Tag: internationalisation

Google Questions [en]

[fr] Comment Google détermine-t-il (1) le pays d'où provient un site et (2) la langue d'une page? Pourquoi les résultats d'une recherche en français sont-ils différents, selon qu'on utilise google.ch ou google.fr?

So, I’m writing up a document for a client about search engine placement. Not really an SEO thing, more a “good search engine placement results from popularity and success, not the opposite” thing. Like, (gosh, am I being eloquent right now,) setting objectives like “be in the first three results for this or that keyword combination is not very realistic.”

Anyway, I’m stuck in the part about limiting seach to one country or a language (which is a “big thing” if you live outside Anglophonia and ambition to reach the local population). I realise that the way Google manages these different searches is not quite clear to me.

**Location**

If you go to [google.ch](http://google.ch) you can choose to do a search for [“pages from Switzerland”](http://www.google.ch/search?hl=en&q=stephanie+booth&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryCH) (I’m using my name as a search term example). Or with [google.fr](http://google.fr/), “[pages from France](http://www.google.fr/search?hl=en&q=stephanie+booth&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryFR)” (language set to English both times so you can compare). My assumption (thanks [shastry](http://vinayshastry.blogspot.com)) is that they use server location for that. But is that all? (My server is in the US, so that explains why CTTS does not show up as a “Swiss” site.)

**Language**

If I select French as the search language, I get different results whether I use [google.ch](http://www.google.ch/search?hl=fr&q=stephanie+booth&btnG=Recherche+Google&meta=lr%3Dlang_fr) or [google.fr](http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=stephanie+booth&btnG=Rechercher&meta=lr%3Dlang_fr). I assume Google uses language detection — but why are the results different?

Thanks for any explanation which can help me see a bit more clearly.

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