: When selecting the language of a web page solely with content negotiation, will a search engine ever see different languages? I've done a simple, small site which basically only consists of a

@Kimberly868

An alternative to browser locale (which may not be reliable from a BOT) you can use Geo-IP (as a module on your Apache webserver or with PHP). The Geo-IP option may also make more sense if you have a product to sell.

In your index.php for php module version of GeoIP:

include("geoip/geoip.inc");
$gi = geoip_open("location/to/geoip/GeoIP.dat",GEOIP_STANDARD);
$country=geoip_country_code_by_addr($gi, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
geoip_close($gi);


If you want to use the Apache module:

$country=$_SERVER['GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE'];


Thereafter you can put together a big 'if' or 'case' construct in your index.php to work with whatever code you have to render your page.

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@Kristi941

An XML sitemap will show them where to find the alternative language pages. You can also put links in the footer of your pages linking to other languages. This is good usability as it allows people to easily find the language of their choice if they accidentally ended up on the page in a less-preferred language.

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