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This one is really tricky. You'll see this same behavior by Google, Facebook, and most other major providers. We spent a lot of time looking into this, it's unf
by drusenko 10y ago
This one is really tricky. You'll see this same behavior by Google, Facebook, and most other major providers. We spent a lot of time looking into this, it's unfortunately a very complex situation:
1- In theory browser language should be the perfect way to do it, in practice as often as 25% of the time or more it's set incorrectly. Unfortunately, that means a lot of people that don't speak English end up with English content.
2- There is more than just language, in several regions we are localized and not just translated. So it's important to send specific content for the region, like prices, specific local features (e.g. payment methods), specific photography to better appeal to the local audience, local user stories & articles, etc.
3- It's especially hard with English because that is, in essence, the "default" language. If your browser language is set to Spanish and you live in Germany, we'll respect that, but it's a bit harder to do with English.
We're definitely open to input on how to handle it better... One step forward would be to bring the language selector up to the top of the page so it is much more accessible.
- stevoski 10y agoThanks for your response. It is indeed tricky, as I know from both sides of the situation. I don't think this behaviour is as prevalent as you suggest. I just checked Facebook and Google from a newly opened "private browsing" tab and both gave me English versions.
- drusenko 10y agoInteresting. I experienced it differently myself (while I was traveling, both Google and Facebook would show me local language, regional sites), as have others we've tested with. We've done a bit of research into how others do it to come to this point, but it looks like we should dig a bit deeper.
- fergyfresh 10y ago[Accepted-Language] in the HTTP header and the location based on the IP address (Google has a super easy API for this) is the easiest way that I could think of. Both are pretty easy to implement as I have done both before.
- codegeek 10y agounless you are on a VPN. then what ?
- fergyfresh 10y agoYou will get localized date formatting among a few other things probably. I am just saying you could use location from the HTTP header that is meant to tell the server what languages you speak. The VPN portion could really only be fixed by allowing you to select and save an address that is originally defaulted to IP.
- nl 10y agoThis looks to be exactly the behaviour the OP is complaining about. Personally I think this is the correct behaviour.
- quirkafleeg 10y agoOut of curiosity, what happens when you go to this page in a private window: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/en https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/en Note the "en" in the URL and "English" in the language selector in the top right of the page. The button text and input placeholder text is not in English for me, nor is the text at the bottom of the page. Blogger, Google groups and I think other Google stuff, like Flights, is the same.
- nostrademons 10y agoGoogle saves the preferred language in a cookie setting, which you can manually reset via hamburger menu -> Search Settings -> Languages or with the &hl= CGI parameter. Most of the time it's autodetected via the queries you type though - the only time it's likely to be wrong is if you type a query that's in an ambiguous language (eg. a proper noun), have no cookies (eg. incognito, or first time searching with the browser), and are not signed in. Then it defaults to the geographic location.
- codegeek 10y agoIsn't it simple to just give an option for user to change the language on a site ? A dropdown on top right ? Genuine question. Why guess what the user wants to see ? This is a tough problem. Let the user decide.