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Internationalization of websites
- Technical aspects

The internationalization of websites requires some basic steps in order to create a sufficient basis, as already stated in the blog article "Internationalization strategy - 5 phases" . One factor that is often underestimated is the technical implementation and setting up a suitable content management system. What needs to be considered here and which other technical factors must be taken into account is discussed below.

Technical internationalization

As this blog post is about the technical aspects of an international website, some technical terms are first explained and defined below in order to gain a better understanding of the subject matter.

 

The numeronym i18n | internationalization

Internationalization is translated into English as internationalization or internationalization. As these terms are somewhat long, we often come across the numeronym i18n. This is the abbreviation of the English term, as there are 18 additional letters between the first letter i and the last letter n.

The more complex the internationalization of a website, the more time and therefore costs are saved during the subsequent localization.

 

The numeronym l10n | localization

In English, localization is translated as localization. As with the abbreviation for internationalization, the first and last letters, including the number of letters in between, are used to form the abbreviation, i.e. l10n.

Internationalization also requires localization. This means that a developer or programmer uses variables in advance instead of hard-coded source code or that country-specific date formats and reading directions are available so that, among other things, texts can be converted from a source language into a target language.

 

Globalization

Worldwide standardization of business transactions that are, however, culturally differentiated and processed.

Globalization of a website = internationalization + localization + multilingual SEO

 

Content Management System (CMS)

CMS stands for Content Management System. This is software that is used to create and manage content for websites or intranets. Content can be text, videos, images, PDF files and much more. These are maintained in a CMS, which is internet-based and linked to a data tape connection (backend), whereby individual web pages are made accessible to the user (frontend).

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The right content management system (CMS)

 

Define goals and analyze target markets

Before implementing an internationalization strategy, goals must first be defined and possible target markets analysed. This is important in order to be aware of all requirements and to choose the right CMS on this basis.

The following influencing factors must therefore be taken into account during the analysis:

  • Budget
  • Structure and processes of the company (current situation)
  • System landscape in the company (current situation)
  • Objectives of the website
  • Target markets and therefore multilingualism
  • What content is to be provided
  • Management of multiple websites

 

The basic prerequisites for the internationalization of websites are

  • A stable CMS system architecture
  • Interfaces (APIs) for easy integration into existing IT infrastructure
  • Security standards (separation of editorial system and website)
  • Multi-site management
  • Simple responsive implementation

 

The right CMS as the foundation of the website

Once the foundation has been laid by analyzing and defining the goals, the next step is to choose the right CMS. Here, it is advisable for companies in particular, regardless of their size, to seek advice from experts. This can be done by in-house developers, programmers or external digital agencies.

However, the following applies: an already established system, such as TYPO3, WordPress or FirstSpirit, should be preferred to in-house creations.

Care should be taken to ensure that databases and the CMS based on them are fully internationalized, that the CMS supports Unicode so that different language characters can be displayed visually on different platforms (Unicode format UTF-8) and that a translation management system (TMS) is available or can be integrated.

In addition, it must be clarified in advance which components can be changed and which should remain the same, which has an influence on the page variables or page constants. Constants can be, for example, source codes, navigation elements or logos, whereas an international currency, regional product portfolios or graphics with texts are counted as variables. The more variables there are, the greater the subsequent maintenance effort and the more complex the i18n. This is because subsequent adjustments usually involve additional work and effort and, depending on the adjustments involved, are sometimes no longer easy to implement.

 

The right server

In general, it can be said that the choice of the right server depends heavily on the requirements of the respective company website. Whether you want a classic or more recent ecological host is a matter of taste. However, you should always pay attention to an optimized loading time, better known as PageSpeed. First and foremost, this pleases Internet users and therefore Google, which in turn has a positive effect on SEO.

Assuming there is a Chinese website and it is based on a German server, it would be worth considering whether local hosting on site would make sense. This is because the data must physically travel from a server to a website visitor's computer. The longer this route is, the more influence this has on the transmission speed.

So-called CDNs (content delivery networks) are recommended here, which make it possible to distribute memory-intensive data, such as images or videos, worldwide so that the local "nearest" data is always referenced - regardless of the location of the website visitor.

However, it is not always the hardware that is responsible for good PageSpeed, but also the page structure of websites, which must also be taken into account.

 

The right domain

A domain is a part of the so-called Domain Name System (DNS). The aim is to increase user-friendliness by making a direct identity with the country or language as well as a simplification recognizable. Thus, the number combination "172.217.173.68", which is the DNS, becomes names and words, namely "google.com".

Within the domain allocation process, a globally unique and unambiguous name is allocated under a top level domain (TLD). Further subdomains can be added to a domain.

 

The full name of a domain consists of the 3rd-level (www), 2nd-level (sample example) and top-level domain (also called first-level domain) (.de) - for example www.musterbeispiel.de and is referred to as a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).

