GEO for Multilingual Websites

• Give every language its own URL.
• Link the language versions to each other with hreflang.
• Don’t redirect visitors based on their browser language.
• Translate the real content, not just the menu.

Google lists all ten languages we support for AI Overviews, including Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. AI Mode lists them too, with Portuguese listed as Portuguese (Brazil).

One vendor study says ChatGPT often runs searches in English, even when you ask in another language. So it can help to have your key facts in English too.

This surprises a lot of people. Google decides the language by reading the visible text on the page.

It doesn’t use the HTML lang attribute or the URL for that. It doesn’t use hreflang to detect the language either.

So what does hreflang do? It tells Google which version of a page to show to which user. That’s why it still matters.

• One URL per language. Google recommends separate URLs for each language, not cookies or browser settings. A subfolder (example.com/nl/), a subdomain (nl.example.com) or a country domain (example.nl) all work. URL parameters like ?lang=nl are not recommended.
• hreflang in both directions. Each version must list itself and every other version. If two pages don’t point to each other, Google ignores the tags. Use full URLs and codes like nl or de-AT.
• An x-default. This is the fallback for everyone else, often your English page.
• A canonical per language. Each language version points its canonical to itself. Never point all languages to the English page.
• No automatic redirects. Google advises against sending users to another language version automatically. Show a language switcher instead.
• Translate everything visible. Google warns that translating only the menu and footer can create a bad user experience. Translate titles and descriptions too.
• Keep the facts the same. Prices, names and dates should match in every language.

Google lists the supported languages for both features in its help pages. All ten of our languages are on both lists.

AI Mode doesn’t list European Portuguese as a separate language, but Portugal is on its list of countries.

One more detail. In classic results, Google can translate the title and snippet of a foreign-language result into the searcher’s language. That feature supports languages such as French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, but not Dutch or the Nordic languages.

Our reading of that (not a Google statement): a Dutch searcher won’t see your English page auto-translated in classic results. So a real Dutch page matters.

Sometimes, it seems. But the only data comes from vendors, so read it with care.

Peec AI, a company that sells AI tracking software, published a study in February 2026 based on more than 10 million prompts. It reported that in about 78% of non-English sessions, ChatGPT ran at least one search in English.

Know the limits. The prompts came from Peec’s customers and were run through the ChatGPT website. Peec didn’t publish the time period, the model, or results per language for Dutch, German or the Nordic languages. We found no independent study that repeated it.

A second vendor, Profound, studied citations in 14 countries. One finding: ChatGPT cites social media less often in non-English markets than in English. Different languages clearly get different treatment.

What to do with this? Treat it as an idea to test, not a rule. Make sure your key facts also exist in English, for example on an English About page and English directory profiles. But don’t drop your local pages.

Not sure what a “search step” is here? AI search splits one question into several smaller searches. Our query fan-out guide explains how.

Is machine translation spam? Not by itself. Google’s spam policy mentions translating scraped content as an example of scaled content abuse. That’s about copying other people’s pages and running them through a translator.

For your own pages, quality is what counts. Let a native speaker check the text. Adapt examples, currencies and units to each country.

This site runs in ten languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.

• Every language has its own subfolder, like /nl/ or /de/. English has no prefix.
• We never redirect based on browser language. The URL decides the language.
• Every page lists itself and its other language versions with hreflang. The x-default points to English.
• Every language version has a canonical that points to itself.
• Pages that aren’t translated yet are only offered in English, and kept out of search results in other languages.

This isn’t proof that the setup works better for AI. It’s simply the setup Google documents. We follow it so search engines don’t have to guess.

1. Open a page and view the source. Look for link tags with hreflang. Do all language versions point to each other?
2. Open the page in a private window, without cookies. Do you stay on the language in the URL, or get redirected?
3. Check the canonical of each language version. It should point to that same version.
4. Run a free GEO check on each language version, not just the English one.

1. Google Search Central: managing multi-regional and multilingual sites (opens in a new tab)
2. Google Search Central: localized versions of your pages (opens in a new tab)
3. Google Search Central: spam policies (opens in a new tab)
4. Google Search Central: translated results (opens in a new tab)
5. Google Search Help: AI Overviews (languages and countries) (opens in a new tab)
6. Google Search Help: AI Mode (supported languages) (opens in a new tab)
7. Peec AI: ChatGPT searches in English, even when you don’t (vendor study) (opens in a new tab)
8. Search Engine Journal: report on the Peec study and its method (opens in a new tab)
9. Profound: how query language reshapes AI citations (vendor study) (opens in a new tab)

• Query fan-out explained
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