How does Shopify Markets' subfolder redirection for international domains work?

[bradpc]

Hi, I am on Shopify Advanced plan and using Shopify markets.

We have been using this GeoRouter app so that customers in different countries are shown the correct page (and therefore pricing) for their region.

We recently started using subfolders as this functionality was released by Shopify Markets.

I've recently seen in the Shopify Markets settings that by using subfolders, Shopify can automatically re-direct customers to the correct subfolder. How does this work? Will shopify pop up a modal asking the customer to switch, or will they be sent to the correct subfolder based on their IP location automatically (i.e. meaning we no longer need 3rd party apps like I'm currently using)? 

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Transcy]

Hello @bradpc ,

We are Transcy - a powerful translator and currencies converter.

Shopify supports internationalization through the use of subdirectories (subfolders) in URLs. This allows you to create a separate version of your store for each language or region that you support, and to serve the appropriate version of your store based on the customer's language or location.

However,  this feature requires that you have created a separate version of your store for each language or region that you support, so it'd be easier for you to use the third-party app to translate and redirect your customers automatically without creating many versions.

Hope this can help. Please hit the Like Button or mark this as Accepted Solution for us if you find this reply is useful, it encourage us a lot.

Regards,

Transcy team.

[bradpc]

Hi Transcy,

Thanks for your reply. Using Shopify Markets, you dont have to create a different version of the store. You just have to choose prices per market.

I'm more interested in how shopify's feature works in terms of automatic IP redirection

Thanks!

[Transcy]

Hello @bradpc ,

As you may know, Shopify has a feature called "Geolocation" which allows you to automatically redirect customers to the appropriate regional store based on their IP address. When a customer visits your site, Shopify's Geolocation feature will attempt to detect their location based on their IP address. If their location can be determined, Shopify will redirect them to the regional store that corresponds to their location.

However, Geolocation is not 100% accurate, customers can manually switch regions and it affect SEO so remember to use use hreflang tags to indicate to search engines which pages are intended for which language or region.

Hope these can help. Please hit the Like Button for us or mark this as Accepted Solution, it encourage us a lot.

Best regards,

Transcy team.

[coleatkinson · Accepted solution]

Hi @bradpc - automatic redirection will automatically redirect customers to the right URL for their country or region without the need for a pop up. E.g. if your site is based in the US on shop.com, and you setup a Canada market on shop.com/en-ca, Canada customers will automatically be redirected to the en-ca subfolder. This redirection is based off of their IP address. We do not automatically redirect Googlebot or other search crawlers so there is no adverse SEO impact.

For Markets that do not have a unique URL or subfolder, we'd recommend using the Geolocation app so that customers are prompted to switch to their local currency, language and pricing. This will display a pop up on their first visit.