language declaration

NewKidonTheBlock · #1 (**permalink**) 11-10-08, 05:02 PM

I haven't done much work on non-English-language sites, yet, despite being from Germany, so now I have to ask a very basic question:

Is the language declaration in the html-element important? Or is it not really necessary? Does it help with local rankings/help prevent issues with the SEs?

I guess every major SE probably understands that a website is supposed to rank for an English language search if the majority (or all) of its content is written in English, anyway.

But maybe it's important if you use a different language on the page (for whatever reason)?

I assume this here is enough <html lang=".."> or isn't it?

thanks!

sjachille · #2 (**permalink**) 12-10-08, 09:51 AM

Hi,
that's an interesting question. My experience shows that a declaration isn't necessary. That is, you need not to declare the language you are using provided the entire text is in one specific language.

So for example if you have a multilingual website you need not to worry as your content is organized in several areas each in a language and that's no problem.

If you have a multilingual blog and you are posting in different languages you'll want to avoid mixing content in different languages so you'll create multiple categories dealing with a subject, the number of categories equating the number of languages.

The only case I'd see appropriate (and necessary) to use the language attribute is if you have the need to mix more languages within the body of one page in order to be sure that the search engines don't get mixed up - they really might not, but better safe than sorry.

It would ne nice to hear of other experiences related to this aspect

NewKidonTheBlock · #3 (**permalink**) 12-10-08, 10:38 AM

thanks for the reply,

I asked this question because I was reminded of my first attempt to launch a website: I put my site on my hosting account, however the design was still not done and for content areas I had just put some random german phrase in them which I copied dozens of times to make the design look a bit..less empty

.

Then I was suggested by someone on an SEO forum, that I should use a language declaration, because I might have a problem with search engines now (as the site which was intended to be in English, had German words on it).

Do you think this would have been a problem if I had not added ..lang ="en"? Probably hard/impossible to tell w/o trying it (which would be a bad use of one's time lol), hm?

I was just curious, because I happened to think of that and thought multilingual SEOs might run into that more often than those who only SEO in English anyway

sjachille · #4 (**permalink**) 13-10-08, 08:17 AM

The Language declaration, along with all other similar attributes should be viewed as suggestions to the search engines, a helping hand to help them figure things out on your webiste and nothing more. They do as they please and have a mind of their own. Another attribute tha makes me laugh is the REVISIT AFTER - as if teh Search Engines are going to obey our command to revisit our websites based on our request - that's not going to happen ...

NewKidonTheBlock · #5 (**permalink**) 13-10-08, 10:37 AM

Hehe, I have a feeling that getting humans to "revisit after" might become very important if clickstream data becomes more important in the ranking algorithms. Maybe the attribute will work on them

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