Getting URLs Right in Every Language

Your URLs are a key element of your digital content strategy: they help users find, recognize, and trust your online content. You want all your international customers to have that experience, but URLs can sometimes be a bit of an afterthought when it comes to localization.

At Rubric, we have the tools and expertise to help you manage URLs across your global markets, creating seamless experiences in every language without extra work for you.

URLs shape your user journey, so it’s critical to get them right in localized content. For instance, you don’t want your German users to suddenly find themselves in a store priced in US dollars.

But taking international users to the right page isn’t always as simple as swapping /en/ for /fr/ in the URL. Sometimes you may want to translate the actual words, to be more meaningful and support SEO. Even if you’re not localizing your URLs, you may have internal references and local media that must be managed.

Let’s say you have a page that’s updated regularly, maybe holding blogs or tutorials. Your links must guide users to the right article, in their own language. You might also have invested in specifically designed pages or resources for different markets.

Maintaining and checking URLs and internal references in localized content is key to a good user experience. At Rubric, we have a robust checking process to make sure every link behaves as you and your users expect.

We want to make sure all references across your global content point to the right URL, in the right language. Without careful checking, you could be sending users to an untranslated page, an unfamiliar language, or even a broken link and the dreaded “page not found” message. 

These 404 errors are bad for user experience, and for your reputation: 70% of users say they lower trust in a brand, directly impacting conversions. 404s can also hurt search rankings, suggesting to search engines that your site is low quality or poorly maintained.

But checking every link manually can quickly become unmanageable. It’s all too easy to miss things or introduce errors, leading to delays at the point you can least afford them.

Rubric removes the manual effort from URL checking, saving you time and minimizing the risk of errors that can hurt your brand reputation.

First, we work with you to build a database of approved links and conventions (which localized page each link should go to). This is your single source of truth throughout the localization process. We also support you to map your pages effectively, so you can track new or deleted pages.

With these foundations in place, we bring in RubricLynx, our automated URL-checking tool. This flags up any links that look like they may be incorrect, before they go live to your users.

Like all our tools, RubricLynx connects seamlessly with your workflow, so you don’t need to change the way you work. And because it’s built into your localization pipeline, issues can be resolved early on rather than generating a last-minute panic.  

We’ve used RubricLynx to help our clients navigate various complex URL challenges, resulting in smoother user journeys and faster time to market.

Wordpress is hugely popular as a content management system (CMS), but can pose challenges for large or complex organizations. It relies on third-party plug-ins for localization support, and you need to replicate navigation routes across all target languages—introducing the risk of human error.

RubricLynx streamlined this process for our client, so they can easily maintain localized URLs and direct users to the appropriate language content.

Identifying the most relevant search terms in each language, and ensuring these appear in your content, is crucial to helping international users find your site. We helped a client who uses the Optimizely CMS to maintain their localized SEO phrases, and RubricLynx checked consistency with their product information management system.

Hardcoded URLs are embedded directly into the source code, which can make localization difficult. Manual updates can introduce errors that impact site functionality. One client, who uses Flare for their technical documentation, now uses RubricLynx to easily find and check hardcoded URLs, ensuring they’re correctly updated for a smooth experience.

URL checking with RubricLynx isn’t only for text links. We also use it to help clients check references to assets including images and videos, so users always see the most relevant version for them.

Automated URL checking is just one of the ways Rubric makes localization more efficient and delivers better results for your customers. We balance technology with human expertise to help you scale your global content, with translations that are on time, on brand, and on budget.

Don’t let your global URLs be an afterthought—trust Rubric to translate them effectively and catch any broken or incorrect links before your users do. Contact us today to discuss how we could support and streamline your entire localization workflow.