GeoIP Is Not The Right Way To Serve Languages
Written on Oct 9th, 2013
I’ve been traveling around the world for almost three years now. Without a doubt, nothing is more frustrating than trying to access Google, say in Argentina for example, and being presented with a Spanish website. I don’t have exact numbers, but I’d say 80% of companies use some form of GeoIP (geo-location using the IP address as a means to determine where you are) to decide which language to serve you. The problem of course is that even though I am currently in Portugal, I don’t speak Portuguese! So using GeoIP to determine where someone lives is fine, but it should never be used as a method to determine what language someone speaks, and many business travellers are often in other countries. For example, I recently attempted to sign-up for SurveyMonkey, and was immediately sent to their Portuguese website because I am in Portugal. It makes sense if you’re a […]
