Pages opening in random country locations from Google

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A Shopify store owner discovered their collection pages are opening in incorrect country versions (DE, FR, ES) when accessed via Google search results, despite being UK-based with UK as the default market.

Likely Causes:

  • Incorrect or missing hreflang tags
  • Shopify’s automatic location-based redirection settings
  • Google’s language detection algorithms for multilingual regions

Suggested Solutions:

  1. Disable automatic redirection: Navigate to Settings > Markets > Preferences and turn off location-based customer redirection
  2. Verify hreflang implementation: Ensure each country version (UK, DE, FR, ES) has proper hreflang/meta tags to signal correct regional targeting to Google
  3. Request reindexing: Use Google Search Console to refresh cached UK pages
  4. Check Google display language settings: Google may show results in multiple languages based on regional language preferences

The issue remains unresolved, with the store owner awaiting further guidance on implementation.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

A really random one, I noticed today that my collections pages are opening in different country versions from Google and I cannot see for the life of me why this would be.

My store is set as UK default with country/region redirections for /de, /fr and /es, but I am finding some pages open in each of these when I access them via Google SERP (I am UK based).

Any suggestions on why this might be, and possible fixes would be greatly appreciated.

2 Likes
2

This usually happens due to incorrect or missing hreflang tags or Shopify’s automatic redirection settings.

Quick Fix Suggestions:

  1. Disable automatic redirection:
    In Shopify admin, go to
    Settings > Markets > Preferences
    and turn off “Automatically redirect customers based on their location”.

  2. Check hreflang tags:
    Ensure each version (UK, DE, FR, ES) has correct hreflang/meta tags so Google knows which version to show.

  3. Clear Google cache:
    Sometimes old indexed URLs still show up. Use Google Search Console to request reindexing of UK pages.

Let me know if you want the exact hreflang code snippet!

3

Hi @davidfoster1983

Let me explain this situation in another way. You can further check if it works after trying:

When you search on Google, you may get results in languages other than the one you searched in. It happens in places where many people speak 2 or more common languages. You can control the language used for buttons and other display text within Google Search with the display language setting. This helps Google determine what language to show search results in, but they don’t filter all results to that language.

For more details, you can read this article from the Google Help Center. Thank you!

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/13511324?hl=en#zippy=%2Cdisplay-language-setting