Ever click on a website and it looks totally different than what someone showed you? Not just the language but actual different stuff showing up. Prices change, products disappear, whole sections rearrange themselves. That’s website localisation doing its thing. Companies pour money into getting this right because showing identical content to someone in Tokyo versus someone in Dublin just doesn’t work.
Translation Is Just the Starting Point
Yeah, switching English to German or Spanish is part of it. But just converting words misses the actual point of localisation. Cultural stuff needs changing. A joke landing in America might bomb elsewhere, could even offend people depending where they are. Colors mean different things; white means purity in Western countries but mourning in chunks of Asia. Layout flips sometimes because Arabic and Hebrew read right-to-left.
Dates get formatted differently everywhere. Month/day/year in the US, day/month/year across Europe. Currency switches obviously but payment methods vary way more. Americans use credit cards for everything while lots of Asian countries prefer digital wallets or direct bank transfers. Checkout pages need whatever payment system locals actually use or people just bounce.
URL Structures for Different Regions
Websites handle regional versions a few ways. Country code domains like .ie for Ireland, .de for Germany, .co.uk for Britain. Or subdirectories like example.com/ie or example.com/de. Subdomains work too, ie.example.com style.
URL structure matters for SEO and user experience both. Search engines need to understand which content serves which region to show appropriate results. Users might notice the URL or might not even pay attention depends on the person. For example, casino sites like 101rtp.com/ie use subdirectory approach where /ie indicates Irish content specifically. Keeps everything under one main domain while separating regional versions clearly; cleaner technically than managing multiple separate domains.
Figuring Out Where Someone Is
IP geolocation does most of the heavy lifting. Every device has an IP address that roughly shows geographic location. Websites check this against databases mapping addresses to countries and sometimes cities. Not perfect though. VPNs completely mess this up by routing traffic through different locations, so someone in Ireland using a US VPN looks like they’re in America. Mobile networks can be tricky since IP addresses sometimes don’t match actual location accurately.
Browser language settings provide another signal. Browser set to Portuguese? Site might assume Brazil or Portugal. Combining signals works better than just one method. User accounts help when people log in. Created an account with an Irish address? Site remembers that even when traveling. Netflix does this, your account region determines what content library shows up regardless where you physically are.
Product availability varies. Certain items ship to some countries not others because of regulations or logistics. Website needs to hide unavailable products for users who can’t buy them anyway, otherwise just creates frustration. Promotions and sales run differently across regions. Black Friday is huge in America but means less in countries without that tradition, so sites show different banner ads or featured products depending what’s relevant locally.
Language Gets Complicated Fast
Spanish isn’t just Spanish though. Spanish in Spain differs from Mexico or Argentina, not just accent but vocabulary and grammar. Same with Portuguese in Brazil versus Portugal, French in France versus Canada, English across UK, US, Australia. Good localisation accounts for variations. Using wrong regional variant feels off to native speakers, makes the site seem careless. It’s like an American suddenly writing “colour” and “favourite” or a Brit using “color” and “favorite” – technically both English but obviously wrong for the audience.
Machine translation made localisation cheaper but misses nuance still. AI tools got way better lately, Claude 3.5 apparently ranks first for translation accuracy now according to some research. Still needs human review especially for marketing where tone matters. Context is huge for translation; same word translates differently depending on usage. Automated systems struggle even with AI improvements. Industry terminology requires specialised knowledge, translating medical or legal content needs actual experts in those fields not just language people.
Mobile Adds Complexity
Mobile devices provide way more location data than desktops. Ride-sharing apps localise everything. Maps, traffic, distances, even driver and passenger etiquette expectations vary by region. Food delivery shows restaurants actually available in your area with local pricing. The localisation happens so automatically most people don’t think about it.
Screen sizes matter for mobile too. Some languages take more space; German words are notoriously long while Chinese characters pack information densely. Button label fitting fine in English might overflow in German and break the layout completely.
Testing Is a Nightmare
Companies can’t manually test every regional variation from every location, too many combinations of country, language, device, browser. They use proxy servers and VPNs to simulate locations but it’s still not perfect really.
Automated testing catches technical issues like broken links or missing translations. But catching cultural problems needs actual humans from those regions. Something seeming normal to the dev team might be completely wrong for local users. User feedback becomes critical here. Companies monitor support tickets and reviews from different regions to spot localisation issues; if Irish users consistently complain about something that signals a problem with the Irish version specifically.
The Money Side
Localization costs serious money upfront but pays off long-term supposedly. Global localisation industry crossed $72 billion in 2024 and keeps growing. Companies realise users in new markets only stick around if the experience feels native to their culture and language.
Conversion rates jump with proper localisation. Studies show localised content can increase user interaction up to 3x compared to generic international content, people trust brands more when content appears in their language with appropriate cultural context. ROI measurement ties directly to localisation now; companies track engagement rates, conversion rates, bounce rates by region. If the Irish version underperforms that signals issues with how content’s been localised for Ireland.
Conclusion
Some people don’t want localised content though. They prefer seeing the original version or accessing content meant for different regions, VPNs let users bypass geographic restrictions although companies try to detect and block VPN usage for licensing reasons. Data sovereignty laws complicate things.
Different countries have different rules about where user data can be stored and processed, companies need legal and technical infrastructure to handle varying requirements across regions.
