Traveling outside the USA always reminds me of how annoyed I am when I go to websites.
Like most of you, I have a bevy of websites I visit regularly. In my case, a large number of these sites are image or video related, and due to the legality of those things, I find myself restricted based on my current location. It annoys me, because if I pay for a service like my cable TV, why can I not watch it outside my home? Restricting my content based on my location is frustrating. I get CSI at home, but I can’t watch it while I’m here in Japan. This, of course, leads to things like illegally downloading movies, because there simply is no easy, quick, efficient way to acquire those things.
But worse than that is the tacit assumption that just because I’m in Japan, I want to visit the .jp version of a site. The number of sites that auto-redirect me to my current location’s language are not few, and most of them don’t have an easy way for me to click back and explain I’m not able to read Japanese.
For many years I’ve told people that forcing a language choice on users based on their IP is improper and unpredictable. It’s for the same reason I tend not to recommend blocking entire countries from your websites. The probability that you will hit innocents with a broad attack is very high. It’s higher than the chance of rain in Southern California.
So how do you do it right? You have to start by asking the right questions.
What language does the computer use?
You can detect that, you know. If my computer uses English, the odds are that I want to use English. Of course, a French speaker might use my laptop, but that’s on them, and one hopes they know to go to google.fr instead of google.com. Speaking of that…
What URL did I type in?
If I go to a URL directly, I may actually want that URL. This goes for you mobile apps too. If I go to Google.com right now, I get this:
That’s a nice, friendly question in English asking if I’m sure.
Have I been here before?
Cookies. When I go to a site, I get cookies. Those cookies can tell you what language I used the last time. So if you have a flag system where I can pick my language, please do try to honor that. There’s nothing a visitor hates more than having to reset their preferences every time. Facebook, this means you.
Where is my IP?
I know I said not to use this, but there’s a reason I want to ask this. If I take into consideration the URL, the browser locale, and the IP, I have a clearer picture of who’s visiting the site and what they want.
