How URLs and SEO work on a multilingual site
On a multilingual TeleportHQ site, your main language uses your normal web addresses, for example mybakery.com/about. Every other language adds its language code in front: mybakery.com/es/about for Spanish, mybakery.com/fr/about for French. The rest of the address stays the same in every language. TeleportHQ's automatic sitemap lists every language version of each page and tells search engines they belong together, and you can translate each page's title and description.
Web addresses for each language
A multilingual TeleportHQ site gives every page one address per language:
| Language | Example address |
|---|---|
| Main language (for example English) | mybakery.com/, mybakery.com/about |
| Spanish | mybakery.com/es, mybakery.com/es/about |
| French | mybakery.com/fr, mybakery.com/fr/about |
The code is the short language code TeleportHQ uses for the language, such as es, fr or de. A page has one address, shared by every language: only the code in front changes, so /about can't become /es/sobre-nosotros. When you open a page's settings in a secondary language, the URL field shows the code in front of the address, for example /es, and changing the address there changes it for every language.
If you change which language is the main one, the addresses change too: the new main language moves to the plain addresses, and the old main language gets a code. See How to change the main language or remove a language.
Redirects you add work in every language: a redirect from /old-menu also sends /es/old-menu to the Spanish version. A redirect whose old address starts with one of your language codes, such as /es/old-menu, is used exactly as written. See How to hide a page from Google, set a canonical URL or redirect a page.
Which language visitors see first
By default, a TeleportHQ site looks at the visitor's browser language. A visitor whose browser is set to Spanish and who opens your homepage is taken to the Spanish version, if your site has one. Everyone else sees the main language.
To always show the main language first, open the language button at the top left of the canvas and tick Ignore browser language. The tooltip says "Enabling this option will force the default language to be used regardless of the users browser settings." The same option is in Project settings → Site → Internationalization as Ignore the visitor's browser language. Visitors can still change language with a language switcher. See How to add a language switcher. The change reaches your live site when you next publish.
How search engines find your translations
TeleportHQ's automatic sitemap (sitemap.xml) lists every page once per language. For each page, it also names all its language versions with hreflang tags, which tell search engines "this is the Spanish version of that page", and marks the main-language address as the default (x-default). This helps Google show Spanish visitors your Spanish page instead of the English one.
To use it, keep Automatically Generate Sitemap on in Project settings → Site → SEO & social → Search engines. Below the switch, TeleportHQ lists the sitemap files your next publish writes. See How to set up your sitemap, robots.txt and llms.txt.
Show this site in search engines, in the same place, applies to every language: turned off, no language version of your site is listed.
Translating page titles and descriptions
Each page's Meta Title and Meta Description can differ per language. In Page SEO Settings, a card titled You have multiple languages used inside your project lets you pick the language you're editing. With Translate text elements automatically on, TeleportHQ translates the page settings you change in the main language. See How to review and edit translations and How to set a page's title and description for Google.
Blog posts have their own translated titles, slugs and SEO text. See How to translate blog posts.
Downloaded code and multilingual sites
When languages are on, your project downloads as Next.js or HTML code only. The Next.js code keeps the language addresses, the browser-language rule and the language switcher described here. An HTML download holds one language at a time, chosen under Target Language ("HTML export for the selected language only"). Web apps can't download their code. See Can I download my site's code?