As an avid VPN user it’s infuriating that multilingual websites insist on using the client’s IP address to determine their language and country when web browsers have been sending the Accept-Language HTTP header since the mid-90s.
I understand that you can work out more or less where someone is located based on their IP address but it was never meant to be a geo-based marker. Why not go the simple route and use the header?
I would assume because ur hitting the geolocated cache which will be IP based. I would assume its not doing a location check its simply that the site is being served by the nearest (IP routing wise) provider and that cache is configured to serve only the local language. Its the same reason the language is often encoded in the URL.
Excellent point on the local cache explanation! I hadn’t thought of that.
As a web developer myself I’m into detecting it automatically then redirecting to a URL that includes it (like
/en/products). Then of course users can manually change it by signing in and/or using cookies.You’re doing the Lord’s work. As someone who lives in a country where I can barely speak the language this is a constant frustration.
I also hate how hard it is to override location for other searches. I travel back and forth to my native country regularly, and so I’m often trying to search stuff or buy things for a different country than the one I’m literally in. If Google is so keen on making money from me, why can’t I tell it to do a Product search in a specific country, instead of forcing me to use a vpn to trick it?
The country-based shopping dilemma sounds tough to solve without a VPN. I think the explanation there is that because countries have different laws they might not be legally allowed to show some products.