Blogger, and Google, support the need for publishing multiple blogs, each written in a different language. The "hreflang" tag, added to a blog, identifies other blogs, published to different languages, with identical or similar content.
There are three ways to provide content, in multiple languages.
- Publish one blog, with posts published in different languages.
- Publish one blog, and add the Google Translate gadget.
- Publish multiple blogs, one language / blog, linked using "hreflang".
You can publish a single blog with multiple posts written in different languages - if you wish.
Mixing multiple posts in different languages creates a compromise.
One blog, mixing posts written in different languages, will be a compromise. Each different world language has its own character set, phrasing, spelling, syntax, and other characteristics.
If you publish extensively, you will get better results publishing multiple blogs, each blog with content in one language. Your readers will appreciate reading a blog, that's published in one language - their own language.
Best results come from multiple blogs, in one language for each blog.
Blogger lets us indicate a language for any blog, in Settings - Language and formatting. One blog == one language.
If you want to publish content in multiple languages, and have everything properly indexed by the search engines, you can create an "hreflang" blog cluster - with each blog published in its own language.
To get the best result from "hreflang", you publish similar content, equally to each blog - and add "hreflang" tags identically to each blog.
If I was tri-lingual, I could publish a set of blogs in English, French, and Spanish.
Si j'étais trilingue, je pourrais publier un ensemble de blogs en anglais, français et espagnol.
Si fuera trilingüe, podría publicar un conjunto de blogs en inglés, francés y español.
I could publish three blogs to BlogSpot.
- en-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
- fr-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
- es-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
In the template header, for each blog, I would add three complementary tags.
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="http://fr-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
Multiple blogs, properly intercnnected, gives improved search results.
As any one blog in the cluster is being indexed, the "href=" in the tags links to the other two blogs - just like any three blogs being cross linked. This gives search indexing between all three blogs, equally.
For improved search reputation, based on three "identical" blogs, this technique can't be beat.
You can publish one blog, indexed in one language, and translated when needed.
You don't have to use "hreflang", to publish content written in multiple languages. If you only want to write in one language, and let readers to read your blog in their own language, you can use Google Translate.
Look in the sidebar, of this blog. Google Translate ("Translate Me") lets every world resident read a blog in their own language - when they select their language.
Just add a Google Translate gadget to your one blog, using the "Add a Gadget" wizard, on the Layout dashboard page. Each reader, surfing to your one blog, can use the gadget to translate to their language, as necessary - as long as they:
- Understand the gadget header "Translate Me" (or however you name your gadget).
- Know to use the "Select Language" pull down list.
- Know how to locate their own language in the list.
The language list, in French, will be in a different order. Other languages will be even more challenging. If you examine a language list, on a blog written in Chinese, could you locate their label for "English"?
Writing in each different language is much more respectful, to people who don't read English.
With a blog using Google Translate, the blog content is indexed, only using the published language. Readers who don't read in your native language will never find your blog, when they search in their language.
To index content in multiple languages, use "hreflang".
If you want to develop a reader audience in multiple language groups, you can use "hreflang" to publish multiple blogs, each written and indexed in one specific language. Each of your potential readers can search, in their own language, and find your blog.
And none of your readers have to know - or care - that a blog is published in other languages.
There are several ways to provide blog content in multiple languages, depending upon how relevant you want to be, to your readers, in their various "foreign" languages - and how much work you are willing to do.
