Default Language

  • Hello,

    We use Polylang Pro and we currently have 6 languages installed. Our configuration of Polylang Settings at the moment is as shown in the links below:
    https://ibb.co/sK0R5tk
    https://ibb.co/3zBkVhd

    Currently, when we visit the homepage we land on .com, since we have hidden the language code in the Polylang Settings. On this basis, the .com/en is not active anymore. Ideally, we would like both .com and the .com/en to be active at the same time and the user to initially land on .com.

    I don’t know how to find a solution on this one except for adding a new language and duplicate the content, which I would really like to avoid because it will require a lot of time to complete. On the other hand, by deselecting the option to hide the URL language (currently selected) the users will land on .com/en, thus “deactivating” the .com, which is again not desired.

    I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts and I hope to have described our issue as best as possible. In short, we want both .com and .com/en to be active at the same time. Alternatively, we may consider to have the .com/en active but initially land on the .com by disallowing a redirect based on the default language code (may be achieved with pll_redirect_home?). Ideally the 1st option.

    Thanks a lot

    • This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by kmam.
    • This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by kmam.
    • This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by kmam.
    • This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by kmam.
    • This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by kmam.
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  • Thread Starter kmam

    (@kmammasis)

    Hello again,

    Ideally, I would have liked to delete my previous post and re-post a new one since I came to realize that my initial post will not help me get to my final destination. On this basis, please ignore my initial question and allow me to rephrase and explain the whole thing from scratch.

    I am using Polylang Pro. I have currently installed 6 languages (en-us, gr-GR, en-SG, ja_JP, ko_KR, zh_SG) to target audiences in all corresponding regions. The exact setup can be found in here.
    https://ibb.co/sK0R5tk
    https://ibb.co/3zBkVhd

    Initially, I had chosen the option not to hide the URL language information on the Front Page, Browser Language Detection has always been deactivated. On this basis, the users were redirected to /en.

    The problem started when I realized that users from Singapore are seeing mixed up results and they are currently driven to /en instead of the more appropriate localized content served by the /sg. After investigation, I realized that the same thing happens in google.gr, but from every other destination as well. Please see attached link for an example. Same happens from Singapore, although from Singapore the initial front page were driving users directly to /en, which is even worse.

    Initially, I tried to force a redirect by using Cloudflare Workers. The redirect was not working (although the javascript code – also tested locally) was 100% correct – until I chose to hide the option “Hide URL language information for default language”, which actually forced internally a redirect to /en. This however generated another issue my Language Switching Menu – not working as expected.

    Then, I came to realize that the best way to direct the user to the right version is using the HREFlang attribute to properly display the desired page in their search engine results. Otherwise, it seems like hiding the problem under the table. Of course, I rested this to Polylang but somehow I’ve got it wrong. It is clear to me now that there was and may still is a problem with the hreflang attributes/return tags etc.. It is therefore critical to get this right since I do not want Google to miss the right settings during next crawl.

    To derive the optimum configuration for my case, I need to mention that the en-US targets customers in the US, but since there is a much wider English speaking audience in the world, we would ideally like to serve the en-US content to anyone who wants to read our content in English, apart from Singapore – where there is a standalone English version /sg. I believe that the rest of details are clear from my current configuration, i.e. Greece should be served the /gr, Korea the /kr, Japan the /jp, Mandarin speaking in Singapore or elsewhere the /zh-sg version respectively.

    So how to handle this scenario effectively and ultimately correct the mixed up results shown from Google? This is my question.

    I would very much appreciate your thoughts.
    Best Wishes

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by kmam.
Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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