TLDs can be changed retrospectively, but only by setting up a 301 redirection. Redirects can be used, but should ideally be avoided in order to enable a clean and simple website structure for crawlers.

A reputable TLD also generates trust building for Internet users, which in turn influences ranking factors. More dubious TLDs are, for example, endings on info, biz or zip. In the technical environment, however, such endings can have a positive impact and promote search engine optimization, such as .io or .tech.

 

Types of top-level domains

  1. The original and sometimes best-known domain development is known as a gTLD (generic top level domain) and includes endings such as .com, .info, .org or .net.
  2. There are also sponsored top level domains (sTLD), which are used by governments and government-related institutions such as museums: .gov, .int, .coop.
  3. Another option is the ccTLD, the country-code top level domain. This type of domain is used to uniquely identify a country (geotargeting) and always consists of two letters, for example .us, .de, etc.

 

The right domain strategy for international success

As part of the technical aspects of the internationalization of websites, a unique, international URL system should be defined. There are the following domain strategies, which have both advantages and disadvantages:

1. one domain per country (top-level domain strategy)
Example: musterbeispiel.uk, musterbeispiel.cn, musterbeispiel.fr.

It is essential to check in advance whether the desired domain name is still available in the respective countries. The advantage of the top-level domain strategy is that the domain gains a trust advantage for search engines due to its specific country ending and is also suitable for users of the respective country at a glance. The disadvantage to be noted is that each page is independent of the other language variation, so that the domains do not inherit any trust from one another within search engine optimization. This makes it more difficult to build authority for Google.

 

2. a domain with subfolders (folder strategy)
Example: sampleexample.com/uk, sampleexample.com/cn, sampleexample.com/fr.

With this strategy, there are different directories for languages so that country-specific URLs can be set. This strategy is very popular and is therefore often recommended. The folder structure now offers many advantages. As each country version is located on the same domain, backlinks, internal links etc. are exchanged with each other and receive a common proof of authority with trust exchange for the entire domain. Content maintenance within a CMS is also easy to implement for all countries. With a folder strategy, however, care should be taken to ensure that the top-level domain has the international ending ".com" so as not to negatively influence internationalization from the user's point of view. For example, users from China may feel less addressed with the domain "musterbeispiel.de/cn" than with "musterbeispiel.com/cn"

 

3. a domain with subdomains (subdomain strategy)
Example: uk.musterbeispiel.com, cn.musterbeispiel.com, fr.musterbeispiel.com.

These country-specific subdomains can be implemented more cost-effectively than the top-level domain strategy, as the subdomains are only registered with one domain name server and only one TLD address needs to be made known on the market. However, if regional differences are to be taken into account, such as German, Swiss and Austrian, the URL quickly looks confusing and unattractive: de-de.musterbeispiel.de, ch-de.musterbeispiel.de at-de.musterbeispiel.de. With the subdomain strategy, all pages also exchange trust and authority, but they do not benefit from the exchange of internal links, as these are counted as external links.

It is not uncommon for companies to opt for intermediate solutions, so that the most important target markets can be found with a country-specific domain (musterbeispiel.de) and all other markets on a single generic domain (musterbeispiel.com).

In any case, it is important that the topic of domains is never approached lightly and that many factors need to be considered when changing a domain. Ideally, the change of domain strategy should be discussed with the right online agency so that all technical aspects of the internationalization of a website are taken into account.

 

Solving duplicate content technically

Avoiding duplicate content is particularly important for search engine optimization (SEO), as search engines can no longer differentiate which page should be given priority in the rankings in the first step. In the second step, Google can recognize and penalize this content. This means not only a negative impact on ranking factors, but also a possible downgrading of the overall domain authority.

The use of canonical tags is a good solution for avoiding duplicate content in the page context and for regional page versions within a domain. However, this is often no longer sufficient within the internationalization of websites. Here, attention must be paid to clear language markup.

 

The language markup of a website takes place on the one hand in the Content-Language-http header, in which the language specified there has the corresponding HTML document (example: <html lang ="de">). On the other hand, however, further and more specific language markup is required to prevent duplicate content at content level.

The hreflang tag informs Google about pages with different language and country versions.

country versions. This has a positive influence on the understanding of the architecture of the pages. The attribute is only used if there is a corresponding version in the tagged language. An entry is displayed in the <body> tag of the page for each language version. This shows which language is involved in each case and under which other URL this page can be found in another language.

Duplicate content can also potentially be avoided by means of a country-specific sitemap, which is created for each language version. The more signals and instructions the website contains, the better crawlers can understand it.

At the end of each i18n, an internationalization audit should also take place to ensure that all relevant content is available, all page constants and variables are correct and that nothing stands in the way of the internationalization of websites in terms of technical aspects.

 

More information on our blog series "Internationalization" can be found here:

711media as your agency
for internationalization

Learn more about 711media as your digital agency.

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