Multi-language sites: All languages or one language
One project for every language of your site: join or add a language, what is read once for the whole site, what stays per language and how pages are assigned. Business and up.
Business and up
When your website is published in several languages (yoursite.com, yoursite.com/fr/, yoursite.com/de/ or fr.yoursite.com), its language editions can be one project. The top bar then switches between All languages and each language, and every page follows.
What a multi-language project is
Each language keeps its own keywords, AI questions, articles and market (country and language). Together they are one brand. Multi-language projects are included with Business and Agencies; each language counts as one website of your plan (Business: 5, for example one site in 5 languages).
- All languages is the default view: the whole site, every language side by side.
- Pick a language in the top bar to see only its pages and its market. Your choice is kept for the project.
- Actions (add a keyword, write an article, run a check) always apply to the language you are in.
- Each language shows its flag beside its code: the flag of the country the language edition targets (English for the US shows 🇺🇸), on every page.
Join or add a language
Open Settings › Languages. "Languages of this project" lists each language with its address; "Primary" marks the language that holds the whole website's data.
- Click "Check for other languages". Rankfender reads your homepage's hreflang tags and your sitemap, and tries the usual /fr/, /de/… folders and subdomains. It is free and takes up to 20 seconds.
- Join this project: the address is already a separate project of yours. Joining keeps all its data and makes it a language of this project.
- Add this language: the address is not tracked yet. Adding it uses one website of your plan and starts its setup.
Nothing is added until you click. Only the project owner can join or add languages. A language that the check cannot see can be added from Projects › + Language.
Read once for the whole site
Some sources measure the website, not a language. They are read once, from the primary language, and split by language folder, so nothing is counted twice.
| Source | All languages | One language |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic: Search Console | The whole site, once | The pages in its folder. The languages add up exactly to All languages. |
| Traffic: Google Analytics | One report for the site; visitors counted once by Google | Visits to its folder. A visitor who reads two languages counts in each. |
| Site audit (Site Health) | One audit covers every language; each page counts once | The audited pages in its folder, plus site-wide checks (robots.txt, sitemap, llms.txt) |
| Link profile (Backlinks) | One profile, with a Links by language table | The links that point into its folder |
Figures that measure the whole host cannot be split by folder: domain authority, the link index totals, Site Health fixes and some Google reports. They are labelled whole site. The audit crawls up to your plan's page limit for the whole site; if it stops before a language folder, that language says no page was reached.
What stays per language
Keywords, content, AI answers, competitors, strategy and reports belong to each language, each in its own market. Under All languages they are listed side by side, each row tagged with its language; opening a row opens it in that language.
- Competitors appear once, with the languages where they were seen.
- Strategy shows one 90-day plan per language.
- Reports name their languages on the cover: "All languages: EN · DE · FR" or "Language: FR · yoursite.com/fr/".
- A tab that is set per language says so under All languages and shows the primary language.
How a page is assigned to a language
A page belongs to the language with the longest matching folder on its address. The root language alone excludes the other language folders: English on yoursite.com counts every page except those under /fr/, /de/… Under All languages, every page counts once.
| Page | Language |
|---|---|
| yoursite.com/pricing | English (root) |
| yoursite.com/fr/blog/guide | French (/fr/) |
| yoursite.com/fr/be/offer | Belgian French if /fr/be/ is a language of the project, otherwise French |
| yoursite.com/french-recipes | English (root): /french is not /fr/ |
| fr.yoursite.com/page | the language on fr.yoursite.com |
Tip
Before 2.4, a language that was its own project showed the whole site's Google traffic. Now each language shows only its own pages, so its figures can be lower: that is the correct number. See also Projects and multi-language brands.