The best setup for a bilingual site.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Athanasios Giannias: Hi everyone again
  
  What is the best way, from an SEO aspect for a bilingual (greek, english)  ;site (non.www.example.com/el  ;and  ;non.www.example.com/en) targeted only for Greece to be setup? Redirects and all?
  
  Thank you all
• 
  Richard Hearne: Can you give more detail in your question please? Not sure what the problem is tbh.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: thank you +Richard Hearne ;
  My site is set up like this:
  
  www ---> 302 ( with htaccess file) - > non www --> 301 (with code in the header file)
   ;  ;  ;  ;either to --> non www (el) ;
   ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ; or -->  ;non www (en) ;
  
  Have been told its a mess. What should i do? ;
• 
  Richard Hearne: First, you're almost right. It should be something like:
  
  www --> 301 --> non-www
  non-www --> 302 --> el or en depending on language detection
  
  But is also make sure you have something on /. It sounds like you have your site on /el and/en. If that's the case then the initial 301 should go to your default language folder.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: +Richard Hearne ;i do not want to be rude.  ;Could you please have a look at my site  ;dromeasbikes.com. I  ;am at a total lost and can not decide what is best Thanks a million
• 
  Richard Hearne: I'm on a mobile now so can't really help. But if I was you if pit the el site into the tilt folder and then the rejects I gave you above should be fine.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: +Richard Hearne ;to be honest i did not understand your last message :)  ;I do not mind waiting a few hours. Can i send you a message later in the day? ;
• 
  Richard Hearne: Yes. Once in back to laptop I can write you a better description of what needs to be done. Sorry if not clear now - dammed auto correct :(
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: no problem at all and thank you Richard. Be well
• 
  Richard Hearne: Hi again
  
  Ok now on laptop, so hopefully this will make more sense.
  
  So the first issue is that I would generally put something on the root of the domain.  ;So instead of redirecting to /el or /en I'd put the EL content in the root and then redirect users to /en with a 302 if their language/location matches that site.  ;Redirecting for language detection should always be with 302.
  
  Next item is redirecting all www traffic to non-www.  ;This should be done with a 301.  ;So in the case of a EN user visiting http://www.dromeasbikes.com they will first be 301 redirected to ;http://dromeasbikes.com and then 302 redirected to ;http://dromeasbikes.com/en/
  
  Whether you do these redirects in .htaccess or header include is up to you, but doing them all via .htaccess will speed things up for your users.
  
  Let me know if that makes sense.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: +Richard Hearne ; :) ;
  So cap up things, like so:
  
  www->301->non www->301-> non www (el)
   ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ; and -->non www->302-> non www (en)
  all via htaccess. ;
  Correct? Can the same page have a 301 and 302 redirect? ;
  Thank you again for your help
• 
  Richard Hearne: If you want to keep your content in the current folders:
  
  All requests for www get 301'd to their non-www equivalents
  All language based redirects are 302
  
  So yes, a single request could result in booth a 301 and a subsequent 302.
  
  But I still suggest you move EN or EL to the root folder. If not then you're going to have to serve 301s to whichever language is your homepage.
  
  Tbh the real mistake here is that you have no clear homepage.
• 
  Richard Hearne: Sorry one more item.
  
  Once you decide which language is your primary one any request for http://dromeasbikes.com which doesn't result in a language redirect should be 301'd to the main homepage.
  
  Sorry this is hard to explain since you don't seem to have a primary language.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: EL for greek should be my homepage. Like so then is best solution: ;
  
  www >301>non www(el)-->302 non www(en)
  
  I apologise, i am not an expert at this.  ;Just trying my best for my site
• 
  Richard Hearne: OK if I was you I would move the EL site into the root folder dromeasbikes.com, leave EN content in/en/.
  
  Then 301 any www request to non-www. If anyone has an EN browser 302 requests for homepage to /en/ folder.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: :) like so: ;
  www (greek site) --> 301nonwww(greek site) --> 302 -- > non www/en
  
  Yes? ;
• 
  Richard Hearne: Yes
• 
  Richard Hearne: Once you set it up fell free to ping me and I can check it for you.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: ok. my site is 1 years old and its an ecommerce. All the product redirects, the blog.... its like all has to be done from the beginning....
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: and when the https come into play like this:
   ;
  www (greek site) --> 301nonwww(greek site) --> 301 --> https (greek site) --> 302 https /en
  
  Yes?
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: +Richard Hearne ; I am afraid that things will be a mess with many product and blog pages redirects. Is the following scenario terribly wrong?  ;
  
  www (greek site) --> 301nonwww /el --> 302 -- > non www/en
  
  and when the https come into play like this:
  
  www (greek site) --> 301nonwww/el --> 301 --> https/el -> 302 https /en
  
  Thank you again
• 
  Richard Hearne: No. You should avoid redirect chains where possible. I'm not really sure what your requirements are so really difficult to advise.
  
  This may sound bad, but it really looks like getting some professional help might be a good move. Someone really needs to understand your needs to advise you properly.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: My needs are simple. Eccommerce site, geotargeted for one country and also translated into english, for some extra seo juice. ;
  
  If i decide to go down the hard way, the /en folder is easy. It remain as is.
  What do i do with the non www/el folder? Can i use a 301 and redirect it to the non www (greek page), for a few months?
• 
  Richard Hearne: You 301 redirect the /el folder to root /.  ;I cant give any advice on redirects and HTTPS as I have no idea when/where this will be required.
  
  I don't think your needs are simple TBH, so I'm not going to offer any more advice which may end up being wrong. Sorry.
• 
  Athanasios Giannias: +Richard Hearne ;your assistance was valuable. It put me  ;on track again. Thank you and be well ;