As an avid VPN user it’s infuriating that multilingual websites insist on using the client’s IP address to determine their language and country when web browsers have been sending the Accept-Language HTTP header since the mid-90s.
I understand that you can work out more or less where someone is located based on their IP address but it was never meant to be a geo-based marker. Why not go the simple route and use the header?
Excellent point on the local cache explanation! I hadn’t thought of that.
As a web developer myself I’m into detecting it automatically then redirecting to a URL that includes it (like
/en/products). Then of course users can manually change it by signing in and/or using cookies.You’re doing the Lord’s work. As someone who lives in a country where I can barely speak the language this is a constant frustration.
I also hate how hard it is to override location for other searches. I travel back and forth to my native country regularly, and so I’m often trying to search stuff or buy things for a different country than the one I’m literally in. If Google is so keen on making money from me, why can’t I tell it to do a Product search in a specific country, instead of forcing me to use a vpn to trick it?
The country-based shopping dilemma sounds tough to solve without a VPN. I think the explanation there is that because countries have different laws they might not be legally allowed to show some products.