.com/led-rocker-switch/
Not crawled
Is redirect loop
No
Page rating
100 -
@fj66doneoiddpj In some cases users may have a reason for using the site in something other than their browser language.
For example, perhaps a shared device, or simply wishing to check a different localisation.
If your hreflang is working correctly, they should never see the "wrong" version anyhow.
But, there are pros and cons of course.
-
Thank you for the reply, 302 is also what we decided after many hours of reading.
The main reason for auto redirect is that we feel it's a better user experience as user will arrive the content target to his/her browser language. -
I would use a 302 here, just as an added insurance in case you ever accidentally serve Google the redirect.
However, I'm not a huge fan of auto redirects in general - they tend to cause issues for crawlers and users alike. Can you explain a bit more when/why the user gets redirected? Perhaps instead you could serve a country selection insterstitial if a user seems to be on the "wrong" variant?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should I redirect or add content, to 47 Pages?
We have an insurance agency website with 47 pages that have duplicate/low content warnings. What's the best way to handle this? I'm I right in thinking I have 2 options? Either add new content or redirect the page? Thanks in advance 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | laurentjb1 -
Advise on the right way to block country specific users but not block Googlebot - and not be seen to be cloaking. Help please!
Hi, I am working on the SEO of an online gaming platform - a platform that can only be accessed by people in certain countries, where the games and content are legally allowed.
International SEO | | MarkCanning
Example: The games are not allowed in the USA, but they are allowed in Canada. Present Situation:
Presently when a user from the USA visits the site they get directed to a restricted location page with the following message: RESTRICTED LOCATION
Due to licensing restrictions, we can't currently offer our services in your location. We're working hard to expand our reach, so stay tuned for updates! Because USA visitors are blocked Google which primarily (but not always) crawls from the USA is also blocked, so the company webpages are not being crawled and indexed. Objective / What we want to achieve: The website will have multiple region and language locations. Some of these will exist as standalone websites and others will exist as folders on the domain. Examples below:
domain.com/en-ca [English Canada]
domain.com/fr-ca [french Canada]
domain.com/es-mx [spanish mexico]
domain.com/pt-br [portugese brazil]
domain.co.in/hi [hindi India] If a user from USA or another restricted location tries to access our site they should not have access but should get a restricted access message.
However we still want google to be able to access, crawl and index our pages. Can i suggest how do we do this without getting done for cloaking etc? Would this approach be ok? (please see below) We continue to work as the present situation is presently doing, showing visitors from the USA a restricted message.
However rather than redirecting these visitors to a restricted location page, we just black out the page and show them a floating message as if it were a model window.
While Googlebot would be allowed to visit and crawl the website. I have also read that it would be good to put paywall schema on each webpage to let Google know that we are not cloaking and its a restricted paid page. All public pages are accessible but only if the visitor is from a location that is not restricted Any feedback and direction that can be given would be greatly appreciated as i am new to this angle of SEO. Sincere thanks,0 -
How effective are 301 redirects in passing page rank?
I have a blog which is ranking well for certain terms, and would like to repurpose it to better explain these terms it is ranking for, including updating the url to the new term the blog will be about. The plan being to 301 redirect the old url to new. In the past, I've done this with other pages, and have actually lost much of the rankings that I had earned on the original URL. What is your take on this? Maybe repurpose blog, but maintain original URL just to be on the safe side? Thanks
Technical SEO | | CitimarineMoz0 -
302 redirects in Magento, trying to fix
Hi all, I'm assigned a site in Magento. After the first craw, we found almost 15k 302 redirects. A sample URL ends with this /stores/store/switch/?SID=qdq9mf1u6afgodo1vtvk0ucdpb&___from_store=default&___store=german&uenc=aHR0cHM6Ly9qdWljeWZsdXRlcy5jb20vP19fX3N0b3JlPWdlcm1hbg%2C%2C And they are currently 302 redirecting to the homepage as well as other main pages and also product pages it seems. Some of these point to account pages where customers log in. Probably best for me to de-index those so no issues there. But I'm worried about the 302 redirects to public pages. The extension we have installed is SEO Suite Ultimate by MageWorx. Does anyone here have experience here specifically and how did you fix it? Thanks, JC
Technical SEO | | LASClients0 -
Sub-domains or sub-directories for country-specific versions of the site?
What approach do you think would be better from an SEO perspective when creating country-targeted versions for an eCommerce site (all in the same language with slight regional changes) - sub-domains or sub-directories? Is any of the approaches more cost effective, web development-wise? I know this topic's been under much debate and I would really like to hear your opinion. Many thanks!
International SEO | | ramarketing0 -
Best domain for spanish language site targeting ALL spanish territories?
hi, we're have a strong .com domain and are looking to launch a site for spanish speakers (ie latin america + spain). we already have various subdirectories for some foreign language sites (eg. ourdomain.co.uk, us.ourdomain.com, ca.ourdomain.com, ourdomainchina.com, ourdomainindia.com etc) we already have a B2B site ourdomain.com-es which will remain the same. I'm thinking best practice would be to launch translated copy for the following: ourdomain.com/es ourdomain.com/cl ourdomain.com/mx ourdomain.com/pt etc etc firstly is this the best option? secondly, i'm really interested to hear whether there is a less time/resource intensive route that would give us visibility in ALL spanish speaking territories? Also - if we go with just one of the above (eg ourdomain.com/cl) how likely are we to get traction in other spanish speaking territories? any help much appreciated!
International SEO | | KevinDunne0 -
IP Redirection vs. cloaking: no clear directives from Google
Hi there, Here is our situation:we need to force an IP Redirection for our US users to www.domain.com and at the same time we have different country-specific subfolders with thei own language such as www.domain.com/fr. Our fear is that by forcing an IP redirection for US IP, we will prevent googlebot (which has an US IP) from crawling our country-specific subfolders. I didn't find any clear directives from Google representatives on that matter. In this video Matt Cutts says it's always better to show Googlebot the same content as your users http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw&noredirect=1, but on the other hand in that other video he says "Google basically crawls from one IP address range worldwide because (they) have one index worldwide. (They) don't build different indices, one for each country". This seems a contradiction to me... Thank you for your help !! Matteo
International SEO | | H-FARM0 -
Google Webmaster Tools - International SEO Geo-Targeting site with Worldwide rankings
I have a client who already has rankings in the US & internationally. The site is broken down like this: url.com (main site with USA & International Rankings) url.com/de url.com/de-english url.com/ng url.com/au url.com/ch url.com/ch-french url.com/etc Each folder has it's own sitmap & relative content for it's respective country. I am reading in google webmaster tools > site config > settings, the option under 'Learn More': "If you don't want your site associated with any location, select Unlisted." If I want to keep my client's international rankings the way it currently is on url.com, do NOT geo target to United States? So I select unlisted, right? Would I use geo targeting on the url.com/de, url.com/de-english, url.com/ng, url.com/au and so on?
International SEO | | Francisco_Meza0