Multistore, multiple languages: optimal SEO versus user friendliness

Question

I have read these threads, but they don’t seem to answer my confusion:

• How to create Multiple Store with different domain in Magento
• http://www.ecommercegorilla.com/how-to-set-up-multiple-store-fronts-with-magento/
• Optimise URL when changing Store and language switcher to maintain SEO standards

Our situation:

• Magento 2.2.6
• multi-website, multi-store, multi languages
• each store-view is a different language (English, French, German, etc.)
• Store-view switching (within the same store) via country-flags
• Store code are language based (EN, DE, FR, etc..) for the main website

The best set-up advice for optimal SEO appears to be:

• 1. Create Sub-directories. Not Sub-domains or ccTLDs: Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/subdomain-subdirectory-cctld/226545/
• 2. Turn off ‘Add Storecode to URL’
• 3. Server URL rewrites: yes. Source: https://www.predikkta.com/blog/your-essential-guide-to-magento-technical-seo.html

My confusion My confusion comes from my assumption that each language should have its own URL. And the only way to achieve this is by turning on ‘Add Storecode to URL’. But the above SEO settings appear to contradict this assumption. What am I not understanding or missing?

My questions:

• 1.Is setting 2 and 3 also true for our situation (multistore / multi languages)?

• 2.If yes,

• 2a how does Google then know to separate the different language store views when indexing? So that each has a chance for maximum SEO

• 2b is there then any different URL per language? Or is this not needed and is my assumption out-dated?

• 2c how does a French visitor know he is in the French store-view and not the English store-view? The URL would then not give any indication, I think?

Answer 1

So after further searching I have come to the conclusion that Settings 1 and 3 (see above) are correct.

However for setting 2 'Add Storecode to URL' it should be turned ON for multi-lingual websites (and thus also for multi-store/multi-language websites).

Reason: Google recommends it. See below relevant piece of text from their own website (Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites

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Managing multilingual versions of your site

If you have identical content in multiple languages on your site, here are some tips for helping users (and Google Search) find the right page:

Use different URLs for different language versions Google recommends using different URLs for each language version of a page rather than using cookies or browser settings to adjust the content language on the page.

If you use different URLs for different languages, use hreflang annotations to help Google search results link to the correct language version of a page.

If you prefer to dynamically change content or reroute the user based on language settings, be aware that Google might not find and crawl all your variations. This is because the Googlebot crawler usually originates from the USA. In addition, the crawler sends HTTP requests without setting Accept-Language in the request header.