asp.net mvc multilanguage urls/routing

Question

This is a two part question regarding asp.net mvc multilanguage urls/routing and SEO best practices/benefits… Question Part 1) I’m being asked to create a new ASP.NET MVC website that will support a minimum (at first) of two languages (English and French) perhaps in the future, 3 languages… As far as localizing the application (labels, jQuery errors, etc) things should be ok using resource files and I’ve found many examples on this…but my concern/question is more about the URLs. In terms of SEO, what is the recommended approach between these two fashions? ``` Fashion 1 (no culture folder) www.mydomain.com/create-account www.mydomain.com/creer-un-compte Fashion 2 (with built in culture folder) www.mydomain.com/create-account www.mydomain.com/fr/creer-un-compte <--notice the “fr” folder ``` Is there a known issue/penalty in using one over the other? Or is it so small that it becomes irrelevant! Question Part 2) To achieve Fashion 2, I’ve already found an article here: ASP.NET MVC - Loca…

Accepted Answer

You can create a base controller that has the localization logic as below:

```
public abstract class LocalizedController : Controller
{
  protected override void ExecuteCore()
  {
    HttpCookie cookie;
    string lang = GetCurrentCulture();
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(lang, false);

// set the lang value into route data
    RouteData.Values["lang"] = lang;

// save the location into cookie
    cookie = new HttpCookie("DPClick.CurrentUICulture",
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.TwoLetterISOLanguageName)
    {
      Expires = DateTime.Now.AddYears(1)
    };

HttpContext.Response.SetCookie(cookie);  
    base.ExecuteCore();
  }

private string GetCurrentCulture()
  {
    string lang;

// set the culture from the route data (url)

if (RouteData.Values["lang"] != null &&
      !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(RouteData.Values["lang"].ToString()))
    {
      lang = RouteData.Values["lang"].ToString();
      if (Localization.Locales.TryGetValue(lang, out lang))
      {
        return lang;
      }
    }

// load the culture info from the cookie
    HttpCookie cookie = HttpContext.Request.Cookies["DPClick.CurrentUICulture"];
    if (cookie != null)
    {
      // set the culture by the cookie content
      lang = cookie.Value;
      if (Localization.Locales.TryGetValue(lang, out lang))
      {
        return lang;
      }
    }

// set the culture by the location if not speicified
    lang = HttpContext.Request.UserLanguages[0];
    if (Localization.Locales.TryGetValue(lang, out lang))
    {
      return lang;
    }

//English is default
    return Localization.Locales.FirstOrDefault().Value;
  }
}
```

The above controller satisfy part 2 of your question if you want to ignore the culture folder just don't assign the lang in the RouteData. Of course to achieve part 2 you have to add routing for culture as below:

```
routes.MapRoute(
  "Localization", // Route name
  "{lang}/{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
  new {controller = "Default", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional}, // Parameter defaults
  new {lang = @"\w{2,3}(-\w{4})?(-\w{2,3})?"}
);
```

asp.net mvc multilanguage urls/routing

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